P2P speed test, for plusnet Extra Fibre

Hi folks. I would like if some of you on Plusnets Extra Fibre could download a legal torrent file in the link below. Then please tell me what speed your getting. This is so I can see some real world tests on how much plusnets traffic management limits P2P on it's network. Different times of the day and night if you could please.

Unfortunately conflicting information about and this is the only way, so I can decide who to go with. Here is a snap shot I did at 5PM today with my current isp. That is very good for me as for the speed I get.

See this snapshot http://i50.tinypic.com/2wmgbvl.jpg

Link http://ocremix.org/torrents/ Please download the first torrent, or one that is well seeded.


Let it run for a while as it takes time to build up speed.

Edited by deleted (Thu 08-Nov-12 20:56:15)

Come on. Their must be some plusnetters on fibre that could do a quick test. It's only fair. Somebody on BT has done a test for me, see here. http://forums.thinkbroadband.com/bt/f/4177873-p2p-sp...

Other than that, I will have to asume that torrent speed's on plusnet are very poor and worse than BT infinity fibre. Thanks

Edited by deleted (Sat 10-Nov-12 12:51:05)

Its a little like the share world.

Past performance or current performance is not a guarantee of future performance. So picking based on the test results from one or two people is not a great idea.

P2P is in theory so widely used that ISP's own forums should be full of complaints if it was massively slow.

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

Plusnet Extra Fibre
12-8am 8am-4pm 4-6pm 6-8pm 8-10pm 10-11pm 11pm-12am
Browsing Line speed
Email Line speed
VoIP Line speed
Peer to peer / Usenet Line speed 2Mb/s Line speed
Plusnet FTP Line speed
External FTP Line speed 2Mb/s Line speed
VPN Line speed
Gaming Line speed
Download sites Line speed
Download servers Line speed
Streaming Line speed
Other Line speed

In reply to a post by camieabz:

Peer to peer / Usenet Line speed 2Mb/s Line speed

For clarity, and since the post was not table-formatted, the 2Mbps refers to 8-10pm. At all other times it's at line speed. I don't use torrents so can't vouch for it.

Edited by kasg (Sat 10-Nov-12 14:09:31)

In reply to a post by kasg:

I don't use torrents so can't vouch for it.

Nor me, and from time to time torrent users on Plusnet have complained of slow P2P speeds (e.g. 100k).

Ok but it's better than relying on the isp to be honest or an isp that don't have the knowledge, understand.

It's the only thing we have to compair.

I see that from another forum while I was looking about but that don't mean PN will stick to it. They even want you to pay extra, to remove the traffic management as some add-on.

http://www.neilturner.me.uk/2005/11/17/the_plusnet_e...

Edited by deleted (Sat 10-Nov-12 20:14:50)

That's so ancient that you could barely rely on it for the then-new 8Mbps services, let alone the 20Mbps services, and certainly not fibre.

When I first went to fibre, 18 months ago, the speeds were more restricted than they are now (on both extra & value) - and yet you still didn't notice any slowdowns (I don't use P2P much, or News at all nowadays). The current restrictions for Extra are, basically, almost unrestricted.

Yes, the "pro add-on" is an extra, available if you really need it. But the honest truth for fibre users is that there is very little need for it. Advice on Plusnet's own forums is that you should try without the add-on, as you will be unlikely to need it.

So, in the time since that 2005 review, Plusnet have gone both more restrictive and then less restrictive.

Right now I'm not at home, so can't do a test for fibre-extra - only plain-extra on 14Mbps ADSL.

In reply to a post by superspeed:

Come on. Their must be some plusnetters on fibre that could do a quick test. It's only fair.

I was going to, but then realised I was away from home, and could only do an ADSL test on plain Extra.

I was a little concerned that your example picture showed you downloading something truly legit - a copy of Knoppix - while the site you linked to was for music, and was most certainly not obviously legit (even if you asserted it was).

Other than that, I will have to asume that torrent speed's on plusnet are very poor and worse than BT infinity fibre. Thanks

That's hard to tell. Plusnet publish their policy for P2P, while BT don't.

I did the Knoppix test before I asked in another forum on TB, for some legal torrents. Far as I am aware, the torrents linked to are legal otherwise I would not of posted them. The mods most likely would of removed the link as well.

You can download that Knoppix if you want, it's all the same test.

Link http://torrent.unix-ag.uni-kl.de/stats.html?info_has...

Edited by deleted (Sat 10-Nov-12 21:38:19)

It may be old but gives you a view of what plusnet are, or were like. Things don't change to much with isp's, other than speed really.

Think it's best to use a fibre-extra connection as the normal extra may have a different system.

Edited by deleted (Sat 10-Nov-12 21:35:59)

In reply to a post by superspeed:

It may be old but gives you a view of what plusnet are, or were like. Things don't change to much with isp's, other than speed really.

Their management changed. Then BT bought them. Were you aware of that?

And the reason BT bought them was rumoured to be to get hold of Plusnet's Ellacoya expertise.

If you're a provider of a finite service, you want to know how it's being used and by whom.

I'm sure the water companies would like to know if 45% of their water was being poured onto lawns by 5% of the customers.

Edit: It's also handy for predicting future expansion strategies.

Edited by camieabz (Sun 11-Nov-12 01:51:20)

They also bought Dabs, but Dabs don't sell Ellacoyas.

Just nearly everything else .

Plusnet don't sell Ellacoyas either, so far as I know.

I've connected back home remotely (using TeamViewer) and run a few tests.

The downside is that the machine I'm connected to is connected (there) via wireless G, so is limited to 25Mbps... and TeamViewer must be using some of those. The raw connection is 80/20, so the wireless is definitely the limiting factor.

Still, here's the results I have so far...

11:30: 2.2MBps or 17Mbps.
14:00: 2.2MBps or 17Mbps.
16:00: Between 1.5 and 2.2 MBps, or 12-17Mbps.

I might try to get the wife to connect it wired later, to see what happens then.

Yes I knew BT own them.

