BitTorrent throttling in US creeps back up

Most US Internet users enjoy unfettered access to the Web. But that could be changing, if the upwardly creeping percentage of throttled BitTorrent users is any indicator.

For more than five years, a Google-backed organization called Measurement Lab has offered a throttling detection program called Glasnost. The latest data from M-Lab, compiled by TorrentFreak, shows that 14 percent of US Glasnost users experienced slower speeds while using BitTorrent between December 2012 and December 2013. The United States fared well overall, ranking 10th among countries where at least 100 tests were performed. But compared to 2013 data, US service providers appear to be slowing down a greater percentage of BitTorrent connections. Cox, for instance, throttled 13 percent of connections over the last year, compared to 6 percent in the first quarter of 2012. Verizon jumped from 3 percent to 6 percent over the same period, though its percentages are still the lowest of the major service providers. Comcast, whose large-scale BitTorrent throttling in 2007 inspired M-Lab's research, jumped to 13 percent in the last year, from just 3 percent in the first quarter of 2012.