Thinking of Unlimited Fibre: Questions on Traffic Management

Hi all,

I'm currently with Be, and while I've had great service with them, I want to get fibre now (my line is estimated at 69/20), and I've been looking at Sky, BT, and now Plusnet. I was close to going with BT (I've just got issued my MAC from Be so I only have 30 days to use it!), as they're cheaper than Sky and do not throttle anymore; however, I just saw Plusnet's offer and it seems very appealing. I'm interested in the Unlimited Fibre Broadband and calls package, as I like the Line Rental Saver, and like even more that it's a bit cheaper than BT's version.

My concern, though, is Plusnet's traffic management. At first I thought, "No, I'll just pay the extra with BT and avoid it", but on further investigation I see this may not be the typical 'throttling' that BT was terrible for (my friends on the older Infinity get about a maximum of 30 KB/s on P2P). I have read this thread and this article, but I'm still quite confused. Many of the posts seem to claim that Plusnet's traffic management is not throttling; you get full line speed, but traffic is prioritised to prevent degradation of more important services. Is this the case? Can I still torrent/P2P at my full line speed without being throttled if nothing else is being used on my line?

This makes it seem that the traffic management only applies to your own connection and not everyone else? Is this the case? If so, I can see that's actually a real benefit. I've actually wished I had prioritisation on mine, as when I'm downloading games on Steam, for example, I can't watch YouTube or iPlayer. Or is it the case that the traffic management is shared with all Plusnet customers, and if everyone is P2Ping, everyone will get slowed down?

I'd really appreciate some clarification. I really don't want to find that my P2P and other services get throttled to hell and I get speeds less than what I did on ADSL with Be.

Also, I've heard a lot of good things about Plusnet, and they have a lot of awards to back that up. Any opinions?

Thanks very much!

An easy to grasp explanation here from jelv with regard to the PN Unlimited product, it's worth a read.

In reply to a post by Domsy:

Can I still torrent/P2P at my full line speed without being throttled if nothing else is being used on my line?

Short answer: Yes.

In reply to a post by Domsy:

Or is it the case that the traffic management is shared with all Plusnet customers, and if everyone is P2Ping, everyone will get slowed down?

Short answer; No, subject to overall capacity being adequate (which it usually is).

If you've read the article you linked to and jelv's post you've pretty much got it all.

I have 60mbit FTTC, 3rd party ISP with no throttling. Even with several things 'maxing' out the link it still performs really really well. This is not like 2mbit ADSL where one torrent brings it to its knees or when your sister starts a download your video buffers; cmon it is a massive size link.

QOS is not needed unless you have a house full of students anymore. The PN stuff is all overboard IMO. Choose an ISP that doesn't throttle/limit/qos at all if that is what you want.

In reply to a post by Domsy:

Many of the posts seem to claim that Plusnet's traffic management is not throttling; you get full line speed, but traffic is prioritised to prevent degradation of more important services. Is this the case?

Yes. Although it depends what you think "throttling" is (there seem to be a lot of different interpretations!). If you are running a p2p download at the full line rate and you then start eg iPlayer streaming as well, then clearly you can't get this extra data stream through the line as well - it's already running flat out. So something has to be slowed down. With Plusnet, that will be your p2p, since that traffic is classed as a lower priority.

In reply to a post by Domsy:

Can I still torrent/P2P at my full line speed without being throttled if nothing else is being used on my line?

Yes.

In reply to a post by Domsy:

This makes it seem that the traffic management only applies to your own connection and not everyone else? Is this the case?

Yes, sort of. No shared network can isolate one customer from all the others. But provided that Plusnet's network as a whole is not congested, you should experience little interaction. Their strategy seems to be to maintain capacity above the normal peak demand, so congestion should only occur if there is a failure somewhere, or some unusual event such as a DDOS attack. Also, like many other ISPs Plusnet uses BTW's network to get your traffic between your exchange and Plusnet's network. Plusnet doesn't control that network, so there are no guarantees that you won't fall foul of congestion, for example, at your local exchange. But if you sign up to BT Infinity you'll be on the same BTW network and have the same problem.

Also, note that Plusnet can prioritise traffic it sends down the line to you. It has no control over the traffic you send up the line to it. So if you want that to be prioritised too, you'll need a router that can do suitable QoS.