When I called PN days ago, I asked about it. I was basically told, even though BT own PN, that PN do thier own thing and work in their own way. They are not affected by BT. It's still PN and not BT

So that mean's they can keep things in the traffic management department, they way they used to.

Thanks for the tests.

Wired test would be better as that's what I will be using but isp's tend to use wireless, as a get out clause and blame the customer, because wireless is not that reliable.

Edited by deleted (Sun 11-Nov-12 21:46:18)

I clicked through on your link in sig and came across this. http://www.plus.net/support/broadband/speed_guide/tr...

Not bad at showing how much they prioritise but it does show how poor P2P is.

Plusnet Value Fibre - Plusnet Extra Fibre
P2P= Best Effort P2P= Bronze

Nothing between them really and you only get gold if you pay for, Plusnet Pro Add-On. More money.

Prioritisation is a far different thing from speed limiting.

Its main function is to ensure that low bandwidth, highly latency dependent traffic such as VOIP and gaming get through easily, with gradations for other forms of traffic.

For instance, I would be highly annoyed if a browser page load for me took 3 seconds instead of less than a second because of your and other P2P users' downloads. Gamers would be justifiably incensed if they lost every game because of the same torrenters.

It is clearly in the interests of most internet users, not just PN customers, that torrents should be early losers in the competition for throughput.

An interesting, but unknown statistic, would be how many users on each ISP use torrents, and how many do not. It would also be interesting to know how many ISPs do or do not have any such controls in place, but just choose not to make them public.

I fear you repeatedly draw negative conclusions from the openness of PN about what they do, as opposed to the complete silence from most other ISPs. Has it occurred to you those others might be scared of comparisons?

In reply to a post by superspeed:

... you only get gold if you pay for, Plusnet Pro Add-On. More money.

I wasn't aware that Pro affected prioritisation. Does it? I thought it was only to do with the removal of speed caps.

That was wireless:

In reply to a post by WWWombat:

11:30: 2.2MBps (17Mbps).
14:00: 2.2MBps (17Mbps).
16:00: 1.5 - 2.2 MBps (12-17Mbps).

This is wired, and crossing either side of the "8PM-10PM" managed period:

19:00: 1.0-4.1 MBps (8-33Mbps)
19:50: 1.4-4.1 MBps (11-33Mbps)
20:30: 10-200 KBps (80Kbps - 1.6Mbps)
21:30: 10-200 KBps (80Kbps - 1.6Mbps)
22:20: 3.0-3.9 MBps (24-31Mbps)

Even pausing things when not directly testing, Knoppix was complete by that point.

All figures are as presented by BitTorrent. They don't look to include overheads (either P2P overheads or the basic ethernet and PPP overheads).

Well to me they seem linked. Something on low priority isn't going to be allowed to download fast or be unrestricted. That list basically show you that.

For instance, I would be highly annoyed if a browser page load for me took 3 seconds instead of less than a second because of your and other P2P users' downloads. Gamers would be justifiably incensed if they lost every game because of the same torrenters.

Think would be annoyed if someone rabbiting on VOIP, made my P2P slow down when, they have a normal moblie/landline for that.

I fear you repeatedly draw negative conclusions from the openness of PN about what they do, as opposed to the complete silence from most other ISPs. Has it occurred to you those others might be scared of comparisons?

We all have a right to know the truth about a product we are buying, so nothing negative about it. Why would anyone be scared of comparisons, that's crazy. Comparisons help, just like that, bit out of date fibre isp list your mate did, helped me.

Edited by deleted (Sun 11-Nov-12 22:54:05)

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

I wasn't aware that Pro affected prioritisation. Does it?

Yup:

- Everything that is "Titanium" stays that way - such as the VoIP and Gaming stuff you mention.
- VPN traffic is upgraded from Gold to Titanium - so is an obvious gain for business or home-workers seeking solid work connectivity.
- All other categories that are lower than "Gold" are promoted to Gold.

The most obvious difference is the "Other" category, where previously unrecognised traffic is categorised (perhaps new games, or perhaps something more "novel"). Most packages treat this category as suspicious, and give it a low priority (Silver or Gold-plated). The Pro add-on goes the opposite way, and deems "suspicious" as being very important (Titanium).

You tell me. That seems like another way of saying, pay for this and we will lift the restrictions. Both speed and priority.

Thanks again for the tests.

Still quite slow for your connection and worse from 8pm. But that's PN limit at that time from what I was told.

Ah! Thanks .

I clearly needed to go through the related pages.

In reply to a post by superspeed:

Well to me they seem linked. Something on low priority isn't going to be allowed to download fast or be unrestricted. That list basically show you that.

They are linked in a sense - but only because the lower priority can *cause* lower speeds, but does not *force* a lower speed.

Something on a low priority is going to be allowed to download fast - but *only* when there is sufficient bandwidth left after all the higher priority traffic has been dealt with.

That means it isn't truly unrestricted - but the restriction is a dynamic one, which accumulates from everyone else who is using any higher priority protocol.

The point is to make sure that those protocols which are small but latency-critical get through quickly, while those protocols that hog bandwidth without caring about latency come along behind.

In essence, P2P is being allowed to hoover-up all the spare bandwidth available - but in a controlled fashion.

In reply to a post by superspeed:

I fear you repeatedly draw negative conclusions from the openness of PN about what they do, as opposed to the complete silence from most other ISPs. Has it occurred to you those others might be scared of comparisons?

We all have a right to know the truth about a product we are buying, so nothing negative about it. Why would anyone be scared of comparisons, that's crazy. Comparisons help, just like that, bit out of date fibre isp list your mate did, helped me.

Exactly.

So you are likely to go to an ISP that refuses to publish any such information. No truth there.

Your choice .

In reply to a post by superspeed:

That seems like another way of saying, pay for this and we will lift the restrictions. Both speed and priority.

I think the name of the add-on says it all. I think it is meant to appeal to hard-core requirements, whether they are P2P addicts, or serious home-workers.

Think of it as a means to allow yourself to opt-out of the restrictions where your personal requirements are non-standard.

