Daniel C.
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Sander D.
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Last updated: July 23, 2024 —
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The new European Net Neutrality rules brings an unquestionable advance towards… well… net neutrality, as some progresses were maderegarding the first rules adopted last year. Though this is still a topic causing some arguments between European countries and, especially among those who are avid defenders of net neutrality. In fact, even though these new rules can be considered as a step forward, practices like BitTorrent throttling are still allowed for ISPs. Stay tuned as we will update you on what has changed, and what you can do to avoid being followed around and throttled.
Compared to last year’s edition, the new rules are seen as a small but steady advance as ISPs are no longer allowed to offer a “sub internet” service, where accessing only a part of the internet wouldn’t be charged. Also, the major victory of this new Net Neutrality rules is the fact that Internet Service Providers are no longer able to create fast lanes. Creating a fast lane could have made it profitable for ISPs to slow down your internet speed, so afterwards they could charge websites or apps for a fast lane.
Still, the biggest victory for the fans of Net Neutrality it is still unachieved. To tell a long story short, ISPs are still able to throttle specific categories for “reasonable traffic management measures”. This is what’s behind the torrent throttling argument since this is the “trick” that makes it possible. In fact, ISPs can and will throttle BitTorrent if that would “improve the overall transmission quality”, which would be pretty much all the time since torrenting can indeed get a bit heavy for your network.
Although you can’t do anything “directly”, as in, punch your ISP in the face for throttling your torrents, there is something you can do indirectly which will have almost the same practical results. The solution is to use a VPN with BitTorrent. As you may know, VPNs are the ninjas of the virtual world and if you have one by your side, you can trick your ISP while you are torrenting at will. In fact, while connected to a VPN, all your traffic is not just under a secure protocol with strong encryption protection; it’s also completely anonymous, even for your ISP. Your ISP only gets to see that you are connected to a VPN server, but it has no clue on which websites you are actually accessing through this VPN connection.
It is true that, while connected, your average internet speed will depend on factors such as your distance to servers, how many users are also connected to it and the speed provided by your own ISP. The choice of the VPN protocol you’re connecting through also influences how much of your connection’s speed you’re sacrificing. Even if you go for a protocol with some of the most tight encryption like OpenVPN you will still enjoy far better P2P speeds than you would see with your regular internet connection that has possible throttling from your ISP.
Bottom line is that, thanks to the banning of fast lanes, ISPs now won’t have the same strong incentive to throttle internet. Furthermore, regulators can stop any ISP from throttling if it’s a case where it doesn’t have anything to do with avoiding future network congestions. Using a VPN for torrenting activities still remains imperative if you don’t want to suffer throttling and care about having your privacy protected from the still almighty ISPs.
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