How exactly does Spotify utilise my internet connection?

If you read the responses to Squizzles question below this post, you'll see many suggestions an comments on this matter. ( Delete or Edit)

I see that many workplaces is blocking spotify. Some advanced port settings should be minimum.

BUT I don't gfet the argument that trade-off between simplicity and configurability. Have a standard, easy configuration menu... WITH AN ADVANCED SETTINGS TAB. How hard can THAT be? ( Delete or Edit)

just enjoy it for what it is. you geeks get too bogged down in nonsense. ( Delete or Edit)

There is a cache where files are stored. Se the settings (edit - preferences). ( Delete or Edit)

Fishy? WTF?

What's fishy about P2P?

It's a completely legal technology, in many ways superior to the traditional 1-way traffic patterns.

Anyone who says or thinks otherwise has been brainwashed by the music industry, and would do well to check themselves into a mental institution.

Fishy?
Seriously the most stupid comments I've read all month. ( Delete or Edit)

@Oscar, I think the poster didn't mean that P2P was fishy. I think that he meant that the fact it was not more transparently documented that the service is using P2P to run was fishy. Also I think that when he says "fishy" he is not meaning "poentially illegal" as in the sense of record companies getting annoyed at people getting free unauthorised music from other P2P services, but rather that (for some people) they get uneasy using services on their PCs where they don't know exactly how it is working, especially with regard to useage of the internet connection.

My ISP has very specific limits and caps on overall bandwidth use at certain times, and also uses traffic shaping to limit certain protocols like P2P. If I overuse P2P (even totally legally like downloading Linux ISOs!) I can risk getting my overall bandwidth reduced for a month. So for some people it's important to know all the details (under the hood) and not have somethig "fishy" that they don't quite understand what it's doing.

:-) ( Delete or Edit)

@achookang: Fair enough, it was probably just a knee-jerk reaction.
Part of the point still stands though -- people have been brainwashed into thinking p2p is fishy/illegal/unsafe/etc.

The transfer protocol or bandwidth usage shouldn't really matter, caps aside, so long as the usage is reasonable.
Basically, when I pay for a certain amount of bandwidth, I expect to be able to use it whenever and however I please. If my ISP oversubscribes their infrastructure, that's their problem.

Bandwidth isn't a limited resource per se (other than when you're on a contract with caps, and I feel for those of you who are limited by them), i.e., it won't run out -- it's there whether you use it or not, and 99% of the customers never use what they're able to.
In other words, if I'm using 20% of my upstream, I don't care if the remaining 80% go towards Spotify -- p2p or not --, so long as it doesn't cause congestion or affects the rest of my traffic.

Straying a bit off topic..
What country are you in that you're forced to suffer through the horrid concept of caps?
U.K? I believe most of Europe has done away with it now, and most ads (at least here in good ol' Sweden) are starting to reflect reality.

My ISP went out a bunch of months ago and said "We want the industry to change. We want to get rid of all the misleading advertising campaigns, and so we'll start by setting a good example.".

They no longer advertise "up to X Mbps", but rather "between X and Y Mbps" (in my case between 60 and 100 Mbps downstream, 8-10Mbps upstream :-P ), and so far it's held true every time I've measured against the national testing infrastructure, no matter the ISP I'm testing against.

Hell, my upstream more often than not reaches 16Mbps in real world examples, and 20-30Mbps against the test servers.
Maybe that's why I don't really care how much Spotify uses -- I have plenty of available bandwidth, and if I'm not using it to its full extent, I'm not getting the best bang for the buck :-P ( Delete or Edit)

@Oscar. Hi! I agree with almost everything you say (especially the bit about feeling sorry for those of us unfortunate to be "capped" :-) ) The only bit I disagree is that bandwidth is a finite resource at least here. The network cannot transmit unlimited data, and ISPs have limited bandwidth. True they limit it further by their caps etc, but it is not unlimited. Most of us here use copper wires and old ADSL technology to get their internet... For you it may seem unlimited because you are lucky enough to have a better network and the availability is much greater than the demand...not so lucky here..!

As you guessed I am in the UK, the broadband backwaters of Europe it seems. Most people here get BB via ADSL (usually "up to 8 meg" ADSL Max packages, and a smaller but growing percentage getting ADSL2+ service. There is cable and the only cable company here (Virgin) has recently been trialling 50mbps service, but this is not available everywhere.

Useful info: http://www.samknows.com/broadband/new...

So here, we get on average 4.3mpbs (although this is because a few lucky people get the much faster cable or ADSL2+ speeds so the larger percentage of people get lower speeds. I get 1.8mpbs on ADSLMax living 4.5km from my local telephone exchange.)

So with this background the problem is that most of the ISPs here either explicitly or somewhat covertly (non-transparently) have some form of capping. I have a 20GB per month peak time cap (1600-0000hrs) although I rarely get near this. However My ISP also does traffic shaping (that is where the different protocols come in) and restrict certain types of traffic at certain times and depending on what package you are paying for. A lot of ISPs do this, although most don't lay out in detail how. (My ISP does: http://www.plus.net/support/broadband... )

I can understand the ISPs doing this in a way, since previously most P2P use has been illegal and heavy downloading of video content (TV shows etc). (I certainly don't want my access speeds compromised by contention issues, because my neighbor decides to download the entire series of West Wing from the Pirate Bay!) But more recently a lot of legitimate use has come along (like the BBC iPlayer which gets heavy use here in the UK although is no longer using P2P and apps like Spotify)

I applaud you ISP for trying to have non-misleading advertising. This has been a big problem here in the UK with consumers EXPECTING 8mbps speeds with their packages advertised as "Up to 8" because its not explained and the public just look at the headline figure. Of course in the small print it always says "depends on your distance from telephone exchange" etc. but who reads the small print?

