Torrents

[LeoNasker]

I'm with Virgin Media and enjoy downloads of up to 1.2MB/s but the problem is I use private trackers and have to pay back what I've downloaded. The best upload speed I've noticed is 77KB/s but on average it's more like 60. Why is my upload speed so much slower? Is it VM or my computer not up to the task. It's 5 years old.
AMD Athlon 2500+ 1.8 GHz 1.2GB RAM XP Home SP3

[ChuckFickens]

all normal home internet connections are asymmetric, which means your download speed is always faster than your upload speed.

77KB/s is not bad for a home upload speed.

[Buenchico]

Move to South Korea!

Virgin's theoretical maximum upload speeds are 200Kbps (with the 2Mbps download service) and 384Kbps (with the 4Mbps or 10Mbps download service). Those speeds are constrained by the use of copper cables (which were never intended for data traffic). The actual upload speeds you attain are affected by other factors (notably the number of other people on your street uploading at the same time) so speeds of 60Kbps are fairly typical.

Significantly faster upload speeds won't become available until fibre optic cables are used all of the way to the box outside your house.

Really fast speeds (of up to 1Gbps, in either direction) are already available in some parts of South Korea, where optical cables are used beyond the street box, all of the way to the PC. South Korea aims to have the whole of their country able to use such speeds within the next three years.

The UK government's target, for the same time period, is to provide all homes with 2Mbps downloads and 200kbps uploads. i.e. our basic speeds will be 500 times as slow for downloads, and 5000 times as slow for uploads. The UK is extremely unlikely catch up with countries like South Korea within the next quarter of a century.

Chris

[fo3nix]

You're getting very good upload speed compared to most! I second Chuck: it's just consumer broadband, which is like this.

Make sure you're using RC4 encryption, and perhaps only use Torrent apps early mornings or at night.

[LeoNasker]

Hi Chuck, thanks for your answer. Is the asymmetry there because more people download than upload? I don't know just wondered.
Hi Chris, South Korea not really an option! VM use fibre optic cables which is why I chose them, you made a good point though, it's where that network ends and the copper wire begins. Hadn't thought about that.
Hi fo3nix, thanks, I'll check my settings for RC4 encryption and I appreciate your advice.
Hi zebUK, If I change my ISP then I'll be moving away from fibre optic and going to copper? I live about 5 miles from the exchange so I'm happy with the competitive price and fast connection I have.
Thanks to you all for taking the time to answer my question

[LeoNasker]

fo3nix, sorry to be a pain but how do you implement RC4 encryption in utorrent? it seems this app. has no provision for such a setting. I've googled and it all went over my head. Sorry to bother you.

[fo3nix]

RC4 is just the technical term (as opposed to less effective 'regular encryption).

In the settings somewhere (I don't use uTorrent myself so can't help), will be a check box for encryption. Usually there's one to tick saying 'accept encrypted connections' (or similar), and one saying 'allow unencrypted connections too' (i.e., don't force encryption for those that don't require it). Have them both ticked, and see if it makes any difference. Then untick the second one, forcing encryption. See if that makes a difference. Give it a few days in between doing this, and leave the settings for a good day to see any results. You might not notice a difference, but it's possible.