Unlimited vs Pro

On ADSL2+

Shaping? No shaping? Prioritisation? No prioritisation?

It will be interesting to see how slow traffic in the Unlimited "bronze" queue will go at peak times. Apparently it has a "minimum bandwidth allowance" but I can't see a figure quoted anywhere.

Edited by Oliver341 (Wed 19-Dec-12 23:39:02)

?
Pro is an add-on. Apparently regarded by PN staff as pretty pointless on the Unlimited products.

http://community.plus.net/forum/index.php/topic,1099...
http://community.plus.net/forum/index.php/topic,1099...
http://community.plus.net/forum/index.php/topic,1099...
http://community.plus.net/forum/index.php/topic,1099...
http://community.plus.net/forum/index.php/topic,1099...

At least one of the above includes that it could be detrimental if the user is maxing out their own connection as it could mess up their own prioritisation.

Edited by RobertoS (Wed 19-Dec-12 23:46:42)

I am curious of this as well, the plusnet rep has said more than once that everything will run at line speed.

In reply to a post by Chrysalis:

I am curious of this as well, the plusnet rep has said more than once that everything will run at line speed.

Line speed with an asterisk

Perhaps the information on this page: http://www.plus.net/support/broadband/speed_guide/do...

should be combined with the information on this page: http://www.plus.net/support/broadband/speed_guide/tr...

They both feel quite different to each other, with one just saying "all traffic" while the other carves the different traffic up into categories.

No throttling is applied to any protocol that you use. Your line is allowed to run at the full speed it can, subject to the IP Profile.

However various things are prioritised through the Plusnet routers. VOIP and gaming being the most obvious ones.

Neither of those two statements precludes the possibility of there being congestion through those routers or through the gateways and MSILs. Or even through the BTW cloud backhaul. But that possibility is another reason the prioritisation system is good.

Congestion, if it occurs, is a different question altogether.

Exactly Oliver.

no rate limit, but what happens if the bronze queue is filled up, surely that means bronze traffic slows down?

http://forums.thinkbroadband.com/plusnet/t/4190908-u...

In reply to a post by Chrysalis:

no rate limit, but what happens if the bronze queue is filled up, surely that means bronze traffic slows down?

We're still waiting for Plusnet staff to clarify what the "minimum bandwidth allowance" for the bronze queue is. There's really not a whole lot of point in them saying there's a minimum allowance without telling us what it is.

Edited by Oliver341 (Thu 20-Dec-12 11:51:35)

There's really not a whole lot of point in them saying there's a minimum allowance without telling us what it is.

Where's that quoted?

The bronze queue doesn't have a maximum threshold, so it shouldn't fill up!

Also in reality the amount of bandwidth we've provisioned ready for this launch means that you won't see slowdowns on the lower priority stuff unless you're hammering something on your particular line (not at a network level).

Edited by chrisparr (Thu 20-Dec-12 11:56:14)

In reply to a post by chrisparr:

Where's that quoted?

Here: http://www.plus.net/support/broadband/speed_guide/tr...

The bronze queue doesn't have a maximum threshold, so it shouldn't fill up!

But bronze can be slowed down, relative to other traffic, otherwise you wouldn't need to call it "bronze".

Also in reality the amount of bandwidth we've provisioned ready for this launch means that you won't see slowdowns on the lower priority stuff unless you're hammering something on your particular line (not at a network level).

The page I quoted talks about "busy times". Do you not mean "busy" as in overall network load?

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

?
Pro is an add-on. Apparently regarded by PN staff as pretty pointless on the Unlimited products.

http://community.plus.net/forum/index.php/topic,1099...
http://community.plus.net/forum/index.php/topic,1099...
http://community.plus.net/forum/index.php/topic,1099...
http://community.plus.net/forum/index.php/topic,1099...
http://community.plus.net/forum/index.php/topic,1099...

At least one of the above includes that it could be detrimental if the user is maxing out their own connection as it could mess up their own prioritisation.

Some excellent linking Rob. The fourth seals it for me:

I had this debate internally. For your average user, there isn't any point in Pro on Unlimited at all. But, if you really dislike the idea of Plusnet selecting what is prioritised or not, it is there as an option. It's required internally though to get around the situation where we have a misclassification of a protocol which should be in titanium but is being put into bronze. With pro, it puts it at least in Gold while we fix the signature.

