diff --git a/ChangeLog b/ChangeLog
index ffa3434e6..614b898f4 100644
--- a/ChangeLog
+++ b/ChangeLog
@@ -1,3 +1,4 @@
+	* rate limiter optimization
 	* rate limiter overflow fix (for very high limits)
 	* non-auto-managed torrents no longer count against the torrent limits
 	* handle DHT error responses correctly
diff --git a/include/libtorrent/bandwidth_limit.hpp b/include/libtorrent/bandwidth_limit.hpp
index bc6c61926..8b1565f08 100644
--- a/include/libtorrent/bandwidth_limit.hpp
+++ b/include/libtorrent/bandwidth_limit.hpp
@@ -64,6 +64,19 @@ struct TORRENT_EXTRA_EXPORT bandwidth_channel
 	void return_quota(int amount);
 	void use_quota(int amount);
 
+	// this is an optimization. If there is more than one second
+	// of quota built up in this channel, just apply it right away
+	// instead of introducing a delay to split it up evenly. This
+	// should especially help in situations where a single peer
+	// has a capacity under the rate limit, but would otherwise be
+	// held back by the latency of getting bandwidth from the limiter
+	bool need_queueing(int amount)
+	{
+		if (m_quota_left - amount < m_limit) return true;
+		m_quota_left -= amount;
+		return false;
+	}
+
 	// used as temporary storage while distributing
 	// bandwidth
 	int tmp;
diff --git a/src/bandwidth_manager.cpp b/src/bandwidth_manager.cpp
index 6b36607cc..7b6f648c9 100644
--- a/src/bandwidth_manager.cpp
+++ b/src/bandwidth_manager.cpp
@@ -102,11 +102,17 @@ namespace libtorrent
 
 		bw_request bwr(peer, blk, priority);
 		int i = 0;
-		if (chan1 && chan1->throttle() > 0) bwr.channel[i++] = chan1;
-		if (chan2 && chan2->throttle() > 0) bwr.channel[i++] = chan2;
-		if (chan3 && chan3->throttle() > 0) bwr.channel[i++] = chan3;
-		if (chan4 && chan4->throttle() > 0) bwr.channel[i++] = chan4;
-		if (chan5 && chan5->throttle() > 0) bwr.channel[i++] = chan5;
+		if (chan1 && chan1->throttle() > 0 && chan1->need_queueing(blk))
+			bwr.channel[i++] = chan1;
+		if (chan2 && chan2->throttle() > 0 && chan2->need_queueing(blk))
+			bwr.channel[i++] = chan2;
+		if (chan3 && chan3->throttle() > 0 && chan3->need_queueing(blk))
+			bwr.channel[i++] = chan3;
+		if (chan4 && chan4->throttle() > 0 && chan4->need_queueing(blk))
+			bwr.channel[i++] = chan4;
+		if (chan5 && chan5->throttle() > 0 && chan5->need_queueing(blk))
+			bwr.channel[i++] = chan5;
+
 		if (i == 0)
 		{
 			// the connection is not rate limited by any of its
@@ -115,6 +121,7 @@ namespace libtorrent
 			// the queue, just satisfy the request immediately
 			return blk;
 		}
+
 		m_queued_bytes += blk;
 		m_queue.push_back(bwr);
 		return 0;