What is Bandwidth Throttling?

Bandwidth Throttling is where something sets a restriction on the pipe, they make it smaller for some purpose – so even though your pipe is nice and wide, now only a trickle of water flows because someone narrowed the pipe somewhere.

Throttling can be used to actively limit a user's upload and download rates on programs such as video streaming, Bit Torrent protocols and other file sharing applications, as well as even out the usage of the total bandwidth supplied across all users on the network. Bandwidth throttling is also often used in Internet applications, in order to spread a load over a wider network to reduce local network congestion, or over a number of servers to avoid overloading individual ones, and so reduce their risk of crashing, and gain additional revenue by compelling users to use more expensive pricing schemes where bandwidth is not throttled.

Bandwidth throttling can happen at different positions on the network. On a local area network (LAN), the system admin may apply bandwidth throttling to help reduce network crowding and server crashes. The Internet service provider may use bandwidth throttling to help decrease a user’s usage of bandwidth that is provided to the local network.

Those that could have their bandwidth throttled are typically someone who is constantly downloading and uploading torrents, or someone who just watches a lot of online videos. Many consider this as an unfair method of regulating the bandwidth because consumers are not getting the required bandwidth even after paying the prices set by the ISPs. By throttling the people who are using so much bandwidth, the ISPs claim to enable their regular users to have a better overall quality of service.

If you feel that your internet service provider is restricting your bandwidth because you have been reaching a monthly threshold, an Internet speed test done many times throughout the month might shed light on that. If your bandwidth suddenly becomes so slow near the end of the month then a throttling might be happening.

VPN services can be helpful to avoid bandwidth throttling from the ISP. VPN services hide and encrypt the traffic that’s flowing between your network at home and the rest of the Internet.

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