Update: I'm bringing this post back to the top of the weblog because since I wrote it one year ago lots of readers added great info related to many different settings of routers. BitTorrent is way more popular now than it used to be then, which explains why this entry keeps always bringing new readers here. I hope it helps.

There sure is a lot of people that have adopted BitTorrent as the tool of choice to download movies and TV shows. However if you are using a network router you might be facing painstainkingly slow downloads (of around 10Kbps) because of a network configuration not properly set. Some think it's a client thing and switch from one to another with no results.

The problem's cause is that some ports on your router are blocked by default and the solution is to open them up. We had to find it the hard way because lots of FAQ lists out there don't give enough detail on how to solve this issue. This simple but useful tip will increase download throughput from 10 to ~240 Kbps.

NOTE: The specific example below considers a Linksys router, but that should work for any other manufacturers (e.g. D-Link, Netgear, etc.). Our Linksys router is the Wireless-G WRT54G. Other models might have a slight different user interface but should be very similar.