I was furious to find that BT are on a list of known offenders who throttle bittorrent downloads. (Scroll down to uk on this chart: http://www.azureuswiki.com/index.php/Bad_ISPs ) This effectively means that there is no possible way to get the full 8Mbs bandwidth that I was promised when I signed up to my 18 month BT Total Broadband contract.

I desperately want to cancel the line and go with an ISP that doesn't snoop on people's connections - surely if BT did not make me aware that they throttle P2P torrents (nothing of this is mentioned in the contract - my downloads are movie trailers from Vuze which are 100% legal by the way) when I signed up with them I'm entitled to void the contract... right? Because they withheld information about the service which would have affected my decision to enter a into a contract?

I attempted to speak to a BT broadband technician (very bad english, read out pre-written responses to me or just said errrrrrr....) about the matter but they simply refused to acknowledge that any throttling was occuring. I notice that in the US, Comcast has finally owned up to torrent throttling after months of denial, article available here: http://www.bizjournals.com/philadelphia/stories/2008/03/24/daily29.html

It would be nice if BT took a similar stance but I guess people need to start making noise first. I don't even know how. Anyone?...

One place to start is to make a formal complaint to Ofcom.

If you want to terminate your contract for non compliance by BT you first need to collect detailed evidence - 'hearsay' won't do - then you have to compare what is against what was promised and give BT notice in writing that you wish to have the service contracted for delivered.

If you can then demonstrate that they are unreasonably refusing to deliver the contracted service (and that there is no 'small print' that lets them get away with it) you can sue for what you have paid and to have the service terminated without penalty . . .

Then you can sign up with another ISP and find that they fail to deliver in one way or another . . . One of my brothers was until recently Chairman of an ISP and he was going hariless over the gap between services promised and what was delivered in the entire industry.

Much of the problem is that the 'wholesale' promises are not delivered by 'guess who'? That means that when you sign up with someone else they are often reliant on BT or another carrier who then fails to deliver . . . It's a mess. Look at the performance charts and try to find someone consistently in the top five then move to within half a mile of Docklands or another major node and you might get a service . . .

Good luck, Funforus