Plusnet to provide unlimited broadband
 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2012...ited-broadband

Was looking at Plusnet before as they were so cheap but didn't like the small download limits. Typical that this gets announced the day I get Sky installed. Someone tell me they have really bad traffic management or something!

Re: Plusnet to provide unlimited broadband
 

From experience PlusNet are really good. (You have 7 days to cancel Sky)

Re: Plusnet to provide unlimited broadband
 

Best thing with Sky is its truly unlimited with no traffic management (If you're within their network) so i think you're much better of with Sky...

Re: Plusnet to provide unlimited broadband
 

74Mbps speeds with line rental on top makes it £24 a month for the first 6 months and £34 after. £4 on top for anytime calls but they do a line rental saver too.

This could be a good choice for tons of people.

---------- Post added at 01:32 ---------- Previous post was at 01:29 ----------

No traffic management was what sold me on going to Sky. Now seeing the on demand download, its obvious you could do 30 gigabytes in one night by setting of the game of thrones to add to the planner.

Still interested to know if traffic mange heavy or if they are going to drop that kind of stuff too.

Re: Plusnet to provide unlimited broadband
 

Plusnet I did look at when going to FTTC.

They still do traffic shape and that wont change with this new package, they dont just shape p2p, they also shape streaming, ftp etc. However they do have cheap static ip's and also have a pro package which I believe removes all rate limiting so nothing is hard capped (but doesnt remove the prioritisation system).

They look potentially a nice choice of an isp but I didnt go with them because every so often they hit a crisis where they critically short of capacity and that put me off. But these events are much less frequent than they used to be.

The usage limit didnt put me off as its still unlimited off peak and the peak limit is actually probably still enough for me.

Re: Plusnet to provide unlimited broadband
 

Was telling my parents that they were a good choice as they were cheap and more than enough for their needs. For those not wanting a tv package, they could become the main player.

Re: Plusnet to provide unlimited broadband
 

It's marginally cheaper than BT Infinity and probably marginally more shaped too.

Re: Plusnet to provide unlimited broadband
 

A lot cheaper with static ip's.

BT dont shape streaming,ftp, gaming traffic and other non p2p traffic that plusnet shape but on the other hand plusnet shape p2p less than BT.

Re: Plusnet to provide unlimited broadband
 

I cannot fault PlusNet one bit, have been with them since I got dial up off them in 2003 and any issues I have had they sort them asap. Always get to speak to someone in Sheffield to where their call centre is.

Re: Plusnet to provide unlimited broadband
 

We haven't officially released details regarding traffic shaping on the new products?

For the benefit of those reading this thread though, the new Unlimited products will not have any rate limits applied at all. There will still be prioritisation that will classify time sensitive traffic like gaming and streaming above other stuff but for all intents and purposes your internet activities will run at line speed across our network throughout the entire day.

The new Essentials product will be managed in a similar fashion to the existing Value product. That does have some pretty severe rate limits on certain traffic at certain times of the day.

Best regards,

Re: Plusnet to provide unlimited broadband
 

So is there any traffic management on peak streaming with the up to 76mbps Fibre package?

Re: Plusnet to provide unlimited broadband
 

At the moment yes. Peer-to-peer and Usenet traffic is rate limited to 2Mbps between 8pm-10pm each evening. After Wednesday this will change as per my previous post.

I've been testing the new profile for some time now and excepting congestion outside of our network all of my traffic has been at line speed regardless of the time of day.

Best regards,

Re: Plusnet to provide unlimited broadband
 

Interesting indeed.

I only read your tbb post about an hour or so ago, so after I had made the above post.

Re: Plusnet to provide unlimited broadband
 

So is there a link to show what traffic Plusnet slow down and at what times of day, on this Unlimited package?

Re: Plusnet to provide unlimited broadband
 

There is no link to this information as they don't!

Re: Plusnet to provide unlimited broadband
 

If they are taking bandwidth from one protocol or application to give it to another, they are slowing it down.

---------- Post added at 21:53 ---------- Previous post was at 21:51 ----------


http://www.plus.net/support/broadban...nagement.shtml

http://s7.postimage.org/hqt2fux17/prior.png

---------- Post added at 21:57 ---------- Previous post was at 21:53 ----------

I was asking the question after seeing the Plusnet blog post you mentioned entitled It's Unlimited! Why is it still traffic managed?

Re: Plusnet to provide unlimited broadband
 

Only in the event of your link saturating. Their system is QoS like in that protocols that need to be 'real time' have a higher priority.

That's not the same as implementing fix speed/time limits.

