This has nothing to do with vidya.  What? If ISPs throttle peer-to-peer traffic for "optimization" and pings in online games sky rocket it's video games' issue. From the first article in "More information":  For example, many ISPs in the UK limit the bandwidth available to peer-to-peer file sharing applications during times of congestion, arguing that these applications are not sensitive to delay. This creates huge problems for online gaming. ISPs use deep packet inspection technology to identify these applications, but the technology doesn’t work very well: it has a hard time distinguishing between online gaming and peer-to-peer file sharing, so online games stop working or don’t work as well as they could.  and, if one thinks it's solved solution at least for UK:  If an online gaming provider wants to introduce a new feature for its game in the UK, it needs to work with the ISPs and their technology vendors to make sure that the feature won’t be caught up in the traffic management measures directed at peer-to-peer file sharing. This is the opposite of innovation without permission.  EDIT: phrasing, more quotes EDIT2: You know what. It didn't click in my head that not all people might see the link between the discrimination of the traffic by its type and online video games. Besides, not everyone will read the big article, so I edited both posts here and on Reddit to clarify. Thanks, mate!