Update: Upon re-reading the story, I have corrections. They are blocking incoming ftp and IRC connections, and they are no explicitly blocking Bit Torrent and other P2P traffic, though they can. As Mike points out, they are letting you set up an FTP, email or IRC server, which isn’t that crazy. Apologies for the tardiness - it was late in the evening. Thanks Mike. Broadband Reports points out that Shaw Cable is blocking BitTorrent traffic using a switch from Ellacoya Networks.
Broadband providers do a lot of dumb things, but Canadian phone company Telus takes the cake. If you are a residential broadband customer who pays $30 a month, you can’t FTP or use IRC with your service. If you were using broadband for anything other than downloading web pages super fast and check email, well don’t bother. However if you are a business customer, well its okay to use all these services for an extra $50 a month. In other words, Telus is blocking ports. Bit Torrent and eMule won’t work as well. Why do I get a feeling that this is going to be a common modus operandi of all incumbents, and they will start shutting down the ports, when we will, well not really have any use for their version of broadband.
5 comments so far
5:59 PM PT
Hey Om, I think you may have misread the article. While port blocking is a bit annoying, it’s not *quite* as bad as you describe.
* They’re only blocking incoming ports. That is, they’re only blocking it if you set up an FTP, email or IRC server. You can still use FTP or IRC on a server somewhere else.
* The article clearly says that they’re NOT blocking BitTorrent or eMule.
So… really, all they’re doing is blocking your ability to set up an FTP, email or IRC server, which isn’t that crazy. Most people don’t want to do that anyway. Yes, some of us more geeky types want to make sure we can do that sort of thing — and they probably should have a cheaper option that would allow it — but this won’t impact your average user at all.
If it does… they’ll learn to find another provider.
5:59 PM PT
Mike
thanks for pointing that out. i went back and re-read the story. I was a tad quick to go off the handle, i guess it was late night and well, this is an automatic trigger
8:03 AM PT
A solution to certain types of blocked ports is TZO DDNS. TZO has port relay services that let you run on some alternate port (like web port 81), but they cloak the :81 garbage normally required in the URL.
6:33 PM PT
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3:35 AM PT
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