Re: Plusnet to provide unlimited broadband
 

Wow, if there's anything more complicated than VM's traffic management this has to be it.

Re: Plusnet to provide unlimited broadband
 

Their own graph shows that priority is given to customers who want to pay more rather than for protocols that need a higher priority. Its a pay tier system.

P2P is best effort on their lowest product, yet they also will class it as Gold traffic which is their second highest priority if you spend more with them. On a standard package only VOIP has a higher priority than gold.

So any arguments about it being for protocols that need higher priority are made null and void if customers can pay more to have their P2P traffic the same priority as other customers gaming or streaming packets.

Doesn't look like net neutrality to me.

Re: Plusnet to provide unlimited broadband
 

Plusnet staff claim that there will be no isp side slow down of lower priority traffic eg. torrents on their network. They are basically saying they will always upgrade capacity to keep up with demand. This is ambitious of them as usually BT wholesale based isp's cant do this, but of course they are now owned by BT. If they keep to their word then it will potentially be a good service.

The priorities listed they now say only apply on a per connection basis so is in affect a isp supplied QoS for the end user replacing what people would configure on their routers.

It seems complex compared to VM but I have long suspected VM deprioritise streaming etc. anyway except they just dont publish it.

On paper plusnet a cheaper service is now far superior to infinity, in practice only time will tell.

Re: Plusnet to provide unlimited broadband
 

That can't be right.

Re: Plusnet to provide unlimited broadband
 

As I said on tbb, only time will tell if this works out for plusnet, because they are likely now to get swamped with orders from heavy users.

Re: Plusnet to provide unlimited broadband
 

What, like BT and VM and Sky haven't been?

Re: Plusnet to provide unlimited broadband
 

Well BT isnt true unlimited.

Sky use their own backhaul which is a lot cheaper than BT wholesale backhaul.

Personally I think the numbers wont add up on this as plusnet not only has more expensive backhaul it is also very cheap, I think either they will backdown and let it congest or it will be a loss leader by BT (the owners).

Re: Plusnet to provide unlimited broadband
 

Plusnet is such a small company compared to BT and Sky.

Virgin Media gives the impression of being a wealthier company through advertising and borrowing someone else's big brand name, but they shouldn't really be put in the same category as the other two.

Don't think BT or Sky have any local or central capacity issues that are apparent. Virgin on the other hand have many. Do you really think Plusnet will hold up as well as the main two players, let alone do better than VM's congestion?

Re: Plusnet to provide unlimited broadband
 

I agree VM arent in the same league as BT and sky financially.

Re: Plusnet to provide unlimited broadband
 

Uhh yes it is.

Re: Plusnet to provide unlimited broadband
 

Don't you just love panto season! :)

Let's just settle on Plusnet, BT and Sky offering 'differently' unlimited products...

Re: Plusnet to provide unlimited broadband
 

My opinion is the ASA have been soft on the term unlimited and been forced in that position because they have a duty to not damage the profitiability of the sector, this in turn also shows why they leniant on most advertising that many companies use and usually only clamp down when its a single company standing out. This is also why the "up to" ruling turned out to be a farce, they had to settle on something that would ultimately not discredit the sector and damage sales.

If we talking about the defenition of unlimited then BT's product is not unlimited, as the throughput of p2p is limited deliberatly by the isp. VM the same as well since they also deliberatly throttle throughput.

If we talking about 'legal' terms of how the regulators have decided then the way BT sell their product is fine.

However its also worth pointing out isp's can be very devious on this eg. an isp can say they dont throttle any protocols but still decide to route undesirable traffic via congested links and as such slowing that traffic down.

Me and Qas (and others) probably will never agree. The way I class a service that limits usage but never bills more than the set amount is not unlimited but instead as unmetered.

Re: Plusnet to provide unlimited broadband
 

I think a lot of the confusion stems from Unlimited packages being sold along side other products that have set download quantity limits. In that context they are correctly described.

Re: Plusnet to provide unlimited broadband
 

---------- Post added at 12:07 ---------- Previous post was at 12:07 ----------

I don't think there's any confusion. Nobody except you thinks unlimited refers to any other aspect of the connection.

---------- Post added at 12:18 ---------- Previous post was at 12:07 ----------

Unlimited never refers to speed. The throughput of everything is always deliberately limited by the ISP. Your line rate is limited by the provider, and your IP throughput is further limited by the IP profile. And sometimes certain protocols are de-prioritized but that's not a limit.

No connection in existence has unlimited throughput.

