Throttled

OK. The gist is this. Ever since the undersea earthquake that disrupted Internet traffic to other parts of the world, we Malaysians have been having problems with downloading and file-sharing. While the former has been rectified, the latter is still a problem. Personally I haven't been having much problems until last week: I could only download my torrents on Thursday, and even then for 12 hours...thank God I managed to download four series and two movies...not bad for 12 hours eh? Then zip...until last night, but downloads were really slow.

Main Entry: ¹throt·tle
Pronunciation: 'thrä-t^&l
Function: verb
Inflected Form(s): throt·tled; throt·tling /'thrät-li[ng], 'thrä-t^&l-i[ng]/
Etymology: Middle English throtelen, from throte throat
transitive verb
1 a (1) : to compress the throat of : CHOKE (2) : to kill by such action b : to prevent or check expression or activity of : SUPPRESS throttle creativity>
2 a : to decrease the flow of (as steam or fuel to an engine) by a valve b : to regulate and especially to reduce the speed of (as an engine) by such means c : to vary the thrust of (a rocket engine) during flight
intransitive verb : to throttle something (as an engine) -- usually used with back or down throttled back>

From The Merriam-Webster Dictionary

So, this is the new word I learned from an Internet forum site. With regards to how our broadband service provider treats us on p2p downloads. With p2p downloads I mean Bittorrent and other movie/music downloads. I guess there are frustrated people out there...voicing out opinions which they can really do on mainstream media.

For one it's illegal. Well I admit to that, but the alternative is to wait for it on terrestrial television, or pay inflated prices on the Internet or original CD/DVDs. Or as they say here in bolehland go to the nearest pasar malam and make your pick (err, pirated vcds etc). So much for throttling the Internet download activities...it's just shifting one illegal activity to another. But I guess the authorities don't get greased so much by illegal Internet downloads than by money-making pirate distributors or peddlers. Well it's just a matter of time they find a way to make money that way in bolehland.

So what are we paying our broadband for anyway? Most people do not need broadband unless they need to download huge files or need to be online 24 7...and we are paying RM 88 (myself anyway) for shared bandwidth space (btw it means that we don't really get 1Mbps as advertised...should I sue our broadband service provider for false advertising?) It is frustrating for most people, although I use boadband for other stuff apart from movie downloads. But of course all this whining is not going to stop the monopolistic company to do anything about it...because it's all monopoly, and there's no way the people on the street is going to make a difference.

And to another point: why are new customers being offered RM 77 (promotional) while existing customers (read me!) still have to fork out RM 11 more? I think this happens only in bolehland...again because of the monopoly. That a few steps backwards for business in this country.

But I think I must stop here...just in case they find grounds to sue a poor blogger like myself...uhm, then maybe I'll be famous for a change, who knows?