FTTC Traffic Management on P2P & Pro

Hi,

My exchange gets FTTC in the summer so I'm starting to look at new providers.

I would be ok with a 120GB limit, but from what i can see the shaping during the day is pretty severe on the extra package.

The below page has charts for value fibre and extra fibre. There doesn't seem to be a specific chart for pro fibre (£5 extra) Does this just run at line speed?

P2P is limited from 2Mb/s to 512Kb/s from 12 noon til 1am, which would make a FTTC line pretty pointless as it's slower than my current ADSL2+ service.

Could someone clarify the effect of paying the £5 extra for pro?

http://www.plus.net/support/broadband/speed_guide/do...

The third drop-down on that page says:-
"Plusnet Pro is an Add-On for broadband customers on Plusnet Value, Extra, Value Fibre or Extra Fibre."

As you surmise, it says "Line speed". The trouble is that this page seems to contradict that, saying that some are "Managed".

You also need to read the corresponding entries on this page

They don't make it simple do they.....

I've also just found this page which says the fibre upload is at line speed, but line speed is actually only 2Mb/s not 10Mb/s you'd expect with fibre. I was on the plus.net site a lot yesterday and didn't see a single mention of the upload speed - its not called out at all except in the support pages.

Hmm.

I hadn't spotted the on about upload line speed, but yes, the FTTC upload of only 2Mbps is an issue for several people. Apparently they are trialling 10Mbps, but one wonders what they need to trial apart from their own upload capacity. Perhaps the traffic management on 10Mbps non-Pro.

They are basically a good ISP though, except their ticketing system and first line support are dodgy at times. Reps here and on the in-house forum are good and helpful.

Considering it's a standard BT product it's hard to understand what needs to trialled.

I was with plus.net ages ago and remember their forum staff were helpful and there seemed to be 10x as many reps on here than other ISP's which is good.

I'm off to see what the BT users think of infinity.

I'm starting to think I'll stick with Sky. FTTC seems to cost more for a fancy connection speed that can't be utilised unless I'm in bed which isn't much use.

Simple answer as to why the upload is only 2Mbs... cost. There are no technical reasons for the limitation as all FTTC lines support an upto 10Mbs upload speed, and this was what was provisioned on all the FTTC triallists lines (like mine).

BT Wholesale have 2 FTTC product options: one with a 2Mbs upload and one with no limit (10Mbs at present). The 2Mbs product is cheaper to Plusnet.

Plusnet are looking at providing a 10Mbs upload product (at an additional cost I suspect) in the future but no time scales have been published yet.

Pro packages do have line speed all the time except when overall network capacity is limited at which time all packages get some management.

Edited by deleted (Mon 02-Jan-12 11:33:16)

It does make you wonder what is the point of all the investment in fibre when it's going to be throttled to. at times. dial up speeds.

Guess who has forgotten just how dire dialup speeds actually were

In reply to a post by GeorgeLloyd:

It does make you wonder what is the point of all the investment in fibre when it's going to be throttled to. at times. dial up speeds.

Oh that is just nonsense! My experience with Plusnet value fibre, without the Pro add-on, has been superb.

Edited by kasg (Mon 02-Jan-12 14:39:36)

In reply to a post by Kr1s69:

I'm off to see what the BT users think of infinity.

I've found it quite good for the 18 months i've had it