In reply to a post by Domsy:

Or is it the case that the traffic management is shared with all Plusnet customers, and if everyone is P2Ping, everyone will get slowed down?

But everyone never will be p2p-ing! As explained above, provided there isn't some unusual event, your traffic shouldn't be noticeably affected by other users' traffic, as long as Plusnet manages to get its forecasting right and keeps capacity ahead of demand, and doesn't change its strategy.

The only other thing to note is that Plusnet has had some problems with their network over the past 6 weeks. They seem to be getting to the bottom of the problems now and it seems the majority of customers are now seeing their service return to normal. If you have a lot of time, you can read about it here. But don't think this is a uniquely Plusnet problem and be put off. BT Infinity customers have been suffering similar problems too.

In reply to a post by Magsy:

QOS is not needed unless you have a house full of students anymore. The PN stuff is all overboard IMO.

Everyone said that when they stopped using dial-up and got 512kbps ADSL. Plenty of bandwidth for sending as many plain text emails and downloading as many 56kB images as you could possibly want!
Although strangely that didn't stop engineers from developing traffic prioritisation strategies for IP networks, router and switch manufacturers from building QoS into their products and BT from building a national IP-based network (21CN) with traffic prioritisation.

In reply to a post by Magsy:

Choose an ISP that doesn't throttle/limit/qos at all if that is what you want.

If which is what you want? Throttling, limiting or QoS? They are different things.

Plusnet's traffic management is not throttling; you get full line speed, but traffic is prioritised to prevent degradation of more important services.*

... * traffic is prioritised to prevent degradation of more important services on your connection

That is indeed the case. I moved from BE recently, been with them for donkeys, excellent service, but then BE do not seem to be too keen on going Fibre soon. My download speed with BE in the beginning was about 14 meg, that during those many years deteriorated to 12 meg by the time I made the move to Plusnet. Now I get about 67 meg down and 17 meg up. During the evening the speed sways between 64-67 meg.

Plusnet service has been great. Their support is very good too. The switch was flawless, and I was kept in the loop by PN support guys. One support chap actually took the ownership of my move and followed it until it was all done. All in all a good move. Well that's my experience. You have to make up your own mind, but from my experience so far, it ain't bad at all.

My speed now

Edited by deleted (Tue 19-Mar-13 10:19:10)

In reply to a post by Bright:

In reply to a post by Magsy:

QOS is not needed unless you have a house full of students anymore. The PN stuff is all overboard IMO.

Everyone said that when they stopped using dial-up and got 512kbps ADSL. Plenty of bandwidth for sending as many plain text emails and downloading as many 56kB images as you could possibly want!
Although strangely that didn't stop engineers from developing traffic prioritisation strategies for IP networks, router and switch manufacturers from building QoS into their products and BT from building a national IP-based network (21CN) with traffic prioritisation.

In reply to a post by Magsy:

Choose an ISP that doesn't throttle/limit/qos at all if that is what you want.

If which is what you want? Throttling, limiting or QoS? They are different things.

I'm with Magsy on this. Plusnet's approach is unique I guess, but I think that the way it's been marketed is an excellent exercise in doublespeak.

Comparing this back to 512k ADSL days...

A 1500byte packet would take 93ms to send on a 128k upstream - and about 20ms to receive. If you were trying to game while people were uploading/downloading, you were probably in for a bad time with a lot of jitter. Even if trying to browse, you'd find things very slow to respond.

On an 80meg/20meg connection though, 20meg will send 1500bytes in 0.6ms and receive in 0.15ms, so general responsive will be much much better even under load.

To add my bit to what has been said.

The article by Bob Pullen that you read does say the system applies to the network as a whole, as well as the individual connection.

In terms of the individual connection I don't se how anyone can possibly question that it must be beneficial. Specifically addressing "Can I still torrent/P2P at my full line speed without being throttled if nothing else is being used on my line?" and "when I'm downloading games on Steam, for example, I can't watch YouTube or iPlayer". Having said that, on your likely FTTC speeds there's probably plenty anyway and the prioritisation won't be relevant. What's FTTC speed does this checker suggest?