Basically, if I get less than line speed on anything, I'll be moaning about it, especially since I'm on ADSL2+ and not a heavy user (20-30GB of daytime usage monthly).

I still think there should be the option for quality vs quantity (at the same price). Heavy user or low latency, high prioritisation user. Shifting from Pro Extra to Unlimited chops £6.50 a month off my bill though, so assuming I can get an uncapped upload within that, it should be all good.

In reply to a post by chrisparr:

There's really not a whole lot of point in them saying there's a minimum allowance without telling us what it is.

Where's that quoted?

The bronze queue doesn't have a maximum threshold, so it shouldn't fill up!

Also in reality the amount of bandwidth we've provisioned ready for this launch means that you won't see slowdowns on the lower priority stuff unless you're hammering something on your particular line (not at a network level).

It isn't a maximum threshold Chris, it's a minimum bandwidth, and the way it's worded implies to me it is a reservation of total Plusnet capacity for this queue. Meaning it can use more when available, but be reduced to the minimum if there are huge demands from higher priority queues.

What this means: at busy times, higher priority queues will take bandwidth from the lowest queue(s) currently in use (but never enough to take the lower queue below its minimum bandwidth allowance).

I accept your statement that at the moment it just isn't going to happen, but in time it could. That's how the system is designed .

This is also of interest to me, im currently on the 250gb package with pro addon.
i want to know if ill loose out speed wise if i go to the unlimited!

I accept your statement that at the moment it just isn't going to happen, but in time it could. That's how the system is designed

Only if we don't keep adding bandwidth to keep up with demand! There's more than enough focus to ensure this doesn't happen though, along with assurances from Kelly, Bob and myself about this too.

I actually believe you, but just wasn't happy about the wording of your previous post. And if I'd said it would never happen, other posters would have been down on me like a ton of bricks .

BUT
Seeing as you're here, have you seen this post, and the questions at the end of it? The guys had a bad time elsewhere.

Edited by RobertoS (Thu 20-Dec-12 22:59:34)

In reply to a post by chrisparr:

Only if we don't keep adding bandwidth to keep up with demand! There's more than enough focus to ensure this doesn't happen though, along with assurances from Kelly, Bob and myself about this too.

This is like deja vu all over again.

In reply to a post by BatBoy:

This is like deja vu all over again.

I doubt that the existing owners are going to be doing things the way previous owners may have (or may not have for that matter).

The road to hell is littered with good intentions.

In reply to a post by chrisparr:

Only if we don't keep adding bandwidth to keep up with demand! There's more than enough focus to ensure this doesn't happen though, along with assurances from Kelly, Bob and myself about this too.

I asked earlier about the "minimum bandwidth allowance" (a phrase used on this page): http://www.plus.net/support/broadband/speed_guide/tr...

Specifically, what is the "minimum bandwidth allowance" for the bronze queue?

In reply to a post by eddie1150:

This is also of interest to me, im currently on the 250gb package with pro addon.
i want to know if ill loose out speed wise if i go to the unlimited!

Question - why do you have the Pro add-on currently?

Hullo.

Really hard to explain. It's not a straight "minimum kbps" per protocol, instead it is a weighting of the traffic. If you are only downloading bronze, it's 100% of your traffic. If you are downloading just Titanium and Gold traffic, it's 4:1, meaning on an 8Mb line, maxed with Titanium and Gold you'd get 2Mb of Gold and 6Mb of Titanium. In reality though, applications that tend to be in Titanium usually have a small kbps so the Gold traffic would run at a much higher rate (i.e 512k Titanium and 7.5Mbps Gold). The weighting for Bronze is much lower because we believe that in the scenario where you had a mix of traffic including Bronze, you'd much prefer that Bronze traffic to be slower because it is non-interactive.

This is per subscriber line, and overall on the platform. So if we were oversubscribed, Bronze generally would be slower. HOWEVER, my team (including me) look at graphing every day to ensure that we aren't seeing latency introduced, and we work to scale the network to keep this latency to a minimum. We've tested this by having Bob and Chris attempt to download the internet each night and what they were finding was that their sources couldn't keep up with the line speed at peak due to their congestion points.

