Fibre unlimited - traffic prioritisation sanity check

Just want to make sure that after reading their blog post (http://community.plus.net/blog/2012/12/21/its-unlimited-why-is-it-still-traffic-managed/) one hundred times my understanding of the traffic prioritisation stuff is correct! Eighteen months contract is a long time if I've misinterpreted anything!

As I understand it Plusnet Unlimited Fibre doesn't use any form of traffic management/shaping or rate limiting - it only uses traffic prioritisation for all of your house's traffic to ensure service quality. Does this mean that torrents, P2P, Usenet etc will all run at line speed 24/7 if nobody else in the house is using anything else?

Hi There

See below for your answer I have been with plusnet for the last 18 mouths with no issues and pay extra £4 so that you do not get effected by this. just added Plusnet Unlimited Fibre and it's great best service around ..!!

the link below explained why and to be fair that's is more than others do and I do not mind that... so see what you think ?

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

Sounds like baloney to me. Until people come on here (and they may do) and tell you that their BitTorrent and what not appears to run at maximum speed then assume the worst.

In reply to a post by Pipexer:

Sounds like baloney to me. Until people come on here (and they may do) and tell you that their BitTorrent and what not appears to run at maximum speed then assume the worst.

That might be the case but here it is from the horses mouth again no mess around they just tell it as it is ..

https://portal.plus.net/support/broadband/speed_guid...

I bet that P2P will fall under Abnormal Load https://portal.plus.net/support/broadband/speed_guid...

I'm on unlimited and I haven't seen any slow downs. I can quite happily download from Usenet at my line speed of about 6.7 MB/s even at peak times.

In reply to a post by linuxkid:

That might be the case but here it is from the horses mouth again no mess around they just tell it as it is ..

https://portal.plus.net/support/broadband/speed_guid...

Unfortunately that is not completely the case. Many people might have forgotten but I can remember all the incidents going back many years of times they were caught out on various issues by savvy people on here and made to look rather foolish, whether it is saying they don't apply QoS to this particular service when they do, or when they claimed they were not running their network at 100% capacity during peak times when they were.

Now, I must be fair and say I am not a customer and haven't checked out any connections they supply in detail recently but their reputation precedes them on matters like this and I am still dubious about recommending plusnet to people who do a heavy amount of downloading through bit torrent and USENET etc.

In reply to a post by Pipexer:

Sounds like baloney to me. Until people come on here (and they may do) and tell you that their BitTorrent and what not appears to run at maximum speed then assume the worst.

If that is deemed to be the case then maybe they are in breech of ASA regulations "Unlimited" should mean exactly that , no traffic shaping /management / protocol prioritising of any kind unless needed to protect their network from a catastrophic failure ,
But i'm very sceptical of what they are saying , and the fact that BT own them , doesn't exactly make me want to belive them either, and due to their 18mth min term , i doubt i would be prepared to find out by ordering it

In reply to a post by TheHollster:

As I understand it Plusnet Unlimited Fibre doesn't use any form of traffic management/shaping or rate limiting - it only uses traffic prioritisation for all of your house's traffic to ensure service quality. Does this mean that torrents, P2P, Usenet etc will all run at line speed 24/7 if nobody else in the house is using anything else?

The prioritisation works across the platform as well as within the individual user's connection. See this post by Kelly.

At first sight that can sound bad. But a moment's reflection show that is how it needs to be.

Bear in mind that apart from live streaming, the other protocols use tiny amounts of bandwidth, and even streaming HD isn't huge when compared to what P2P takes up. There is also the commitment (for the foreseeable future) to maintain the necessary capacity, and that he implies there seems to be a high probability that your speed would be below line speed due to the sources not coping rather than Plusnet's capacity.

Note a post he made in the Community forums:-

it's my job to ensure our tm is compliant with asa/ofcom. I also believe we are offering management that benefits customers. I.e. Prioritisation of time sensitive traffic over less sensitive traffic without making customers feel like their downloads are being limited.

Plusnet: Head of Products and Digital Care

In reply to a post by tommy45:

If that is deemed to be the case then maybe they are in breech of ASA regulations "Unlimited" should mean exactly that , no traffic shaping /management / protocol prioritising of any kind unless needed to protect their network from a catastrophic failure

That's not what the ASA regulations say.

It actually says "Limitations that do affect the speed or usage of the service must also be moderate only and clearly explained in the advertisement."

"Moderate" is of course open to interpretation.

It follows that Plusnet's bronze queue is allowed to go slower than the titanium queue, but only by a "moderate" amount.