14 DAY TRIAL // Bandwidth throttling has become a fact of life for many Internet users and it's one of the major issues at heart of the net-neutrality debate. Most users don't like the practice, but ISPs say they are forced to do this because of network congestion. Now, uTorrent, the most popular BitTorrent client built by BitTorrent Inc., wants to meet ISPs halfway with the latest 2.0 version, still in beta, by enabling a form of throttling at the application level.
The latest uTorrent comes with support for a new implementation of the BitTorrent protocol, created by the company behind uTorrent, called uTP, which was designed to lower bandwidth consumption, even if it means slowing down its own traffic. With the new protocol, the client will be able to detect chokes in the network and will bring down its own consumption, hopefully alleviating the problem. This should, in theory, if implemented on a large-enough scale, create huge savings for the ISPs.
It is great for the network and possibly the other users, who get a better speed, but it does mean slower downloads and uploads for uTorrent. BitTorrent Inc. says that, in practice, it's mostly the upload speed that gets affected, seeing how this is usually smaller than the download speed for most DSL or cable connections. While some may worry that this will decrease their speed, on the whole, the new technology may very well prove to be beneficial for everyone involved.
“We’re excited that this creates a better experience for millions of consumers, and it also potentially has a massive impact on ISPs – greatly reducing (even eliminating) any justification to manage or shape BitTorrent traffic and allowing ISP networks to handle more BitTorrent traffic, without resulting congestion forcing capital network upgrades ahead of schedule or the ‘need’ to invest in DPI or other traffic shaping gear,” Simon Morris, BitTorrent’s VP of product management, told TorrentFreak.
Net neutrality has been an issue of hot debate recently, especially after the new developments in the US. Web companies and most users don't want ISPs to interfere with the traffic that they carry in a way that discriminates or favors one type of data or a certain company over another. ISPs claim that certain traffic types, the usual suspect being peer-to-peer traffic especially from the BitTorrent protocol, coming from a small number of users, are eating up a disproportionate amount of bandwidth to the detriment of most users. While the truth is somewhere in between, it's good to see that at least one of those involved is willing to make some compromises in order to make this work.
The latest uTorrent builds are available for download here.