Edited by deleted (Fri 21-Dec-12 11:45:26)

Hi Kelly,

That's interesting information, thanks.

I think the main worry is that at this price point the product will be very popular (it should be) and a few months down the line the bronze queue bears the brunt when the pipes can't cope. Of course you can keep adding capacity, but this can get very expensive and perhaps there's a point where cost considerations means bronze has to take a big hit rather than continuous, expensive network upgrades.

If the "minimum bandwidth allowance" was specified as kbps, this would at least allay any fears that in a few months time, bronze is "de-prioritised" so that it hits 64 kbps (because the product specifications allow it and the upgrades are costing too much).

Wow, so Bob and Chris have downloaded the entire Internet every night, respect!

Yep. This is why my team need to be really sharp on listening to you guys (customers) for speed/performance issues and on top of our own stats and forecasts, and why sites like TBB and our own forum are gold dust.

thanks for this info, I hope this time you guys get it right.

On the view of non interactive, the few times I have used p2p in the past, generally its not something I start, run in the background and think "ok I will leave this going for days/overnight or whatever" its more like I start the download and I am physically sitting waiting for it to finish, this generally applies for 90% of the downloads I do regardless of protocol (most are http/ftp), if I start a download I am waiting for it to finish, I rarely start a download and am happy to leave it for hours in the background, this is why I have always found it off that isp's see downloading as non interactive traffic.

But then again I am not the type of person to download TB's a month, if I download something then its because I need it for something.

So if I was a plusnet customer I probably would get pro to ensure what I download is a healthy speed even when mixed in with what you consider higher priority and the fact I use a lot of non default ports on services which I guess could mean "other" traffic been used a lot. So I dont think pro is useless either.

Edited by Chrysalis (Fri 21-Dec-12 12:24:55)

In reply to a post by Chrysalis:

On the view of non interactive, the few times I have used p2p in the past, generally its not something I start, run in the background and think "ok I will leave this going for days/overnight or whatever" its more like I start the download and I am physically sitting waiting for it to finish, this generally applies for 90% of the downloads I do regardless of protocol (most are http/ftp), if I start a download I am waiting for it to finish, I rarely start a download and am happy to leave it for hours in the background, this is why I have always found it off that isp's see downloading as non interactive traffic.

When I talk about non-interactive I'm meaning that the action you are doing still works without packets arriving in a timely fashion. I.e. If packets go missing when loading a webpage, it stalls. VoIP stutters and video buffers. Those activities are interactive.

The deprioritisation of non-interactive doesn't immediately mean that your p2p drops to 1Kbps. We are meaning that it can live with some latency and packet drops, so that it comes down at 50Mbps instead of 76Mbps (on a really fast fibre line) or 6Mbps instead of 7.5Mbps (on a ADSL1 line). Don't treat those numbers as some sort of gospel, they are just illustrative.

In reply to a post by Chrysalis:

So if I was a plusnet customer I probably would get pro to ensure what I download is a healthy speed even when mixed in with what you consider higher priority and the fact I use a lot of non default ports on services which I guess could mean "other" traffic been used a lot. So I dont think pro is useless either.

Now, that really depends. If you have Pro, your iplayer and your P2P would be fighting probably leading to buffering. Without it, your P2P would slow enough to let the iplayer run happily. Which would you prefer?

Personally I have never seen p2p swamp my connection to the point streaming has a tiny % of useable capacity, however I admit since I am not a heavy user of p2p or even regular user I may not have come across the situation you described although utorrent and I suspect most torrent apps allow throttling controls.

In reply to a post by Oliver341:

I think the main worry is that at this price point the product will be very popular (it should be) and a few months down the line the bronze queue bears the brunt when the pipes can't cope. Of course you can keep adding capacity, but this can get very expensive and perhaps there's a point where cost considerations means bronze has to take a big hit rather than continuous, expensive network upgrades.

If the "minimum bandwidth allowance" was specified as kbps, this would at least allay any fears that in a few months time, bronze is "de-prioritised" so that it hits 64 kbps (because the product specifications allow it and the upgrades are costing too much).