But note that even when opted-out, the protocols that require low latency are still treated at a higher priority than the bulk protocols. That's quite simply because they just wouldn't work.

I see what you mean but I won't be paying extra for that add-on. I'm probably not hardcore enough on P2P plus I need to watch my budget.

Don't see why I should paymore anyway.

Maybe it would be good for someone to do a test with that add-on but it's not essential to me.

In reply to a post by superspeed:

Still quite slow for your connection and worse from 8pm. But that's PN limit at that time from what I was told.

On the wired connection, my speedtests show 60Mbps - so I'm being compromised by having to run the machine remotely. BitTorrent has less UI interaction, but I suspect it is still being affected. However, I can only tell you that in a couple of months

The 8pm-10pm limit was clearly noticeable - the PN pages suggest I ought to be limited to 2Mbps by the rate limits, and (as 8pm-10pm is the busy-hour) is the time I'd be most likely to be hit by any prioritisation problems.

BTW - if you want to see the effect of the prioritisation on latency, take a look at Plusnet's graphs of the latency over the last 24 hours.

There are also graphs for bandwidth usage too.

Why have I never found that info !!

Superb. Tr�s int�ressant.

Shows we are on WBMC not WBC, which I was fairly sure of but not certain, and the gateways are fed from all four MSILs.

The DNS graphs are intersting as well.

In reply to a post by superspeed:

I see what you mean but I won't be paying extra for that add-on. I'm probably not hardcore enough on P2P plus I need to watch my budget.

Don't see why I should paymore anyway.

Absolutely. With Fibre-Extra, the only reason to be on "Pro" would be because you *needed* P2P to work quickly between 8PM and 10PM. If you can accept the hoovering principle outside these hours (especially during the midnight-8AM off-peak slot), then it is better value-for-money to go without.

Did I already say this? Most people on the PN forums advise against adding Pro to Fibre (especially Fibre-Extra), as the feeling is that it is unnecessary. I haven't yet seen a case where it has proven necessary.

PN, like any other ISP, buys bandwidth from BT in terms of the capacity per second, not the total transferred over the course of a day. The difference is that the total capacity purchased must be enough for the peak busy-hour, rather than the average over the day... and the unused capacity at other hours is just a costly overhead.

This can be read 2 ways:
- PN have to do their best to keep P2P traffic out of the busy hour, so they don't have to purchase too much capacity. This done in 2 ways, by rate-limiting during the busy-hour, and by making usage free overnight.
- "Pro" users can be assumed to be using their full speed in the busy-hour, so their £5pm contribution has to go directly towards the cost of extra busy-hour capacity. Every non-pro users gets to take advantage of the extra "spare" capacity that is then available outside the busy hour.

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

Why have I never found that info !!

There was a long period where the data was out of date. Some of the graphs weren't being updated (the time axis never changed), while some of them didn't include gateways that you could plainly see yourself connecting through.

You've seen the Gateway checker, haven't you? From that, you can follow your own averages on the graphs.

In reply to a post by WWWombat:

On the wired connection, my speedtests show 60Mbps - so I'm being compromised by having to run the machine remotely. BitTorrent has less UI interaction, but I suspect it is still being affected. However, I can only tell you that in a couple of months

Ah - it looks like TeamViewer is something of a CPU hog. When BitTorrent is running, it then takes up the remainder of the CPU load available.

I now suspect that my overall throughput was limited by the fact that there was insufficient processor power.

I'm on Plusnet Extra Fibre with a sync speed of 68Mbps, I've just set the Knoppix distro downloading, here's the speed a few minutes ago.

http://community.plus.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/11...

I've paused it for now so I'll restart it tonight during peak time (I'll do one before 8pm and one between 8 and 10pm).

If you're happy with the 2 hour restriction then all good, for us to remove that during that specific period would mean more capacity required and therefore increased costs. For the general user the way we do it seem to work and for those that want that 8pm-10pm restriction to be removed then Pro can be added.

Well not long now for the others tests. I just want to check a few things.
As you work for plusnet, is that a plusnet connecton or your own?

If it's a plusnet connection, won't it get priority, as it's plusnets main connection?

I may have got this wrong way round but that is megabytes on that snapshot you did? Not megabits.

Edited by deleted (Mon 12-Nov-12 20:51:33)

PN, like any other ISP, buys bandwidth from BT in terms of the capacity per second, not the total transferred over the course of a day. The difference is that the total capacity purchased must be enough for the peak busy-hour, rather than the average over the day... and the unused capacity at other hours is just a costly overhead.

I thought isp's rent a pipe from BT wholesale? By the second sounds very expensive. Would of thought they would pay per Gigabyte or Terabyte.

Edited by deleted (Mon 12-Nov-12 21:06:03)

They pay for throughput Gbits per second, not GBytes transmitted.

The charging point is the MSIL(s) at the WBC node where they rent so many Gbps. The MSIL itself remains BT Wholesale property, rented by the ISP. Normally the MSIL maximum capacity, (in the early days the max was 1Gbps but a 10Gbps one was imminent years ago), is considererably greater than the amount the ISP rents.

So they may rent 6Gpbs, and the actual throughput will vary. I'll link to a graph in a few minutes. (Edit - Link. Looks like multiple MSILs at each unless there are higher than 10Gbps MSILs now. EDit 2 - those graphs show the total of up and down. I think they will be rented separately with 10Gbps the maximum download. Guessing again! ).

If the user demand exceeds the rented amount, the extra is supplied automatically. But at (I think) 5% excess throughput, penal pricing applies. I expect repeated over-use of up to 5% also has some limits but I'm guessing.

I have no idea how the ISP's backhaul from the MSILs to their servers is charged. That can be "BT" or third-party. A different issue.

Edited by RobertoS (Mon 12-Nov-12 21:53:10)

I thought isp's rent a pipe from BT wholesale? By the second sounds very expensive. Would of thought they would pay per Gigabyte or Terabyte.

