Plusnet Implemets 'Idle Timeouts' On Broadband ADSL Products

Ignition · 25-08-2005, 12:16

Well, the legend continues.

Following the decision to kick two users off for complaining on their forums too much, which I can actually see the point to an extent, though I don't know all the facts, they are now pretty much confessing that they are lacking in capacity to handle all their customers being online at once.

A few friends of mine who use their service have been complaining to me about having issues connecting, which were symptomatic of PN lacking in 'sessions' with BT, namely amount of concurrent users that can be placed through each unit of capacity.

Another friend also mentioned to me a month ago that PN were apparently very short of sessions, and were regularly disconnecting various users overnight to try and balance their session capacity.

Plusnet have now implemented 30 minute idle timeout on two of their broadband ADSL products. If your connection is idle for 30 minutes you'll be disconnected.

This does kind of go against the idea of an always on connection, and is without a doubt a step backwards.

http://www.adslguide.org.uk/newsarchive.asp?item=2349

The news story from ADSLGuide.

MovedGoalPosts · 25-08-2005, 13:11

That is bad. Readiing the FAQ. If you have a router, chances are you need to reboot it, because Plusnet cut you off. Pants. Takes us back to the bad old days of dial up.

And there was me thinking technology was supposed to be getting more efficient, more accessible, and easier to use.

Stuart · 25-08-2005, 13:29

It sounds like Plusnet are minimising costs a little more than they are prepared to admit.

Paul K · 25-08-2005, 13:52

Makes you wonder what they will do next, not exactly generating much positive publicity for themselves are they

etccarmageddon · 25-08-2005, 14:49

obviously they are in financial difficulties and are cost cutting accordingly.

Chrysalis · 25-08-2005, 19:26

How can a company who made 6 figure profit be in financial diffilculties?

They may take NTL's spot as worst isp soon

Paul K · 25-08-2005, 20:17

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chrysalis

How can a company who made 6 figure profit be in financial diffilculties?

They may take NTL's spot as worst isp soon

Nah, NTL won't lose their crown without a fight lol

slowcoach · 26-08-2005, 01:01

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ignition

Plusnet have now implemented 30 minute idle timeout on two of their broadband ADSL products. If your connection is idle for 30 minutes you'll be disconnected.

ISP's used to do this in the bad old days, we had to run some utility which kept the line active.

etccarmageddon · 26-08-2005, 13:28

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chrysalis

How can a company who made 6 figure profit be in financial diffilculties?

They may take NTL's spot as worst isp soon

bizarre! I stand corrected and thank you for pointing it out. so here's my new opinion...

they are behaving like they dont have enough money to run their network and acting like a company would if it had financial problems.

Florence · 26-08-2005, 15:05

Some of thesae have been answered in ISPr by a Plusnet member of staff.
This might help answer some questions

I doubt they are having money problems just trying to make more efficient use of the network. MPO I mean every 24hours my modem reboots surely this is a similar thing.

Bifta · 26-08-2005, 15:22

Quote:

Originally Posted by Florence

Some of thesae have been answered in ISPr by a Plusnet member of staff.
This might help answer some questions

I doubt they are having money problems just trying to make more efficient use of the network. MPO I mean every 24hours my modem reboots surely this is a similar thing.

No, because your ISP can NOT reboot your modem or router.

bpullen · 26-08-2005, 15:25

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ignition

Following the decision to kick two users off for complaining on their forums too much, which I can actually see the point to an extent, though I don't know all the facts, they are now pretty much confessing that they are lacking in capacity to handle all their customers being online at once.

Hi there,

We are not short of capacity across our network and that is not the primary reason for the proposal to introduce idle timeouts.

Quote:

A few friends of mine who use their service have been complaining to me about having issues connecting, which were symptomatic of PN lacking in 'sessions' with BT, namely amount of concurrent users that can be placed through each unit of capacity.

As mentioned, we haven't any problems with capacity that would prevent a user connecting. Can I ask what symptoms would point to this being the case!?

Quote:

Another friend also mentioned to me a month ago that PN were apparently very short of sessions, and were regularly disconnecting various users overnight to try and balance their session capacity.

The reason for the periods of load balancing that involved disconnecting users was nothing to do with session limits. We had an imbalance of 155Mbps and 622Mbps BT cenral pipes across our network. This inbalance saw some pipes getting full whilst others remained close to empty. This called for us to load balance the network that caused users to be disconnected. We have since decomissioned the 155Mbps pipes and replaced them with 622's that has resolved this problem outright.

Quote:

Plusnet have now implemented 30 minute idle timeout on two of their broadband ADSL products. If your connection is idle for 30 minutes you'll be disconnected.

We have not implemented this. Just added a clause to the T's & C's that says we may.

Quote:

This does kind of go against the idea of an always on connection, and is without a doubt a step backwards.

The ideas is to create a balance of users on each segment of central capacity so bandwidth is being used efficiently. Imagine a situation where an entire segment is full of idle users. No one else can connect to that pipe even though no bandwidth is passing through it! In addition to this a pipe full of 50:1 512K customers is not as efficient as a pipe full of 30:1 2MB users, because the bandwidth per session is lower. It is about striking a balance between the differing packages and speeds. As speeds generally increase, the eed for idle timeouts will decrease.

Kind Regards,

etccarmageddon · 26-08-2005, 15:33

Quote:

Originally Posted by Florence

...MPO I mean every 24hours my modem reboots surely this is a similar thing.

are you on ADSL? could it be your line is poor and it's reconnecting? my NTL line never reboots and is always on.
__________________

Quote:

Originally Posted by bpullen

Hi there,

We are not short of capacity across our network and that is not the primary reason for the proposal to introduce idle timeouts...

I thought ignition showed us a graph which clearly indicated your network was running at close to 95% at peak times or something like that.

Bifta · 26-08-2005, 15:43

I know if I had to reboot my modem after every 30 minute period of inactivity I'd be a bit peeved, I'd find a decent ADSL provider instead of using shower of cowboys like plus.net, not once but TWICE they've managed to completely ar$e up a migration of mine. The latest incidents only reinforce how bad they truly are and bpullen is a brave (wo)man to be posting on here.

Chrysalis · 26-08-2005, 17:02

HAHA man, I seen the graph you cant deny the network is overflowing.