I don't think what you say there follows, Oliver.

As you are talking about the overall effect on the platform, for a second let's ignore the ultimate bit where the system has to be changed, and just take the ongoing monitoring and further provisioning that Kelly describes.

Under that process, if further capacity is added to cope with additional traffic, the minimum capacity for bronze automatically increases in proportion. So if overall the proportions are about right, everything goes smoothly.

At first sight this seems to imply that if all the additional traffic is in bronze, then it will inevitably slow down. But on further thought this is not the case. From the assumption that all the additional traffic is bronze, by definition the higher levels have no increase in usage, therefore all the additional capacity is available to bronze.

Even more thought shows that it isn't quite as simple as that either, as the higher levels may have been be constrained by the minimum proportion allocated to bronze, so take up some of the extra capacity. But almost certainly the bulk goes to bronze even then.

This is why the monitoring is required, to make sure the algorithms and design assumptions are correct, as well as to schedule the next upgrades.

Coming back to specifying the minimum allocation in terms of kbps, this would then have to be reset manually anyway with each addition of capacity, and if the point were reached that the costs of even more capacity were deemd prohibitive the fact that it is specified as kbps rather than a proportion is irrelevant. The rules/algorithms would be changed anyway.

There are a lot of posters on these forums asking why everything but torrents come to a halt and even their torrents slow down.

I'm not fully into the explanation, but apparently it is that they have too many torrenting stream so the upload gets saturated. Preventing the ACKs for all traffic getting through. Therefore the downstream self-throttles.

This in fact seems to be a ploy used by BT Retail to restrain torrent speeds even when they aren't technically throttling the downstream. They throttle the upstream for P2P, thus to some extent achieving the same result.

The user solution, (excluding the BT ploy), is to limit the number of seeds they take, to the level at which there is free upstream.

Just to add to my previous post of saving £6.50 per month. That would be on the 12-month contract arrangement. If I opt for the 'no-contrect' arrangement, it's a saving of £4 per month.

One question for the reps. Will the Pro option still be available as an add-on if on unlimited, and why?

If fact the first part is answered here:

http://community.plus.net/unlimited-faq/

So, yes it will be available:

It the Pro add-on still available?
It can be requested via the add-ons page when logged into our website. The benefits of the Pro add-on are minimal for customers choosing one of the new Unlimited products due to the way traffic on the product is managed.

(Note to reps: typo on first word)

So can a rep give an example of a minimal benefit for a 20-40GB per month user who doesn't use P2P? For example, I upload to a web server regularly (I may yet look into Annex M, but don't believe I would get a decent increase of upload, but that's for another thread), and the majority of my usage is in the 'web' 'streaming' or 'other' categories.

There's a good argument that I may not have benefited from the Pro add-on at all, but I like the idea of not being put in a queue or throttled due to others' habits.

I still see slow downs at peak periods despite being on the Pro package, but it may be localised, so there's little I can do other than change ISP to test that theory. Short of Plusnet parking my account while I try another ISP for 2-3 months, it's not going to happen.

Post deleted by RobertoS

I agree upstream on torrents can swamp easily.

Downstream normally self regulates much better tho.

But I have conceded now since I am not a regular p2p user my experience is probably inadequate.

I think its just one of those time will tell situations, I think good points have been made on both sides and ultimately this will come down to if the plusnet budget can pay for any upgrades needed from the huge demand that will be expected.

My guess is that for a while the main demand is going to come on ADSLx, not fibre. Most "Unlimited" wanters will already be on BT or Sky, (apart from those on new cabinets coming online), still within contract. Followed by inertia.

So at least the byte throughput will be lower than if the other way round.

Hi,

That question is answered earlier on:
http://community.plus.net/forum/index.php/topic,1099...

We've removed it from sign up, but left it available.

During the Olympics we fired up utorrent and downloaded some linux ISO's at the same time as watching an iplayer stream. When we turned the traffic management off, the streams all broke up. When we turned it back on, it cleared up.

In reply to a post by KellyD:

During the Olympics we fired up utorrent and downloaded some linux ISO's at the same time as watching an iplayer stream. When we turned the traffic management off, the streams all broke up. When we turned it back on, it cleared up.

