Three Reasons Your Torrents are Slow
1. Your ISP is throttling (slowing) your p2p and Bittorrent traffic
Your internet provider (Comcast, Verizon, Time Warner, etc) may advertise specific download/upload speeds, but it doesn't guarantee them over all protocols. ISP's commonly throttle (deliberately slow) bandwidth intensive types of data sent over their network. These commonly include things like video streaming (Netflix and Youtube) as well as P2P and Bittorrent Traffic.)
We wrote an entire article on how to avoid bittorrent throttling but the solution is easy. You just need an encrypted VPN or Proxy service for bittorrent. Your ISP can't legally slow your entire connection, they can only throttle specific services like bittorrent. The VPN wraps your internet traffic in an encrypted data tunnel so even your ISP can't see what sort of internet services you're using. They can't tell the difference between torrent traffic and regular web browsing so they can't throttle you, and you can torrent at top speed.
Here are a few of the best VPN's for bittorrent users:
- Private Internet Access (VPN only, just $40/year)
- Torguard Anonymous VPN (VPN and Torrent Proxy options)
- Invisible Browsing VPN (Ultimate VPN Package includes free proxy service)
- BTGuard (VPN and Proxy option)
Remember, a VPN is a must-have if you're a frequent torrent downloader, even if you're not being throttled. Learn why you need a VPN for Bittorrent
2. Your Router is slowing you down (port forwarding)
Bittorrent traffic is sent on specific ports (these are like channels within your internet data tunnel) sometimes your router gets confused on where to spend packets of data if it doesn't have specific instructions on where that port's traffic should be sent on your network. This can cause your torrent traffic to slow dramatically. IF you are getting under 100kb/s on a 10Mbps connection, your router is probably to blame.
Option 1:
If you are using a popular bittorrent client like vuze or uTorrent, there is an option in the settings menu to enable uPnP port mapping. This allows your torrent client to automatically tell your router where to send the data packets for Bittorrent, so none of them get lost or slowed in transit. This is definitely the quickest fix, though uPnP has been found to have some security vulnerabilities on older routers.
Option 2:
If you use a VPN for bittorrent, your torrent downloads will be wrapped in the VPN's encrypted data tunnel, so they will pass through your router without any sorting or slowing until the data is decrypted by the VPN software on your computer. This means you shouldn't have any speed loss from port forwarding issues. Your router will just send all your VPN traffic straight to the appropriate computer. Checkout the list above of the best VPN for torrents.
If you're concerned about the cost, don't be. Most of these VPN's are under $8 a month and well worth the cost for the added security and speed. Private Internet Access VPN is only $3.33 per month!
3. Your torrents ARE downloading full speed (seriously)
If your torrents are downloading at around 1 MBps on a 10 Mbps connection, you may think you are getting a fraction of your bandwidth when in reality you are using almost all of it. The difference comes in a technicality:
Most bittorrent client's measure speed in MB per second (notice the uppercase B) while ISP's advertise connection speed in Mb per second (note the lowercase b).
They may seem the same, but they aren't. A MB (Megabyte) is 8 times as large as a Mb (Megabit) so a connection that is downloading at around:
1 MB per second = approximately 8 Mb per second, which is around 80% of your maximum speed for a 10 Mbps connection. Not to shabby!
Hope this guide helped! Good luck and safe torrenting!
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