I have been with them for a fortnight and find their online help via the Plusnet' forums and 'help assistance' very usefull.They answer the phone quickly and it's Bristish based.

Comparisons.

I would think for your usage ADSL24 or vivaciti, (Entanet resellers - Entanet do not sell direct to the public). And you asked for independent, I have never been a customer of either, just come here a lot and read a lot.

If you ask specifically in the Entanet forum for a link to the Entanet description of the ALT tool someone should be able to supply it.

Entanet have 6 Centrals - the kit that actually supplies you - and statistics available on the load on each - which is arbitrary as when you log in BT just routes you to whichever it feels like, not the lightest loaded.

The ALT is applied to any Central that is overloaded, not to all at once, and lowers the higher speeds in steps of 512kbps to a point where that Central runs smoothly. As it never goes below 2Mbps, people with a sync speed below around 4Mbps are unlikely to feel much effect, bearing in mind the BT Profiling system.

As the load decreases the ALT gradually raises the speed limit.

A common trick by Entanet customers if they think they are running slow is to check the Central stats. Then if they are on a slow Central, (they clearly know which one they are on), then disconnect and reconnect - which many routers let you do without re-syncing - and hope to be on a faster Central. They sometimes have a few goes till it works.

from ADSL24

In reply to:

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How does the Anti-Loss Tool work?

We make use of a system known as the Anti-loss tool (ALT) which has been developed by our wholesale provider Entanet. Whilst the majority of customers will not be affected by the ALT, it is designed to ensure that all customers are able to enjoy a positive experience with their broadband.

The ALT allows you to make full use of your connection for online activities such as:

- Browsing websites with no waiting between page loads
- Send and receive e-mail without the unnecessary wait times
- Take part in online gaming on your PC or Xbox Live without high latency and ping times
- Communicate via voice over IP and instant messaging services whilst not suffering any loss of communication
- and much more...

The ALT system works by continuously monitoring the central pipes. These centrals are used to transport data between the Entanet and BT network. There are currently 6 centrals, and the ALT system monitors each one individually to ensure that it maximises the overall performance.

During busy periods (normally between 10pm and 1am and during certain weekend times), there may be times where each central becomes almost fully loaded, potentially causing very slow download speeds, packet loss, dropped connections and high latency/ping times. Fortunately, the ALT has been set up to prevent this from occurring, enabling everyone to continue their normal online activities without noticing any of the potential setbacks that could caused by not having such a system in place.

As we don't think it's fair to simply "throttle" all customers down to a very low speed for prolonged periods of the day like some broadband providers, so we use the ALT to monitor the capacity on the centrals and gradually reduce/increase the throughput speed (if necessary) to an acceptable level for all.

When a central reaches 96% capacity and remains at that for a consecutive five minutes, the ALT will begin to reduce the maximum throughput of lines by 500 kbps to ensure there is no packet loss, high loading times or effect on the above mentioned activities (browsing, e-mail etc). If after reducing the speed the capacity remains at 96% or above, it will continue to reduce the maximum throughput every minute by a further 500 kbps until the capacity of the pipe lowers to 91% or less. The lowest the ALT will reduce the throughput to is 2 Mbps (2000 kbps), therefore lines that are not able to receive above 2 Mbps (2000 kbps) because of distance from the exchange or line quality should never notice any decrease in speed due to the ALT.

Once the capacity on a central lowers back to 91% or below, the ALT will start to increase the maximum speed back up by 200 kbps every minute, until it reaches the maximum throughput level again. The ALT will continue to raise and lower the maximum throughput speed during the busy periods until the capacity decreases and all is back to normal. It only increases by 200 Kbps at a time to prevent the central from rising back up to 96% capacity straight away and thus causing it to lower by a further 500 Kbps again.

Remember, the ALT only reduces speeds when a central reaches 96% capacity or above, which is a very small percentage of the time under normal circumstances.

Without the ALT in place, the centrals would reach 100% causing packet loss, very low speeds and very high latency. On the whole, the ALT is stabilising the network to prevent this from happening, thus keeping everyones connection performing at an acceptable level. It is not in place to stop the need for more capacity being added and to permanently slow down your throughput, and as such new centrals or additional 155MB segments will be added when the need arises.

As BT cannot control which central you connect to at the time your modem/router logs on, there may be times where other centrals are less busy, and thus by performing a disconnect/reconnect on your router status page or USB dial-up connection, or by rebooting the router may connect you to a different central offering higher performance at the time. As the ALT is continuously monitoring the centrals, it's very likely that the centrals will all be performing at the same level in any case, so there is not always a benefit from reconnecting.

We provide you with tools to check the status of the centrals, which one you are connected to, and what speed you should expect at the current time

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Thanks Tony. I shall be able to point others at this in the future.

Edited by RobertoS (Sat 08-Mar-08 14:33:27)

that's confusing! i know idnet have a very good reputation, but op said �25/month was too much, and downloads about 60Gb/month (120Gb 1 month!), idnet's going to be at least �35/month for the same usage, and on the heavy months around �95!
or am i missing something?
the only box idnet seem to tick, in the ops post, is the lack of port blocking and shaping.

And lots of love.

Post deleted by RobertoS

I think I was mixing the OP up with another. Sorry.

Plusnet are not an Entanet reseller.

Plusnet have a very complicated traffic-shaping and throttling system. The only good thing is that they publish it, but I can't understand it.

Edited by RobertoS (Sat 08-Mar-08 17:18:07)

cheers, bob.
maybe edit 1st line to make more sense?
i agree that plusnets throttling is complicated, but at least its honest and transparent, unlike many (most) of the others.