Alissa Cooper On August - 12 - 2010

It’s been awhile since I last surveyed the traffic management policies of some of the largest UK retail ISPs. The chart below is up-to-date as of this week.

ISP Has traffic management policy? Hours of application Takes application-specific action? Apps/protocols targeted
AOL Broadband Yes Typically applies in the “evenings” Unclear because policy lacks details
BT Retail Yes Usually applies 4pm-12am weekdays, 9am-12am weekends Yes
  • P2P
O2 Yes, applies to Access packages. Has a high-level policy and a detailed policy, which is not currently displaying correctly. “At the busiest times” Yes
  • P2P: BitTorrent, Blubster, Gnutella, KaZaA, WinMX_6688, WinMX_6699, eDonkey, Filetopia, eDonkey_UDP, Hotline, Hotline_1234, DirectConnect, GuruGuru, Soribada, Soulseek, Ares, Rodi, JoltID, eMule_UDP, Waste, Konspire2b, ExoSee, FurthurNet, MUTE, GNUnet, Nodezilla
  • Newsgroups: NNTP, NNTPS, TAC_News, Audio_News, NTalk, NetNews, NAS, DDI
Orange Yes 6pm-12am Yes
  • P2P: BitTorrent, Kazaa, perhaps others
PlusNet Broadband Yes All times Yes A selection of the following:

  • web sites that facilitate large downloads
  • mirror sites that facilitate large downloads
  • content distribution networks (CDNs)

Plus:

  • VoIP
  • gaming
  • browsing and email
  • streaming
  • VPN
  • PlusNet FTP
  • other FTP services
  • P2P
  • binary Usenet
Sky Yes 5pm-12am Yes
    P2P
  • streaming
  • newsgroups
TalkTalk Yes All times Yes
  • P2P: Bittorrent, Gnutella, eDonkey/eMule, Kontiki
  • Newsgroups
  • Perhaps others (all traffic is identified by application)
Virgin Media Yes Hours of application vary depending on tier purchased No
Categories: DPI, Net Neutrality

One Response

  1. [...] regulator, is conducting. As I was reading the consultation document and reflecting about the state of traffic management in the UK — where different ISPs target different applications for throttling or prioritization at [...]

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