Interesting to know this testing before release a Unlimited for the first time! Yes, streaming is more important now than p2p, as because of sky go, bbci player, you tubes, tv catchup, sky on demand and the lists go on.

Just as i dont like the throttling/slowing on p2p/usenet.

In reply to a post by eddie1150:

Just as i dont like the throttling/slowing on p2p/usenet.

As Kelly just explained.

On Unlimited Fibre there is no throttling, but there is prioritisation of other traffic. Not only on the platform, but on your line. Take Pro and you avoid that.

But!

If there's just you that's fine. If you have a couple of kids playing games and your wife watching iPlayer, you could wreck their experience. and your own. Remove Pro and all will be fine for all of you.

Do it on BT Infinity and you'll just get throttled to blazes.

Edited by RobertoS (Fri 21-Dec-12 15:42:59)

Cheers.

In reply to a post by camieabz:

If fact the first part is answered here:

http://community.plus.net/unlimited-faq/

So, yes it will be available:

It the Pro add-on still available?
It can be requested via the add-ons page when logged into our website. The benefits of the Pro add-on are minimal for customers choosing one of the new Unlimited products due to the way traffic on the product is managed.

(Note to reps: typo on first word)

So can a rep give an example of a minimal benefit for a 20-40GB per month user who doesn't use P2P? For example, I upload to a web server regularly (I may yet look into Annex M, but don't believe I would get a decent increase of upload, but that's for another thread), and the majority of my usage is in the 'web' 'streaming' or 'other' categories.

There's a good argument that I may not have benefited from the Pro add-on at all, but I like the idea of not being put in a queue or throttled due to others' habits.

I still see slow downs at peak periods despite being on the Pro package, but it may be localised, so there's little I can do other than change ISP to test that theory. Short of Plusnet parking my account while I try another ISP for 2-3 months, it's not going to happen.

I'm also interested in Annex M as the increase in upspeed would allow me to host for more players in online gaming, and uploading video's to youtube faster.
I had been previously waiting for FTTC in March 2012, but now it just says before end of 2013. So I'm stuck on ADSL2+ the same as Camiebz, but I dont really want to be paying more per month then someone on Unlimited Fibre Broadband (£19.99 80/20Meg).

What i've read on the Plusnet website, Annex M costs £12 (£10+VAT) on top of what I'm already paying, so switching to unlimited would bring the total monthly cost to £22 a month.

This is a good read (not addressed to you specifically but of general interest)

http://community.plus.net/blog/2012/12/21/its-unlimi...

yeah p2p throttling on infinity is pretty brutal according to tests I have done.

That was a good read!

When talking traffic management and Plusnet's queuing system I tended to think of it as competing for bandwidth with other customers. So the higher the prioritisation (Pro add on) the better and less likely to have 'My Internet' slowed down.

If you assume that they will always have enough capacity to satisfy their customers bandwidth requirements then this is more about QOS and moving it away from the customer's router and into the control of Plusnet.

So for example P2P will always run at line speed if I'm not using my connection for anything else, even though it is in a low priority queue.

As I imagine most people do not have any form of decent QOS on their router this becomes a unique selling point for Plusnet's product.
All they have to do is re-educate people (and maintain enough bandwidth!)

Yes, I'd just found it independently, and came here to post a link to it. It's an excellent explanation.

Yep, good read, but at an exchange level, VOIP or gaming traffic is not going to be prioritised over other ISPs' heavy P2P customers, is it?

Well not unless BT are running something similar over the wholesale network. So if one is on an exchange with medium to high contention, what can the customer or ISP do? Convince all the other householders to move to the same ISP?

is exchange level congestion common on BTw FTTC?

In reply to a post by Chrysalis:

is exchange level congestion common on BTw FTTC?

Not that I'm aware of. Apart from IPSC circuits which effectively are 20CN until they leave the exchange.

In reply to a post by camieabz:

Yep, good read, but at an exchange level, VOIP or gaming traffic is not going to be prioritised over other ISPs' heavy P2P customers, is it?

Well not unless BT are running something similar over the wholesale network. So if one is on an exchange with medium to high contention, what can the customer or ISP do? Convince all the other householders to move to the same ISP?