As per my twice edited previous post, nope. That's what gives rise to all sorts of complications, as basically nearly all ISPs charge the user by the number of GBs received, and sometimes sent.

Working out what to charge for a user plan, and how much throughput to rent, is not simple.

Entanet WBC throughput meters.

Thanks and for the other posts. Think plusnet and BT should do something like that.

That can also indicate how busy them areas are.

There's a link in my third post back to a similar PN meter - shows the last 24 hour history at 30-minute intervals, updated every 30 minutes.

If you look at the "path" above the PN graphs and go back a step, there's one for the latency as well.

My gateway at present is ptw-ag03...which though? Faraday? Colindale? Which Faraday or Colindale for that matter?

In that sense the graphs are kind of useless unless there's a massive rise in latency across the network. I suppose if your gateway was high latency, then you could spot it, but with QoS, and load balancing, I doubt it would be a big issue. A reboot or two would change the gateway.

Regarding that Entanet 21CN Interconnect Status link; is that just Entanet's network or is that some measure of current UK latency?

Just Entanet's MSILs. Note that just like PN, there are separate ones for WBC and IPSC.

In reply to a post by camieabz:

My gateway at present is ptw-ag03...which though? Faraday? Colindale?

That thought occurred to me as well. I assume that the two link up before hitting the gateways, so I agree with you.

Which Faraday or Colindale for that matter?

How do you mean? I don't understand the question .

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

How do you mean? I don't understand the question .

No matter. It was the latency graphs (spikes), and there are two instances of each gateway in the key, but they're the same colour.

I would of thought PN chris would of posted back this morning about his peak time tests. I doesn't inspire me to go to plusnet for my fibre.

Maybe I was right in that, chris is using a inhouse connection that won't have the same restrictions as a domestic customer's fibre service.

Did some searching about plusnet vs BT fibre last night and mixed results. MSE says that Plusnets traffic management is strong but not on BT. Scroll down and click full MSE review.

Tech specs
Plusnet Fibre was available to 15% of the UK when it launched in Apr 2011, but is set to be available to two-thirds of UK premises by 2015. You'll need a BT or Plusnet-based landline to get Plusnet Fibre. Same for BT http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/phones/cheap-broadband

Price: £23.05/month or £19.55/monthSpeed: Check online (do not use link to sign up)Download limit: 250GB or 40GBContract length: 18 monthsModem/connection included? No, £55Migration fee for switchers? NoTech support phone costs? FreeTraffic shaping: Yes, strong

Another link to reviews.
http://www.broadbandgenie.co.uk/forum/1579

Personally I wont touch Plusnet with a barge pole. Was a customer for about 18 months, had a few problems regarding the service going down, billing mistakes, lost referals, millions of lost customers emails, getting spammed 3 years after I left them using mail addresses that had only appeared on their webmail platform for 24 hours and were unused due to them holding on to all old mailboxes and not securing their mail system against comprimise......the list goes on. They might be better since they were bought out by BT.

I was with Virgin for a number of years and I had a very good time with them - but I never had to deal with them and I never had speed capacity issues.
If you can find out what your area is like and there are not lots or reports of overloaded UBRs I'd recommend them in a heartbeat, but if you find reports of packet loss problems or slow speeds I'd stay away.

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18...


Then this. http://community.bt.com/t5/BT-Infinity/Just-joined-i...

just switched over from plusnet fibre to BT infinity unlimited fibre, on plusnet id get good dowload speeds sometimes 4mb, first test on infinity tonight and its awful, max 162kbs most of the time its steady at 10kbs, please someone tell me this isnt what ive got to look forward to !!!! plusnet was great, just capped to 120gb per month... hence why i left...

Anyone on here that has jumped from plusnet fibre to BT infinity? Let us know if it's worse or better than PN.

Back later.

Edited by deleted (Tue 13-Nov-12 22:11:08)

I'm not sure how many times you want Plusnet's traffic management explained to you, everyone has been pretty up-front about it. Chris said he was using Plusnet Extra fibre, not an "in-house" connection. I believe him. I am sure that the satisfied Plusnet fibre customers who have posted here outnumber the unhappy ones and it's generally unhappy customers that post in forums in the first place.

Incidentally I would take issue with MSE's "Yes, strong" rating for the traffic shaping, especially compared to BT's "Yes, at peak times" rating. And just look at the comparative customer service ratings!

Edited by kasg (Tue 13-Nov-12 18:05:31)

You might find these two pages useful.

Upload speed capping . But! That page clearly needs its Key updating as it obviously hasn't been changed from the days when 40/2 as the only product.

Abnormal load occurrences. Note that Plan A is the normal, and specifically says the rate limit is not necessarily fully applied - with more information.

Contrast with the total lack of any detail from BT for any situation, and the posts you are seeing about upstream.

Chris - please see the paragraph and link about the upload speed capping in my post just now. (PM'ing as well).

That was using a normal residential Fibre Extra connection at my home.

Ok thanks. Did you get a screen grab of the other tests you said you would do last night?

Edited by deleted (Tue 13-Nov-12 21:27:56)

Kev I don't need it explained and chris has now confirmed it, was his home PN fibre. Juts need screen grabs from last night now.

When I am looking to buy something or pay for a service, I like to go into as much detail as I can. I also like to see real tests and read good or bad reviews from customers. I don't just buy something because one or two people say it's good.

I posted before, good and bad on what I found out about plusnet. That last one I posted is saying that Plusnet was faster than BT.

If I am going to commit to an 18 month contract with BT or Plusnet, I want to make sure I buy the right product. That is what thinkbroadband is all about.

I am also waiting for a few others who said they would do a P2P test for me in a few weeks. Need to wait for connection to PN fibre.

Edited by deleted (Tue 13-Nov-12 21:41:42)

If they cap download why not the upload? Thats great but don't make sense.

I posted about BT on the BT forum, what my findings were but still in the dark.

Are you saying it is untrue?

In reply to a post by superspeed:

I would of thought PN chris would of posted back this morning about his peak time tests. I doesn't inspire me to go to plusnet for my fibre.

