The phrase traffic shaping is a polite term for bandwidth throttling. It’s when an ISP purposely slows download speeds during peak usage hours of the day. This includes weekends.
And if you hadn’t heard, traffic shaping is most likely going mobile. If it happens industry wide, it’ll be a joke to label 3G as fast after that.
The people who get cheated most from the shaping are those who specifically pay extra each month for an upgraded "fast" ISP account.
For example, your ISP has a super-duper fiber package that promises "lightning" (they like using that word a lot) fast connectivity. "Blazing" (there’s another) speeds, super-fast everything and oh yeah, this is totally worth the money and you should get a second or third job just to have it.
So you get it. Then one day you’re using the internet and everything is slow. You reboot your computer. OK. You check/restart the router. OK. You check/restart the modem. OK. Nothing is wrong.
What happened?
You might be a victim of traffic shaping.
How to check if this is so? Examine your ISP’s terms of service and acceptable use policy. Look for things like "moderation of speed" or the like. If you see it, your ISP does use traffic shaping.
What to do after that? Tell your friends (especially if they’re on the same ISP). Blog it. Spread the word around. Make it very well known your ISP does this.
An ISP that promises fast speeds with upgraded accounts only to knock those speeds down from shaping later is just plain wrong because at that point you’re paying for nothing. It’s like if you bought a Chevrolet Corvette and the engine was programmed to only deliver full power between 1am and 5am. That’s not what you bought the car for. You bought it so you could have all power under your right foot whenever it suits you. That’s how a premium ISP account should act as well, period.
How long is it going to take before people get so angry that they’ll sue the ISP for not delivering on their advertised claims – again?
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Although I hate to hear it, I expected as much. I use Verizon Wireless at home as my primary Internet service now and can see Internet congestion during peak times (IE, 5:00PM when everyone gets off work). They had two options, upgrade the towers/transmitters and Internet backbone connection to them OR take the cheap route and throttle users.
My ISP had congestion as well, but they did go the long route and upgrade – it was desperately needed. Too many subscribers on the same line (they’re the only high-speed ISP available in my area at the moment).
Unfortunately I’m also fairly certain that they use traffic shaping – we have the best package they have to offer, and like you said, Rich – we’re not getting what we’re paying for. Still, it’s a huge upgrade from what we used to have with horrible packet loss.
Are all ISPs doing this? Does someone have a list somewhere mentioning which ISPs are doing this? I have not noticed this personally with my ISP, but you never know when my provider might start doing it too.
I remember seeing a list of ISPs like that on Wikipedia, or some other wiki. I can’t find it now, though.
I believe most ISPs do that.