I wouldn't be surprised if they are.

I've never thought of it, and don't recall seeing it ever discussed, (are you the first to think of it? ), but the DLM design suggests the possibility.

In particular both the BTW DLM, (which still has relevance on FTTx and probably that extends beyond setting the IP Profile which we know it does), and the OR DLM, have specific facilities for ISPs to set priorities within customer, and therefore in effect for all customers of that ISP, at a few levels. I forget the details, as there are a number of priorities of which only three or four are implemented, but the aim is to tag VOIP/Gaming and such, then normal interactive, then the equivalent of Plusnet Bronze, within that customer's available bandwidth.

The OR one at least, maybe both, doesn't/don't let those ISP settings give any customer any advantage over another once it is in the OR, (or BTW?) systems. But it would seem logical that their systems could include detection of protocol and prioritise accordingly on a total traffic basis. The OR one specifically does apply the ISP tagging, but that's only until the handover at the exchange. IIRC the WBC one does so as well, throughout the backhaul.

Overall prioritisation would not be as finely tuned as the Plusnet one is, where specific third-party products are identified and classified. And the combination of the carried-through ISPs tags within a particular user's traffic with an overall protocol prioritisation would be extremely complex or even impossible given that it has to happen in realtime.

I'm not saying I think this happens, but I wouldn't rule out the possibility.

No idea. I'm on ADSL2+ as it happens, so I was thinking of us poor, hard-done-by rural folk.

I always assumed that contention became a distance from the exchange (tough luck mate) fight. There's a house for sale next door to my exchange, and I notice it every time I pass it in the car. I could walk 20 paces from its border and touch the exchange wall.

I can't justify moving house for ADSL, especially to my gf. Hehe!

There's also a slight chance that said house might not be as close to the exchange underground.

Edited by camieabz (Fri 21-Dec-12 21:32:04)

Even worse, (at the moment) - EO.

Presumably on an exchange line which I think at the moment means no prospect of FTTx!

I swear jelv, it's so close I'd dig the hole myself.

Well you've had plenty of practice .

Couldn't resist it, sorry. It's even (in a way) self-referential. Which makes it classic.

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

I've never thought of it, and don't recall seeing it ever discussed, (are you the first to think of it? ), but the DLM design suggests the possibility.

In particular both the BTW DLM, (which still has relevance on FTTx and probably that extends beyond setting the IP Profile which we know it does), and the OR DLM, have specific facilities for ISPs to set priorities within customer, and therefore in effect for all customers of that ISP, at a few levels. I forget the details, as there are a number of priorities of which only three or four are implemented, but the aim is to tag VOIP/Gaming and such, then normal interactive, then the equivalent of Plusnet Bronze, within that customer's available bandwidth.

Funnily enough, I was looking at this after the recent (re-)mention of turning off upstream QoS on the Huawei modem.

It turns out that the modem supports 8 level of QoS marking (using a scheme known as 802.1p), but only forwarding marking that is already present on the LAN.

Otherwise it seems that Openreach supports 4 of those levels (one level a "do not drop" level, the others all a "can drop" one). They also support an assured rate - but that really aims at focussed high quality video streams - I assume BT Vision may make use of this.

It'd be interesting to see if Plusnet's marking translates over, and convert to the Openreach mechanisms.

Likewide, it'd be interesting to see if anything on the local OS can generate QoS markings too, for upstream.

Just to wade in a bit here, Openreach do have some forms of traffic shaping available (though I don't know a lot about them) but we don't order any of that when we place orders for the services we use. Essentially that means our prioritisation on the network is the only one.

There is the standard/elevated difference (essentially Residential and Business traffic, though it's not quite that clear cut as you can order both on both services if you wish) but that only comes into effect when a VLAN is particularly busy, in which case pretty much everyone is going to see slowdowns anyway.

Openreach GEA/FTTC/FTTP - SIN 498 Section 2.1.5. Reasonably clear.

WBMC which Plusnet use, (the OP specifically says he is interested in) ADSL2+ - SINs 471 WBMC and possibly 472 WBC. A lot of complex waffle . I'm not surprised you don't know a lot about it. I don't think the Technical Author did either.