Re: Plusnet to provide unlimited broadband
 

Unlimited generally means unlimited except where defined. So eg. a unlimited 10mbit product would be considered by the average person to be unlimited usage at 10mbit throughput. The ASA have even added speeds in their regulations now and disallow significant throttling on unlimited services, not quite sure what counts as significant but I suspect if BT didnt have the p2p exclusion clearly shown on their product pages they would have been in trouble if a complaint went in. I am not even convinced they would be ok if a complaint went in now, noone has tested it yet. But my gut feeling says they would be ok.

I think the ASA were very leniant, personally I think any product which has deliberate throttling of any kind should not be sellable as a unlimited product, if isp's want the label then they pay the price for it. But I am not the ASA and its not my decision to make.

Quite how you comparing ip profiles and line speeds to deliberate brutal throttling of p2p I dont know.

Re: Plusnet to provide unlimited broadband
 

Link.

Not if you don't worry yourself with the complexities. Rather than trying to make sense of the tables on our website (something we've done to satisfy a voluntary code of practice), you're probably better of reading the blog that's already been linked to.

And probably end up with a worse experience if the line's ever at full utilisation. We've removed the Pro add-on from the sales/upgrade journey as it's largely irrelevant for customers choosing the new Unlimited package. I touched on this with the FAQ I wrote to coincide with the product's launch.

Hope everyone had a pleasant Christmas BTW :)

Best regards,

Re: Plusnet to provide unlimited broadband
 

ASA has only defined "Unlimited" in relation to usage limits. It has nothing to do with traffic shaping.

Re: Plusnet to provide unlimited broadband
 

you missed the bit on traffic management? The bit where they say it cant be significant on unlimited products..

Re: Plusnet to provide unlimited broadband
 

You should use a dictionary :naughty:

We should end the pain now. You want to say you have an unlimited connection but the reality is it is limited with P2P traffic shaping. You can argue industry allows unlimited to be used in these cases but at the same time you have to admit your isp limits in one similar way to how virgin media limit their customers ;)

Sky = The only truly unlimited in all areas broadband
BT Option 2 = Unlimited data except....they limit the P2P data you can download for a large percentage of the week. So not really unlimited, but currently allowed to say it is unlimited by the advertising standards agency.

So when you say you have an unlimited connection from BT, expect others to point out it is only unlimited in name, not unlimited in reality.

Re: Plusnet to provide unlimited broadband
 

And to bring this thread back on topic...

The Plusnet offering is also unlimited with the advantage over Sky that there's prioritisation on your downlink to ensure that real time data (Video streaming, VOIP etc) is not adversely affected by other less critical data requested by users on your LAN.

If it works as advertised, I believe this to be superior to a service with no prioritisation, but then I would as I've signed up for the product :)

Cards on the table time, at the risk of driving the thread OT again - I think the concept of 'traffic management' is a good thing but the solutions used to date (i.e speed reductions no matter what's going on) are very poor. Despite what others have posted, I believe that there should be the concept xMb of streaming data is more important than xMb of download data as, for example, buffering and pausing while watching a film via Lovefilm is intrusive whereas taking a bit longer to download the latest Linux ISO(!!!) is not.

The Internet, and each ISP's network, is a shared, contended, resource and ISP will (and should) continue to evolve stategies to ensure the best 'experience' for their customers. In time I'd expect (and applaud) wider use of prioritisation (aka QoS) to achieve this.

Re: Plusnet to provide unlimited broadband
 

That has been mentioned a few times in this thread yet I have not seen it documented anywhere yet. If it is a conclusion taken from the Plusnet blog then I think some have been confused or mislead by the description. The blog gives an example of how it would work on a homes individual traffic but nowhere states it is per customers line rather than all customers collectively.

It has been mentioned before that home routers can do the QoS on a users connection.

As bpullen said, traffic management has been given a bad name due to how it has been used in the past although it can actually be useful. But plusnets own graphs showed that by paying more you could have P2P and other traffic with the same priority as lower paying customers gaming traffic, which blew their credibility/honesty out of the water.

If they came along and said the traffic shaping is actually QoS and individual to each household, then fair enough. Otherwise its nothing more than telling customers we are limiting our unlimited product for your own good, so they don't seem so bad.

Traffic shaping has its benefits on congested networks, so maybe Plusnet will be congested?

---------- Post added at 10:34 ---------- Previous post was at 10:26 ----------

In the future they will look back and laugh at the concept of individual ISP's not having enough bandwidth to handle all their customers. With all the advancements and low costs, there could be a point where all networks have 10 to 100x more bandwidth than they actually need for all their customers.

