Internet Service Providers (ISPs) has got some good news for the torrent downloaders in India. Several ISPs in India have decided to collaborate with Torbox.net that provides a fully-fledged torrent search engine that connects users to ‘local’ peers to guarantee maximum download speeds. This move made by some local broadband providers is to make it easier for their customers to download and share files through torrent networks and also reduce the load BitTorrent transfers put on their network. Torbox, is a torrent search engine, which handles the local peer linking – thereby increasing speeds for users and lessening the traffic costs for the ISPs, as internal traffic networks don’t incur costs for these companies. Major services like Google Play Music, Spotify, Pandora, and Hulu are still not available in India, while Netflix arrived only a few months ago, with a much smaller content library than the one provided to customers in the U.S. In such a scenario, this news comes as a blessing for all those piracy lovers in India, wherein the law enforcement and government agencies don’t take piracy too seriously. ISPs in India, including Sifi Broadband, Excitel, Alliance Broadband, Syscon Infoway and True Broadband, speed up users’ torrent downloads by connecting them to local peers in their own network, according to TorrentFreak. A number of them have partnered with Torbox, a torrent search engine, which handles the local peer linking – thereby increasing speeds for users and reducing the traffic costs for the ISPs, as traffic within their networks doesn’t incur costs for these companies. Torbox uses downloaders’ IP-addresses to find out who their ISP is and directs them to torrents with peers on the same network. “It’s a highly sophisticated IP technology based on network proximity,” Torbox explains, adding that every ISP is welcome to sign a peering agreement. “Then based on your IP address TorBox can estimate how well you are connected to peers who have the content in question. It’s quite a tough job but luckily it works,” they add. “The downloads themselves go through a regular torrent client and don’t use any special trackers. However, the torrent swarms often connect to dedicated “cache peers” as well, which serve bits and pieces to speed up the swarm. Most people who visit Torbox will see a notice that their ISP doesn’t have a peering agreement. However, for those who use a partnered ISP’s internet service to search Torbox for torrents will find results that are ordered based on the proximity of other users who have the file you’re looking for. Files hosted by people on your ISP’s network will download quicker than those that are shared by users located in another place. While Torbox doesn’t get involved on the traffic side, they only point people to the “peering” torrents. Extreme Peering, which is operated by Extreme Broadband Services (EBS), is the actual peering that handles such services. EBS director Victor Francess told TorrentFreak that most torrent data is served from within the ISP’s own network with this setup. “It all creates a very powerful user experience, so in fact just about 10-20% of all torrent traffic comes from the upstream and everything else is local,” Francess says. Recent months have seen piracy become a hot topic in India. With the broadband providers least concerned with the legal issues surrounding the idea of being in trouble with torrent search services, only time will tell how long such service will last. For now, Torbox remains freely accessible.