Maybe I was right in that, chris is using a inhouse connection that won't have the same restrictions as a domestic customer's fibre service.

I see Chris has answered back anyway, but I have to question your questioning!

What on earth would be the point in Chris posting (very publicly) some speed tests that were only achievable by Plusnet employees, but do so labelling them as "Plusnet Extra Fibre"? It would *guarantee* howls of complaint.

It's OK for you to ask for help & information, but try not to nitpick when you get given something!

Did some searching about plusnet vs BT fibre last night and mixed results. MSE says that Plusnets traffic management is strong but not on BT.

That is one to take up with MSE. Plusnet's traffic management used to be harsher on Extra Fibre, and is now barely there. Value fibre used to be even harsher, and is now barely there either. The changes have been relatively recent - but frankly you didn't actually notice the limitations.

Anyway, I suspect that MSE's rating is based on old information.

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18...

And from this one you quote someone who must have left Plusnet over 6 or 7 years ago, before BT were the owners. I'm not sure how this is going to be relevant to your experience over the next 12 months.

The problem is that you will find *many* people who complain about their ISP, because there have been problems - both real & imagined. The loudest, most vitriolic complainers are not necessarily the best indicators of service to *any* organisation. Its the ones who produce the best evidence to backup their position that I'd pay attention to - not the volume of the vitriol.

http://www.broadbandgenie.co.uk/forum/1579

When I go to that link, I see someone complaining about the WiFi performance of their router in a 3 storey house.

In fact there is a lot of noise in the PN forums about whether the (cheap) router supplied is capable of supporting 80Mbps over WiFi. I have to say that, knowing WiFi as I do, I would not be relying on any cheap router to provide *fast* WiFi spread throughout a many-storey property. I'd be contemplating a much better solution (that was undoubtedly more costly). Here too the issue is whether people have the right expectations of the product.

There isn't much need to look at any others, really. The question is not what problems are around, or what vitriol can be found, or what loud complainers can be seen to utter nonsense when their expectations are out of whack. The stuff that matters is whether there are the "right number" of problems (ie not too many, for the number of customers), and whether they get solved reasonably quickly.

PN make mistakes (usually because Openreach are making the mistakes on their behalf). But they have a good team of people populating the forums whose job is to sort out the problems. There are also a lot of PN customers on the same forums, helping other customers.

No, just surprised and someone could leave a torrent on upload 24/7, without a worry.

In reply to a post by superspeed:

When I am looking to buy something or pay for a service, I like to go into as much detail as I can. I also like to see real tests and read good or bad reviews from customers. I don't just buy something because one or two people say it's good.

It's a good idea, but you need to be able to weigh the amount of trust you place in the people whose reviews you read.

The louder someone squeals an opinion, the less I trust them. The more emphatic a point they attempt to make, the less I trust them. The calmer they are as they present facts and context, the more I trust them. The calmer they appear to approach resolution of a problem - the more I trust them and am willing to help. The more they rant unintelligibly, the more I ignore them. The more someone acts with cynicism or a hidden agenda, or a fixed mindset, the more I leave them alone.

The problem with *just* seeking out the bad reviews is that you tend to get the worst reviewers. It tends to be the people who are the worst at getting a solution because they can't accept help (or listen to the help offered), or who have the wrong expectations of what they're asking for.

What you really want to find are the people who had problems and got them solved -find out their experience of that process. Find the calm people.

That last one I posted is saying that Plusnet was faster than BT.

He probably wasn't saying that at all. He was probably saying that he didn't understand what his problem was, and was rushing to a conclusion before letting anyone calmly deal with the problem.

If I am going to commit to an 18 month contract with BT or Plusnet, I want to make sure I buy the right product. That is what thinkbroadband is all about.

True, but you need to learn who on here are worth listening to.

Not everyone should be given equal weighting.

Sorry, completely missed doing this between 8 and 10pm. I've just unpaused the same file and am getting 7.6MB/s currently. I'll set a reminder on my phone to test between 8 & 10 tomorrow night.

http://community.plus.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/11...

What about that support page Chris?

It was fair enough that it was line speed on 40/2, (Page last updated 23rd May 2011), but is it unlimited on 80/20? superspeed rightly needs to know, as upload throttling seems to be one of the issues with BT.

Edited by RobertoS (Tue 13-Nov-12 22:31:34)

On Value Fibre we provide on the 40/10 product (up to 38Mb down and up to 9.5Mb up) and Extra Fibre is the 80/20 product (up to 76Mb down and up to 19.5Mb up) assuming the line test supports these speeds.

The only upload speed limit is on Value Fibre where VPN is restricted, other than that it will perform at the line's capability.

I'm not sure what you mean by 'is it unlimited', I assumed you were referring to the speeds rather than usage allowance as the usage allowances include data up and down.

I'll flag the support page internally too as it obviously need looking at.

Edited by chrisparr (Tue 13-Nov-12 22:57:13)

You clearly haven't followed the link I have provided in three places, (with explanations), to the offending page.

It says upload on Fibre products is at Line speed at all times. It also says

�Line Speed depends on the type of broadband you have

�Fixed speed: up to 256Kb/s
�Max DSL: up to 448Kb/s
�Max DSL Premium: up to 832Kb/s*
�ADSL2/ADSL2+ Annex A: up to 1.3Mb/s**
�ADSL2+ Annex M: up to 2.5Mb/s***
�Fibre: up to 2Mb/s

Page last updated 23rd May 2011

Get a grip please, I'm trying to help with inaccuracies on your website that might deter some people. .

I see you have edited you post whilst I was replying, and adding that you will flag the page.

By "unlimited", yes I refer to speed, but there is a heck of a lot of difference between a table that says unlimited up to 2Mbps and one that should refer to to a 20Mbps product. It does not follow that it will still be unlimited on 20Mbps.

There's always plenty of spare capacity on upload so it never has to be restricted. But...

If you leave a torrent uploading at full speed you will find it compromises your download speeds because your computer has to send back Acks before the server sends the next lot of data. Even if you are on a leased line I'd suggest setting the torrent upload speed to well below the upload line speed!

