Is the PlusNet Pro addon worth the extra money?

Just looking to move to PlusNet from Idnet due to needing the extra bandwidth but looking at the packages I can't decide if the PlusNet Pro addon is worth the extra £5 a month. Does it really make a difference or will I just be wasting my money?

By the way, we are ipstream here. No LLU or FTC unfortunately. Max speed is around 3mb.

Thanks in advance

Saul

http://www.plus.net/addons/pro/

See the prioritising of traffic.

Yeah I have read what it does but I wanted to know from people's own experience if in reality it made a difference?

Well FWIW I haven't noticed much of a difference going from Premier 1 to Extra. I think P1 was similar to Pro. Youtube streams and Beeb streams can occasionally be a bit laggy, but it might be the servers for all I know.

Ahh, ok so it might not actually be worth it then. It's fairly expensive for us anyway as we are out in the sticks on a small exchange (580 homes) so we don't get the benefit of discounted prices and pay the max rate of £17.99 pm so an extra fiver for what might be no gain doesn't sound like a good deal.

Pro is equivalent to the old PAYG and Pro packages.
Premier 1 was better than the current non pro offerings in some areas but still restricted download sites, servers, P2P and Usenet http://www.plus.net/support/broadband/products/archi...
Having said all that unless you are a heavy user (P2P, downloads not streaming, etc) you shouldn't see much advantage.
Fortunately the Pro addon is on a month by month basis so you can add or remove it as you wish.

I tried out the upload increase add-on for a while. The extra 330k was fine, and I noticed pings improved, since apparently that addon gets a better prioritisation somehow. I'm sure a PN rep will elaborate. I couldn't justify the extra £7.xx or whatever it costs. That might be another option if looking to get a better service though.

Yeah I don't want any restrictions, traffic shaping etc. With our speed of a max 3mb the last thing I need is it slowing down in the evenings, especially as we use iPlayer and YouTube quite a bit.

In reply to a post by pcmaczone:

Yeah I don't want any restrictions, traffic shaping etc. With our speed of a max 3mb the last thing I need is it slowing down in the evenings, especially as we use iPlayer and YouTube quite a bit.

But the traffic shaping restricts protocols to certain maximum speeds, so being on a slower maximum speed will not make it worse for you, proportionately it will have less effect. I suggest you try it without the Pro addon and, if you then think it would help, add it. My maximum speed is similar to yours and I never noticed any problems from the traffic shaping, on Value or Extra.

Thanks Kevin. Will give it a go and see how we get on.

Pro add on is not worth it to be honest! I had it before from extra to pro but see no difference, still much the same. Just save your fiver!

In reply to a post by adslmax:

Pro add on is not worth it to be honest! I had it before from extra to pro but see no difference, still much the same. Just save your fiver!

Thanks for that. Just went with the extra in the end. Thought it best to see how it goes first as I can always add it later for a month and if it makes no difference then drop it.

In reply to a post by pcmaczone:

In reply to a post by adslmax:

Pro add on is not worth it to be honest! I had it before from extra to pro but see no difference, still much the same. Just save your fiver!

Thanks for that. Just went with the extra in the end. Thought it best to see how it goes first as I can always add it later for a month and if it makes no difference then drop it.

Yes that's what I did!