Totally unlimited broadband with no traffic management?

We frequently see people taking issue with Plusnet's traffic management who fail to see the benefits it gives. Instead they seem to think that if they can run say P2P at 70Mbps when nothing else is happening on their line and, either on the same or a different PC a streaming session is started, the P2P should not slow down. Plusnet's default traffic management system would give the streaming all the bandwidth it needs (say 3500Kbps for HD) and the P2P would be slowed down by the same amount.

So what is needed for what some people expect of unlimited? First the line would have a designated speed, say 70Mbps, Plusnet would have to set the speed on all protocols to max out at that speed for all streams.

Next you'd have to consider how many parallel streams could be running. For where it is coming from there is a huge number of servers on the internet so you'd have to rule that out as the limiting factor. You'd therefore have to make some sort of assumption about the number of parallel streams could be running on each PC and the number of PCs. Again there's no real limit to how many things could be going on at the same time so the only theoretical limit per PC you could assume would be the connection speed to the router - assuming 1Gbps would be fair. For the number of PC's etc. what would be fair, say 20?

Therefore for a totally unlimited connection with a designated speed of 70Mbps where absolutely nothing slowed down because of other activities Plusnet would have to actually provide the user with a 20Gbps connection. Obviously totally ridiculous and the cost would give you a heart attack.

So let's get real. With an unlimited connection where the ISP has sufficient bandwidth to deliver line speed what matters? It is what happens when the user is running a number of processes on one or more PCs.

Without traffic prioritisation all the process will compete for the bandwidth on an equal footing, irrespective of whether they are time critical, so a P2P download could mean streaming keeps buffering.

With traffic prioritisation the time critical traffic is given priority, so for example a streaming session will not be disrupted by any number of downloads or P2P sessions in the background. The Plusnet default priorities on unlimited are:

Titanium: VoIP, Gaming
Gold: Browsing, Email, Streaming, VPN, FTP, Download servers
Gold plated: Download sites
Silver: Other (not otherwise listed or unrecognised)
Bronze: P2P, Usenet


Finally, what about the Pro add-on? The changes it makes have no bearing on rate limits (there are none on Unlimited) but change the priorities of some processes. VPN, External FTP and Other are lifted to Titanium, Download sites are lifted to Gold as are P2P and Usenet. P2P being elevated to the same priority as Streaming could obviously make things just as bad as having no traffic prioritisation and depending what activities the user is running which end up as Other, the elevation of that to Titanium could be even worse.

Very good explanation. Thanks. It's a shame there's no 'Like' button on here like Facebook

I've not noticed the Traffic Management at all, on Plusnet Unlimited. For the past few weeks I dare say people have mixed this up with the latency, network issue they are (or were) having. Seems fine tonight.

Thanks from me as well, and to bright for the explanation on the "Three different Plusnet reps" thread. I'm afraid I'd just lost patience with all the doubters, so thank you for taking the time.

This page suggests that all traffic on PlusNet's Unlimited or Unlimited Fibre packages will run at line speed all day, whereas the information you've posted above suggests that unlimited packages are traffic managed.

I'm confused !

Going to play the devil's advocate here...but why doesn't PlusNet let the user decide if they want traffic management on their line or not? Why not give the option to have a pure, unthrottled connection (ala Sky, TalkTalk [via static ip], AAISP, Goscomb) and then let the user decide which protocols they want to prioritise? Many high end routers let you assign traffic priority on your home network so why does PlusNet have a one size fits all approach?

In reply to a post by mikej:

This page suggests that all traffic on PlusNet's Unlimited or Unlimited Fibre packages will run at line speed all day, whereas the information you've posted above suggests that unlimited packages are traffic managed.

I'm confused !

Simples...

The term "Traffic management " encompasses more than just throttling. It also includes prioritisation of the traffic.

In this case, Plusnet perform prioritisation for you, but not throttling. When you are trying to put more data down your line than its line speed can cope with, prioritisation makes sure, for example, that streaming gets the bandwidth necessary in preference to P2P downloads.

In reply to a post by baby_frogmella:

Why not give the option to have a pure, unthrottled connection (ala Sky, TalkTalk [via static ip], AAISP, Goscomb) and then let the user decide which protocols they want to prioritise?

The wording of your question suggests possible confusion between throttling and prioritisation - which are 100% separate issues. No need for the word unthrottled to be there. You should be asking "Why not give the option to have a pure, unprioritised connection [...] ?"

The answer is that you can have the connection unprioritised, as an add-on. It just costs more.

Or is what you are asking for to take the existing unthrottled connection that applies prioritisation, but want to set different rules on that prioritisation from the default ones?

Many high end routers let you assign traffic priority on your home network so why does PlusNet have a one size fits all approach?

Of their two options, Plusnet (IMO) have certainly gone for the right default. For most people, and almost certainly for all non-technical people, prioritising VoIP and streaming over downloads is the right thing to do.

Video is the mass-market data gobbler in the world of superfast broadband. BT's settings for DLM are distinctly aimed at making sure there is little packet loss for streamed video. Plusnet's prioritisation of the same packets works to the same end.

If, however, there were a lot more protocols/uses where prioritisation made sense, I'd agree with you.

In fact, when throttling was part of the scene, I had the same thoughts, but over different throttling levels. Why couldn't I have management that reduced (say) the amount for gaming and have an increase in the amount for VPN?

Edited by deleted (Thu 18-Apr-13 16:21:45)

In reply to a post by WWWombat:

The answer is that you can have the connection unprioritised, as an add-on. It just costs more.

Why does it cost more? What's in it for Plusnet so they are willing to give it away, but charge for an un-throttled/un-prioritised connection?

To pay for the extra support costs for people who don't understand it and then complain that streaming keeps buffering when they have P2P running?

In reply to a post by BatBoy:

In reply to a post by WWWombat:

The answer is that you can have the connection unprioritised, as an add-on. It just costs more.

Why does it cost more? What's in it for Plusnet so they are willing to give it away, but charge for an un-throttled/un-prioritised connection?

I think it's a historical thing - it used to offer a lot more for the extra £5 a month, now that there's no throttling on the Unlimited products and very little on Essentials, it's of little use but the price has stayed the same.