In reply to a post by superspeed:

If they cap download why not the upload? Thats great but don't make sense.

It makes sense if you relate it back to PN having to purchase connectivity per second.

On download, their need is to control the volume of data used in busy-hour (8-10pm), and they do this by a) the 'stick' of throttling bulk protocols, and b) the 'carrot' of giving free, unthrottled, use overnight. Both carrot & stick work together to limit the download rate.

On upload, there is less need for them to control the busy hour. Upstream volumes tend to be a lower proportion during busy-hour, however the WBMC contracted bandwidths are symmetrical - so there is plenty of room. The 'carrot' still exists that continues to shift some of the volume, but it seems that the 'stick' just isn't needed.

I posted about BT on the BT forum, what my findings were but still in the dark.

I'm looking forward to seeing the BT support staff trying out some P2P tests for you

Here's the same file at 7.15pm tonight, I'll do one during the football too and post that up later.

http://community.plus.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/11...

It's OK for you to ask for help & information, but try not to nitpick when you get given something!

Not nitpicking, just attention to detail

Currently going between 220KB/s and 350KB/s

Sorry, no screenshot at the moment will try and grab one shortly (I'm using RDP into my home PC)

Get a grip please, I'm trying to help with inaccuracies on your website that might deter some people. .

Thanks roberto, you made me ROFLMAO at what you said thier. Bellisimo.
Reminded me of what your like in a certain thread .

BTW this is good way to do it but just a shame it's out of date. http://www.kitz.co.uk/isp/plusnet_shaping.htm

Yes, a lot of us used to use the Kitz comparison charts.

They are still useful for people on legacy products thinking of re-grading. But for new joiners the current Plusnet pages are well laid out - when they're right .

Yes that is right but I have also found, that if you reduce your uplaod to much, it can actually slow down your download.

People do forget that without uploads, nobody would be able to download torrents. I seed until I have uploaded what I have downloaded but I don't leave it on 24/7. Stop and seed at a later date as well.

Ok thanks.

I'm looking forward to seeing the BT support staff trying out some P2P tests for you

I'm not sure BT know how to torrent. Anway I think PN staff should make torrent testing a regular thing. May help to keep ontop of thier service and make sure customers are always happy with torrent speeds.

Ok, thanks for the tests chris.

Edited by deleted (Wed 14-Nov-12 20:31:34)

http://usergroup.plus.net/prodcomp1.php is based on Kitz's work and is I think up to date.

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

They are still useful for people on legacy products thinking of re-grading. But for new joiners the current Plusnet pages are well laid out - when they're right .

If in doubt,

E-mail good. P2P baaad!

Thanks but for some reason, it would not load that graphic past linespeed/speed.

Had to paste this into another tab
http://usergroup.plus.net/prodcomp1.php

If you compare plusnet extra fibre with plusnet value fibre, not a lot in it, other than gaming is higher priority on plusnet extra fibre.

Compare plusnet extra fibre with say old broadband pro, their is no restrictions at all. It's even the same price.

I will say, anyone who thinks they will get unrestricted access for £5 a month on new or like the old ones, think again. Pay peanuts get monkeys. £20 a month is about right.

Edited by deleted (Thu 15-Nov-12 16:43:04)

In reply to a post by superspeed:

I will say, anyone who thinks they will get unrestricted access for £5 a month on new or like the old ones, think again. Pay peanuts get monkeys. £20 a month is about right.

You have completely lost me there. Anyone else understand?

Kev what I am trying to say is, that the cheaper the price, the more likely you will be traffic shaped in most cases. You can't expect much for £4.99 month, it's just not sustainable.

A bit like this comparaison I have done. Old or not that's what I am talking about http://s6.postimage.org/r5ylv1b41/PN_Graph.png

Edited by deleted (Thu 15-Nov-12 21:04:37)

In reply to a post by superspeed:

You can't expect much for £4.99 month, it's just not sustainable.

OK, but I wasn't aware that anyone was offering fibre broadband for £4.99 a month.

I was talking generally. Doesn't have to be fibre and plusnet do do, offers around that range.

This is the closest to what PN are doing and would not touch it. Not fibre but same thing.
http://www.plus.net/packages/extra-broadband-calls/

Edited by deleted (Thu 15-Nov-12 21:28:24)

In reply to a post by superspeed:

I was talking generally. Doesn't have to be fibre and plusnet do do, offers around that range.

Well either you are talking fibre or you're not. The whole subject of this thread is Plusnet Extra Fibre, so non-fibre products are completely irrelevant.

In reply to a post by superspeed:

This is the closest to what PN are doing and would not touch it. Not fibre but same thing.
http://www.plus.net/packages/extra-broadband-calls/

But why not if you just wanted ADSL? The traffic management is identical to Extra Fibre, hardly any restrictions. The image you posted was for a completely different product which is no longer available so is also utterly irrelevant! Anyway, you've had all the answers you wanted so hopefully we can let it rest now.

Kevin I am looking at the detail not the big picture. I know exactly what i'm on about. I am sorry you failed to grasp what I was saying but weather you understand or not, is not relevent to me.

Anyway regardless, a few others will do some tests when connected so this will probably be updated again soon.

I have never found it so hard to chose between two providers. I may need to ask more questions as another way to decide.

A bit like this person http://forums.thinkbroadband.com/fibre/t/4089502-bt-...

I hope this is not the case. 40/80 same thing if applies.

And with plusnet is it true people don't quite get the full usage of the 40mbit line?

Edited by deleted (Fri 16-Nov-12 16:58:07)

In reply to a post by superspeed:

I have never found it so hard to chose between two providers. I may need to ask more questions as another way to decide.

A bit like this person http://forums.thinkbroadband.com/fibre/t/4089502-bt-...

That was February, since when Plusnet's products and traffic management have completely changed.

Roberto are you sure that page has been updated? It looks the same as what you quoted to chris and still says, Page last updated 23rd May 2011.