QoS is a good stop gap until then. ISP's will abuse it though by allowing you to pay more to have your traffic prioritised higher and net neutrality out the window.

Re: Plusnet to provide unlimited broadband
 

I can't help wondering if the problem is that we all want something extra special for as limited payment as we can get..and that's just not possible.It's not possible whatever the product or service we could be talking about.

The fact is if we want the best then we may have to just pay more.If we pick the cheapest option every time we are just in danger of over subscribing that particular system.

And yes it could be argued that VM and others really shouldn't take on more subscribers than they can handle but in such a cut-throat business I thing we could be urinating in the wind to assume such a thing.

Perhaps it's down to the advertising but I think at the end of the day a lot of people want something that just isn't feasible given that people's expectations keep outpacing the realities.

Is there a danger that Plusnet will not be able to sustain this offer given that their customers will take them at their word? I suspect the answer is yes.

Re: Plusnet to provide unlimited broadband
 

Yeah to be fair to plusnet if they keep to their word their product is probably now the best BTw based FTTC product and only 2nd to sky on paper.

Arguably it beats sky if you believe the priotisation is beneficial on a per connection basis.

In practice I still think its a time will tell situation whether or not they get overwhelmed on bandwidth demands. Sky dont pay for their capacity the same way as plusnet do the maths are different and of course sky charge more for their product as well.

Maggy and of course you are right, the broadband market has been trashed for a number of years probably from when talktalk first came on the scene, not eveyrone is as you say but probably a big chunk of the market people just look for the cheapest service,

Proper regulation would go a long way to fixing some problems in the market, but as always the protection of profit is considered.

We not all like that tho, some of us dont mind paying extra, but then some will jump on that and think we should be paying for leased lines if we dont want over subscription.

With all due respect to all 3 FTTC isp's mentioned in this thread tho I think plusnet,BT and sky are all significant improvements over VM.

Re: Plusnet to provide unlimited broadband
 

If there is a threshold based shaping policy then it cannot be severe. No threshold based shaping policy exists, therefore the strength of it is irrelevant.

---------- Post added at 13:36 ---------- Previous post was at 13:32 ----------

I've always said DS propritisation on the ISP side is the only place it can work properly, the problem is any ISP that does it does not give you any control over it.

For example you have port 443 SSL traffic prioritized on the basis it's used for interactive, speed sensitive web browsing. Then you have a VPN or newsgroups connection on that same port that also gets prioritised, thus drowning out your gaming traffic because your game runs on an unrecognized port and protocol and gets classified as bulk.

Good if it works properly, not good if one-size-fits-all doesn't fit you.

---------- Post added at 13:37 ---------- Previous post was at 13:36 ----------

But I thought they already did?

---------- Post added at 13:43 ---------- Previous post was at 13:37 ----------

Some of us don't pay attention to advertising and make decisions based on doing their own research. Course technical oversubscription is the only thing that allows your broadband connection to cost less than £100 a month.

Re: Plusnet to provide unlimited broadband
 

I can't see anywhere that actually says they are doing QoS per line/customer. Can you?

Re: Plusnet to provide unlimited broadband
 

I'm sure I've seen it somewhere but I can't find it either at the moment. I'll keep looking but, for the reasons I gave for being in favour of prioritisation, it would actually be better if the policy was used across the whole of Plusnet's network.

Edit 21:47 - See the post from Bob Pullen here

Not effectively for downstream data and, for the best customer experience, the ISP is best placed to apply the policy, albeit with the caveat that they are then in control, not the customer.

He's also explained that the Pro add-on is a hangover from their 'limited' product, is liable to degrade performance and is no longer actively marketed.

I don't believe that will be the case any time soon, if ever. I certainly wouldn't buy shares in a company that wastes its money by buying enough bandwidth to allow all customers to have full line speed 24x7 - It simply isn't good economics, regardless of cost reductions.

Re: Plusnet to provide unlimited broadband
 

I think it was quite obvious what I meant by oversubscription.

On discussions like this generally contending means having customers share capacity, but if performance isnt affected its considered not oversubscribed. Obviously I meant having too many customers sharing to the point the impact is visible.

Re: Plusnet to provide unlimited broadband
 

The post you pointed out by BPullen doesn't mention QoS at all. Just wanted to confirm that it is incorrectly (or correctly) being repeated that there is QoS on each individual customers line. Obviously I would expect it to be done at a central location across all customers so it would be interesting if they were doing it per line like has been said a few times.