BTW my upstream is about 400kps and this is about average for much of the UK.

So maybe we in the UK will eventually catch up with the rest of the world but I am not holding my breath. On the other hand I'm sure a lot of the rest of the world is in a similar position.... you lucky guys in Sweden seem to be particularly well off... you are the S Korea of Europe! ;)

Back on topic: I love Spotify but if it is to spread its wings and get widespread worldwide use it should take account of different ways that broadband is used in different locations, and help users tailor the way it uses things to their available connection. ( Delete or Edit)

The thing with bandwidth being limited is that it's so cheap to increase the amount of available bandwidth (back in the good 'ol days, we paid £200 per megabit, compared to the £20-30 per megabit these days). Sure, the routers cost a bit of money, but in the end just lighting up another strand of fiber is a pretty decent investment, so the infrastructure part is definitely not a problem.

Last mile is where people usually end up suffering, but we've managed to solve it over here (though Telia, our equivalent to your BT are reserving quite a bit of space in the actual exchange for their own use, limiting competition). In other words, we've been through the DSL hell that you're still locked in -- with the exception that we never had caps -- so you should be able to get through it too.

Our copper lines are old, and it took a while for ISPs to be interested in providing anything but paid dialup. By the time you ushered in free or flat rate dialup, we still paid by the minute.
We basically have one provider to thank for the state of broadband in Sweden -- Bredbandsbolaget (funnily enough, one of the early investors was NTL. Yes, that NTL ;) ), who wanted to provide FTTH.

They sparked an interest in high-speed Internet, and a DSL competitor shot up almost overnight (Bostream, later on picked up by Bredbandsbolaget), providing 24Mbps DSL at a time when most DSL providers were offering 8Mbps.

Now, a lot of the country is still on DSL or cable -- but 98% (last time I checked) of the population can get 8Mbps DSL, with large parts of the population being able to get 24Mbps.

Uni towns more often than not can get 100/100 pipes or even gigabit pipes cheaper than what even I pay, at less than twenty quid per month.

Having spent a fair bit of time in Australia and a brief stint in England, I've bumped into their caps quite a bit, pissing me off to no end.
For Australia it's not so much last-mile or the national infrastructure, as them being removed from major peering points being the problem (i.e., everything is fine up until the point where the traffic leaves the country).

The U.K. doesn't have that problem, and it's possible to get quite a bit out of old copper lines -- but ISPs with a working profit model aren't interested in change.
Why start subscribing 20 users per megabit when you can subscribe 200?

As you say, hopefully BBC's iPlayer will help push technology upgrades -- I wish I'd get to stream Doctor Who instead of downloading it (though I do have access to BBC Prime, but still..).

All in all though, even 4.3/400 should be enough to run Spotify and surf around comfortably (most websites would hesitate to push even 1Mbps your way) -- it's video media that's the big problem (along with our friend Deceptive Advertising)

Now, while I've been enjoying 100Mbit connections the past few years, that is region specific, and it wasn't until mid-december that the ISP started advertising actual speeds -- we're still trying to improve things, as it can always get better.

I'd guess one of the major reasons Spotify started over here is that pretty much everyone has bandwidth to spare, making it easy to gain consumer acceptance.

My guess (and hope) is that while it might be a few years until you get FTTH outside limited trials, you'll at least have bandwidth caps removed or drastically increased, allowing you to enjoy the Internet just a little bit more :) ( Delete or Edit)

Really interesting to hear about how broadband has evolved over the years in different countries! I remember those good ol' days of pay per minute dial up connections (on a 14.4K modem!)

I hope that Virgin's introduction of their 50meg cable service will stimulate some more competition here. Also the trials of FTTC (FTTH seems a less likely prospect here unless BT get a big subsidy or other financial incentive) are ongoing so maybe that will come to fruition in the next few year!

I like that the one benefit we still have here in the UK is ready access to Dr Who :-) ( Delete or Edit)

For OS X, dummynet has been available in the kernel since 10.4, meaning basic shaping can be done with ipfw.
http://www.macgeekery.com/hacks/softw... is a pretty good guide for it, but there are problems:

* I've never gotten it to effectively do anything
* It doesn't do QoS at all, which is where things would get interesting

throttled (and Throttled Pro for an easy-to-use version) appear to be more interesting from a quick glance.
http://www.intrarts.com/throttled.html

Personally, I don't care about Spotify's bandwidth usage, but ther ARE still bandwidth impaired people out there -- a shame considering the times we live in. ( Delete or Edit)

I live in sweden close to Gothenburg and the best I can get is 8/0,8 ADSL line so not everyone in sweden is as lucky as you and Oscar. ( Delete or Edit)

You could quit Spotify if you're going to play games.
Otherwise, have a look at NetLimiter. It might be frowned upon (as, if everyone were to limit the upstream, the swarm would suffer), but it does solve your problem. ( Delete or Edit)

Awesome, thanks. That worked perfectly. Neat piece of software too. ( Delete or Edit)

Yes, it uploads (since it's p2p, just like the first answer in this topic says). ( Delete or Edit)

Most places of work won't allow incoming connections through the firewall. If the application does work for you then its likely it won't be uploading, simply downloading only. ( Delete or Edit)

In a work environment its highly likely their firewalls wont be setup to allow incoming connections as spotify desires. Hence uploading will be very minimal if any at all. ( Delete or Edit)

Or what you have listened to recently. ( Delete or Edit)

yeah, that too ;-) ( Delete or Edit)