I noticed you have said about this before. http://forums.thinkbroadband.com/plusnet/t/4078187-r...

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.

Full thread here http://forums.thinkbroadband.com/plusnet/4078179-ftt...

Found this. http://usergroup.plus.net/forum/index.php?topic=7363.0

Jelv1
Have you looked at http://www.plus.net/support/broadband/speed_guide/do... ? (Don't forget your P2P client probably reports KB/s (bytes) and that page gives Kbps (bits) so you need to divide them by 8 ). On Value Fibre at times you should only expect 32KBps and on Extra Fibre at times only 64KBps.

chrisparr Please note the units on the page that Jelv has linked to. The speed for P2P is 1Mb (note the small b), this equates to roughly 120KB/s so isn't far away from what you're currently seeing.

It's now 2Mb so we are told and that would be about 240KB/s now then. That seems to be about what chris posted. If as said by op above, then it is slow.

BTW john lewis resell plusnet but looks even worse. https://www.johnlewisbroadband.com/faq/#whatspeed

I am not going to start a new thread about this so will post here. I though I would test your sign up process. I used the link for PN fibre only but it seems their is no option but to have the line rental with plusnet. No option to remove the PN line rental on both screens either.

I don't like it that plusnet feel the need to add line rental at the start of your order. Making like they are helping you.

See screen grabs first and second page of order test. I have not orded anything I was just testing. If I go with PN I don't want the phone but looks like you have to have it.

First page
http://s6.postimage.org/clkbvzm9t/plusnet_order_test...

second page
http://s6.postimage.org/w4ox5cl1d/plusnet_order_test...

Hope you can explain chris and get it changed.

A possibility as it says on the first picture - You need a compatible phone service
Looking at the speeds in your first post you appear to be on an LLU connection and, if I am correct and it is full LLU, then you can't get fibre using the BT based system as that needs a BT based phone line - not LLU

Edited by deleted (Fri 16-Nov-12 20:38:18)

No i'm not on phone LLU only broadband. I have re-done the test and it does alllow you to not select the phone.

What happend is I used the postcode because I did not want to use my number, as I have had sales calls from doing that with others. But I have seen many people say, that postcodes are not the best way or always reliable.

So thats why.

Edited by deleted (Fri 16-Nov-12 20:56:29)

Navigate from the Blue "Just want BB?" halfway down the PN Fibre page, http://www.plus.net/fibre-broadband/ , and you end up with no line rental at the cost of a £50 one-off installation fee.

I seem to remember Roberto repeatedly mentioned this but it seems to passed over your head.

It was a problem using the postcode as I said to Jim. This is the direct link I used and was given by roberto I think. http://www.plus.net/fibre-broadband/broadband/.

I see roberto has not been on for a few days.
Still waiting for an answer to my question.

Edited by deleted (Sat 17-Nov-12 23:27:29)

Well, if you pretend you don't have a BTw phone line, you can hardly expect that taking an order for an ADSL BB that needs a BTw line, would not include a phone line automatically. Otherwise it would be impossible to fulfil the order. Remember this was for an order not just a quote.

In reply to a post by superspeed:

Hi folks. I would like if some of you on Plusnets Extra Fibre could download a legal torrent file in the link below. Then please tell me what speed your getting. This is so I can see some real world tests on how much plusnets traffic management limits P2P on it's network. Different times of the day and night if you could please.

Unfortunately conflicting information about and this is the only way, so I can decide who to go with. Here is a snap shot I did at 5PM today with my current isp. That is very good for me as for the speed I get.

See this snapshot http://i50.tinypic.com/2wmgbvl.jpg

Link http://ocremix.org/torrents/ Please download the first torrent, or one that is well seeded.


Let it run for a while as it takes time to build up speed.

As per PM here some tests

Before 8PM

Between 8-10PM 1

8-10PM 2

Speedtest to show internet speed (on a 70meg sync)

As you see after 8PM its not full speed but it is faster than the 2Mb limit they supposadly have hope this helps you a bit more in your decision

Ash

Your three links preceding the last one all go to a google login screen.

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

Your three links preceding the last one all go to a google login screen.

Thanks for letting me know google drive never works right for me lol everything i share even if i put public it always dose that login box thing

Heres the links again on ubuntu one instead

before 8PM

Between 8-10PM 1

8-10PM 2

Ash

Thanks for the tests. I couldn't view them snapshots with IE8 so had to use opera.

The 8PM2.png is the better one as it's 4 minutes later and where you have let the torrent run for a while. It takes time to gain speed. It is slower at that time but still good considering PN throttle between 8-10pm.

The 6PM test seems to be OK at 4 MB/s but I would of thought you would get faster on fibre. You do have two simultaneous torrent downloads which could hinder it but for fibre, that should not be a major problem.

I note that the upload speed is not very good, so a bit disappointing there.

If that were around the speed I would get or hopefully higher with PN, then I would say, that would be acceptable.

Edited by deleted (Mon 03-Dec-12 20:54:21)

In reply to a post by superspeed:

Thanks for the tests. I couldn't view them snapshots with IE8 so had to use opera.

The 8PM2.png is the better one as it's 4 minutes later and where you have let the torrent run for a while. It takes time to gain speed. It is slower at that time but still good considering PN throttle between 8-10pm.

The 6PM test seems to be OK at 4 MB/s but I would of thought you would get faster on fibre. You do have two simultaneous torrent downloads which could hinder it but for fibre, that should not be a major problem.

I note that the upload speed is not very good, so a bit disappointing there.

If that were around the speed I would get or hopefully higher with PN, then I would say, that would be acceptable.

I did 2 purposely to show it maxing out the connection more or less, as for upload i think that's just official Linux torrents never take much upload in my experience. my uploads about 17meg with 15 through put the one thing i find odd is although my download is much better with plus net than my other FTTC provider the upload is slower but that's not a big deal on ADSL you only get 1-2.5 max anyway so even at 15-17 its a major improvement lol.

