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Well as browsing/visiting a website involves downloading pages, images etc to PC for viewing the same in web browser, then actually it is same as downloading.

Now for example, if an Internet service provider(SIM company) says that "browsing is free, but downloading is charged", but technically speaking how could he know that difference.

It's just transfer of data through internet,

as per my understanding it may be termed as

Downloading= n( browsing )

Correct me if I am wrong,

My question is how could that ISP company restrict the download?

Edit: Consider some techniques which would be used by ISP to monitor downloading:

Case 1: If they blocked anyone who crosses certain data usage limit, then they would be violating their own lines of free browsing.

Case 2: They considered blocking continuous flow of data- which is in case of downloading.

then I would think of downloading a file part by part, meaning : I will start the download, pause it , then resume it again, repeating it till download is complete.,

it would certainly seem to be eqvalent to browsing data consumption..

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    Scary provider, they probably need deep packet inspection to monitor you... Don't they mention some file types in their conditions? Like "downloading" movies or music would be charged, but "browsing" images would not?
    – Arjan
    Jan 24, 2016 at 8:57
  • ISP is spouting lies, its all the same. Bits are bits, unless they have certain partner sites (their website, facebook etc) that are specifically excluded.
    – Linef4ult
    Jan 24, 2016 at 9:05
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    @Linef4ult, not all bits are treated the same :-(
    – Arjan
    Jan 24, 2016 at 9:18
  • @Arjan Not with some ISPs unfortunately.
    – Linef4ult
    Jan 24, 2016 at 9:21
  • If they use deep packet inspection, would they not violate privacy..and also is it economical for them to monitor each and every user? @Arjan
    – Akshay Gudiyawar
    Jan 24, 2016 at 9:42

2 Answers 2

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Most likely, the ISP will use some form of (deep) packet inspection.

In the most simple case, the ISP will distinct browsing traffic from other traffic by looking at the destination TCP ports. Any traffic going to destination port 80 and 443 will be classified as browsing, all other traffic will be classified as downloading. It could even be that the ISP is deploying transparent HTTP(S) proxies and all browsing traffic is routed through those.

In a more advanced setup, protocol inspection will be used: the ISP's equipment will monitor all traffic streams and will recognise HTTP(S) traffic based on the HTTP headers. Billing is then done based on the classification.

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browsing packets size = 1500(bytes) and download packets size not same as browsing packets size(bigger packets for web browsing),
if you Have bad Internet experience then you couldn't open any webpages but you could download, you can open cmd and type: ping 8.8.8.8 -t -l 1500 this test of your internet quality for web browsing ,
then i think it only for packets size.

ISP only counter your packets in two mod:
1) =1500
2) other size

billing your account with this way

The distributions of the parameters for the web browsing traffic model are described in Table 1. Based on observed packet size distributions, 76% of the HTTP packet calls should use an MTU of 1500 bytes, with the remaining 24% of the HTTP packet calls using an MTU of 576 bytes.
source:

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  • Your answer does make some sence.Please explain it in detail..like by giving an example/analogy etc @Ajidehak
    – Akshay Gudiyawar
    Jan 24, 2016 at 16:52
  • This doesn't make any sense: 1500 is the maximum Ethernet frame size on most networks, and the browser has no control over packet size anyway. It sounds like you're thinking of MTU issues, where small packets can get through but large (e.g. 1500-byte) ones can't. But that's not related to browsing vs. downloading; a large file like an image or video on a web page, when browsing, would trigger the same problem
    – Wyzard
    Jan 25, 2016 at 3:23
  • akshay please say to us, when you watch a video then it use charge or free?
    – Ajidehak
    Jan 25, 2016 at 5:53
  • i cant comment on teoun vink but i think his answer is true.
    – Ajidehak
    Jan 25, 2016 at 7:51

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