Not actively marketed means it is still available if you ask for it? ;)

If Plusnet had no worries about bandwidth, they wouldn't have had to include the QoS stuff in their plan. If they had full confidence in the network for the next year they could have offered it as fully unlimited/unmanaged like sky. Maybe small print to say that they may add it at some point if needed so they could revisit it in a years time. So it just says to me that within a year Plusnet expect the network to be running hot and having congestion issues that require traffic prioritisation. QoS makes perfect sense as the best option in that situation. Just don't agree with them trying to imply it is for other reasons.

In the future we will probably come across some technology that makes bandwidth abundant with little cost, which is where I was coming from. If someone said to you 15 years ago that you will have a mobile phone that is more powerful than the computer on your desk in 15 years time.....

Re: Plusnet to provide unlimited broadband
 

OK, we'll just have to agree to disagree.

I'll agree that Plusnet perhaps have not done particularly well at explicitly explaining where the QoS is applied but I believe it to be 'per customer line' and that it will lead to a better performing connection than one that has no management at all.

Time will tell :)

Re: Plusnet to provide unlimited broadband
 

No doubt it will come in useful, no matter how/where they implement it. I really would like to know for sure if they are doing it per customers line though :)

Re: Plusnet to provide unlimited broadband
 

So what you mean by "oversubscription" is really "congestion".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oversub...munications%29

Re: Plusnet to provide unlimited broadband
 

What you qouted is exactly what Chrys said lol. The impact of too many customers noticeably effecting performance. Congestion caused by over subscription means both words are valid.

Again this is just a silly pedantic argument over words when we are all aware of what each other means, however they say it.

Re: Plusnet to provide unlimited broadband
 

What I quoted was

What Chrys did was describe oversubscription as if it were overselling. Quite the opposite.

TBH there isn't much else interesting stuff to argue about on CF these days. Everyone on VM who has problems has or is moving to FTTC and everyone who has is happy...

Re: Plusnet to provide unlimited broadband
 

Hi there,

Trying not to go into too much technical detail, and at the risk of opening another can of worms...

Customers' downstream traffic passes through a switch that applies traffic a ToS marking based on a pre-defined signature, source IP, port or a combination of these and other factors.

Those already with us will be familiar with the usage breakdowns we give you that show how much Usenet, FTP, Email, Streaming etc. you've done each month. It's these switches that allow us to provide you with that data. It's also these switches that apply rate limits on the lesser, 'non-Unlimited' account types.

The traffic then passes through an edge router that terminates your connection. The edge routers have a number of traffic queues (bronze, silver, gold etc.). Traffic is filed into each of these queues dependent on the ToS marking. These routers have a number of parameters for each queue including a minimum guaranteed bandwidth, a queue waiting, a maximum bandwith per user and maximum bandwidth per ‘end-point’. I wouldn't expect these values to mean anything to a customer.

We've sufficient bandwidth/capacity to allow an Unlimited user to download at line speed irrespective of the queue their traffic is in.

If a user is saturating the line using a variety of different-priority traffic then the queue weightings kick in on the edge routers and packets are dropped for the lower priority stuff.

It's this logic, and having sufficient capacity, that gives the impression of QoS on a per-user basis. In reality (and based on what I've written above) this is not strictly the case, but it's probably the explanation that best fits the actual customer experience.

Hope that makes it a bit clearer.

Best regards,

Re: Plusnet to provide unlimited broadband
 

I wonder if you could help me out with a question.

My parents and my partner are on the 60GB plusnet package, will they be automatically upgraded to unlimited?

The Q&A emphasis appears to be concentrating on 10GB customers upgrading to the new package, for the existing 60GB customers it is not so clear.

Many thanks in advance.

Re: Plusnet to provide unlimited broadband
 

No, they'd have to explicitly request that their account is upgraded.

Best regards,

Re: Plusnet to provide unlimited broadband
 

Many thanks for spending the time and effort explaining the whole process. It really is appreciated :)

Re: Plusnet to provide unlimited broadband
 

Many thanks for that.

I tried it last night and again today, it looks like the site must be very busy as it hangs when selecting 'Change my products'.

I will give it another go later.

Re: Plusnet to provide unlimited broadband
 

Hmmm, shouldn't do. Might be worth clearing your browser cache or trying another browser entirely.

Best regards,

Re: Plusnet to provide unlimited broadband
 

I just tried again and it worked OK.

Yesterdays attempt was at my parents (Plusnet customers), todays first 2 attempts on my broadband connection, 3rd attempt it worked OK.

I did have a similar issue when I upgraded them from 10GB to 60GB, I put it down to the site being busy.

Thanks again.