Ash

Right some screen grabs of P2P tests as i'm now with PN. I have put the incorrect worded 20/40 20/80 but am correct. It should be 80/20 and 40meg download. I am going to group the links together for each one. Time and date is on them all except the very first one but have typed it on the screen grab.

The highest I managed to get while I was on the 40meg download, was at 3.8 MB/s. That is even higher than what I have managed to achieve on 80/20 at about, 3.5 MB/s last night. While not bad I do feel it is a little low. What do you think? Should I not be getting higher, say 5 or 6MB/s?

I can confirm that between the hours of 8-10pm, that P2P it is throttled back to around 200 kb/s, which is about 2meg. 100kb/s = about 1meg. So 2 meg is correct. See screen grab.

Upload speed most of the time is quite poor. Don't think I�m the only one but if you upload after 12am, should be better. I was surprised to see about 1.1 MB/s upload. That was two simultaneous uploads together. Doubt very much you will see uploads of that speed during the day. See upload screen grabs only.

Not too great at 6pm. About the same as from 8-10pm


80/20 Fiber Extra.
http://s6.postimage.org/qo5h6tv9d/p2p_speedtest_17_1...
http://s6.postimage.org/5sj6vkz29/17_12_12_p2p_speed...
http://s6.postimage.org/ck9lyfo1t/17_12_12_P2_P_spee...
http://s6.postimage.org/3rsnar2wx/18_12_12_P2_P_spee...
http://s6.postimage.org/zcsme9awx/18_12_12_P2_P_spee...




40meg download.

http://s6.postimage.org/iqb256hz5/torrent_speed_test...
http://s6.postimage.org/6cy7y9sap/16_12_12_P2_P_spee...
http://s6.postimage.org/tskqhd1fl/16_12_12_P2_P_test...
http://s6.postimage.org/7hwvhe45d/17_6_12_p2p_test_a...

Edited by deleted (Tue 18-Dec-12 22:55:54)

The unlimited from tomorrow 80/20 should see max line rate all day as the traffic management will be removed.

Edited by adslmax (Tue 18-Dec-12 21:50:05)

In reply to a post by adslmax:

The unlimited from tomorrow 80/20 should see max line rate all day as the traffic management will be removed.

Max!!!

Don't be so stupid. You know you are talking utter drivel there.

As roberto said. The new unlimited fibre has nothing to do with PN extra fibre. Anway I would rather have caps and know where I stand. I don't think it will be as unlimited as it says.

If you move max, you can run some P2P tests on the unlimited fibre then.

Edited by deleted (Tue 18-Dec-12 22:32:07)

In reply to a post by superspeed:

I don't think it will be as unlimited as it says.

On the contrary, I think it *will* be as unlimited as they say.

They've been burned before, so I'm pretty sure that they've *really* been through the homework on it.

In reply to a post by superspeed:

The highest I managed to get while I was on the 40meg download, was at 3.8 MB/s. That is even higher than what I have managed to achieve on 80/20 at about, 3.5 MB/s last night. While not bad I do feel it is a little low. What do you think? Should I not be getting higher, say 5 or 6MB/s?

As we discovered on the other thread, you are sync'ed at about 46Mbps, and can expect a maximum of 44Mbps (or 5.3MBps).

That's the maximum, including any overheads of the P2P protocols, including any information discovering & communicating with the torrent server and the peers. Likewise I don't know whether your screenshots include that overhead or not.

Overall, I don't think you're doing too badly. Obviously it will go a little higher, but not a lot.

Upload speed most of the time is quite poor. Don't think I�m the only one but if you upload after 12am, should be better. I was surprised to see about 1.1 MB/s upload. That was two simultaneous uploads together. Doubt very much you will see uploads of that speed during the day. See upload screen grabs only.

On the other thread, you were getting upload speeds of 8Mbps. That is very comparable to the 1.1MBps, so again not bad.

The only bit to work out is whether an 8Mbps speed is the best that can be achieved upstream.

In reply to a post by WWWombat:

On the other thread, you were getting upload speeds of 8Mbps. That is very comparable to the 1.1MBps, so again not bad.

The only bit to work out is whether an 8Mbps speed is the best that can be achieved upstream.

What thread was that? I have never had 1.1 MB/s upload before, other than once with PN.

As you can see from screan grab. not 1.1MB/s
http://forums.thinkbroadband.com/plusnet/t/4177867-p...

Edited by deleted (Tue 18-Dec-12 23:52:07)

In reply to a post by superspeed:

In reply to a post by WWWombat:

On the other thread, you were getting upload speeds of 8Mbps. That is very comparable to the 1.1MBps, so again not bad.

The only bit to work out is whether an 8Mbps speed is the best that can be achieved upstream.

What thread was that? I have never had 1.1 MB/s upload before, other than once with PN.

In the text I quoted, about 2 lines above my statement you said "Upload speed most of the time is quite poor. Don't think I�m the only one but if you upload after 12am, should be better. I was surprised to see about 1.1 MB/s upload." So you said *here in this thread* that you had 1.1MB/s upload.

I took that *very* specifically: "M" means mega, and "B" means bytes (not bits).

Over on this thread (where we're discussing your ordinary connection speed), you show an upload speedtest result of "Upload Speed
8.32 Mbps "

I took that very specifically too: "M" means mega, and "b" means bits (not bytes).

1.1 MBps is almost identical to 8.3 Mbps.

So... you got P2P upload speeds of 1.1MB/s, and I tried to show that it is consistent with the plain-old-boring-not-P2P upload speeds you are getting.

Ok your post confused the hell out of me. I thought you was on about my old isp.

I think I get you now. So I am not going to get more than about 1.1 MB/s then.

Edited by deleted (Wed 19-Dec-12 12:12:24)

In reply to a post by superspeed:

So I am not going to get more than about 1.1 MB/s then.

It doesn't look like it.

To get more, you'd need to see a higher value in the upload speed of a speedtest. And to see if that is even possible, we need to know your upstream sync speed. That's possible, if you hack your modem, but...

his stats are now in his other thread, he hasnt got full upload sync.