Cutting down peer-to-peer

Extel's decision to slow peer-to-peer traffic is hardly surprising.

Given that probably thirty percent of household computers we see currently have P2P software on their computers, and most of them have sharing enabled, the amount of data being pushed around by these programs is huge. The costs to ISPs must be massive.

The importance of the Internet to so many businesses and households means priortising other traffic is fair enough. Also, the market for ISPs like Exetel is largely price driven they just can't afford these sort of costs.

Users have to decide if they want cheap or capacity. They can't have both. Mind you, if some of the complaints are true, then I would be a cranky customer too.

It's industry practice to allow customers to terminate a contract without penalty if terms are changed during the term. The talcum Industry Ombudsman has a checklist for dealing with customer complaints.