The issue of the effect others may have on you has been mentioned by a few. I don't think you will have see this post by KellyD who is the guy in charge of making sure overall capacity is adequate. We also frequently get Service Status emails with this sort of information:-

Subject: Increase in 21CN Broadband Capacity - Tuesday 5th March

We will shortly be increasing the capacity of our WBC(21CN) broadband host links by a further 5.11Gbps. It's these host links that we use to deliver bandwidth to the majority of customers on our 21CN and Fibre services.

We're activating this extra capacity in line with the current budget, our new products, customers' usage habits and our projected growth in customer numbers.

Subscribe to it if you wish. How many other ISPs apart from AAISP keep customers (and anyone) so well informed about both the good and the bad?

So in all normal circumstances you should have nothing to worry about. But something else hasn't really been mentioned. That is if there is a major problem somewhere, be it within Plusnet, or quite frequently within the BT Wholesale (WBC) network. Main fibre cables getting cut and the like.

When that happens, P2P within Plusnet will indeed get caned in favour of VOIP/gaming/browsing and so on. As it will be badly affected anyway by the major problem, that seems sensible in order to keep "more important" services running.

Yes indeed. I don't disagree with your calculations. But I was trying to make a more general point about expectations. When people started getting ADSL they were amazed at how fast and responsive it was compared to dial-up. At that time 80/20 FTTC wasn't available for comparison and nobody was streaming live TV while you were trying to game.

If you're concerned about minimum latency and jitter I'm surprised you seem to think traffic prioritisation is a bad thing, since it would allow your gaming traffic to leapfrog other lower priority packets (eg p2p) in the output buffer and achieve a lower latency for your gaming packets than you would have with no prioritisation. I'm not sure what this "doublespeak" is, that you mentioned...?

Dont forget gaming play traffic is usually UDP based and is usually small.

Some routers let you prioritise things like TCP ACK or UDP gaming traffic for the same reasons that Plusnet run their unlimited system they do now.

Wow, thank you so much everyone for the fantastic replies! I'm very grateful for how detailed and friendly you all are.

You've definitely clarified it for me and alleviated any worries I had. I think I'll go with Plusnet rather than BT. I can see the traffic management will be an actual benefit, and Plusnet are cheaper too I expect their customer service is better as well.

Be just confirmed my cancellation so I can order whenever I like now, providing it's within the next 28 days

Thanks again! I'll keep you all posted with how it goes.

I think the doublespeak is exactly what required me to create this thread. I didn't understand exactly how the traffic management worked. Is it throttling? Seems not. Is it limited to only your connection? Seems so! Can it actually be beneficial? Sounds like it.

Even now, I'm not 100% sure, but by what people have said and reported about their speeds, I'm reassured that it won't be ruining my connection, and hopefully doing the opposite.

I think the biggest thing that needs to be made obvious is this: your speed (for things like P2P) isn't going to get arbitrarily slowed/limited to improve everything and everyone else. It's going to get prioritised. Big distinction.

http://community.plus.net/forum/index.php/topic,1130...

Bit more info on that post. Yes your P2P could be slowed by everything else going on on the network, but only if we cock up our forecasting, or we have an "event" which causes problems (platform failure, major news event causing record levels of traffic etc)

We have had customers posting images of their P2P downloads coming down in excess of 60Mbps at 9pm.

Thanks, Kelly! That post is excellent and really clarifies everything.

In reply to a post by KellyD:

Yes your P2P could be slowed by everything else going on on the network, but only if we cock up our forecasting, or we have an "event" which causes problems (platform failure, major news event causing record levels of traffic etc)

I understand. I guess that's true for any ISP, so it'd be the same with BT.

I think I'll order tonight after I get home from work Thanks! It's also really nice to see you posting here; definitely a good indication of your customer service before I've even signed up!

A possible worry
If the fibre install date is outside the 28 days are you going to be cut off

That's a possibility and I very much hope not! I'm not expecting it to take that long.

How long does it take on average?

Two-three weeks from order, but is wholly dependent on Openreach load in your area.

I've signed up!

Providing there's no need for it to be changed, my installation date is set for 28/03/2013, which isn't that far away!

Bit peeved you have to pay £0.99 per month just for Caller ID... Especially when it's free with BT. But that's no real biggie.

Exciting!

Enjoy.

I'm afraid I think you will probably find that the date changes later in the day when Openreach have processed the order from Plusnet. But it would be the same with any ISP as it is purely the OR work load in your area that counts.

In reply to a post by Domsy:

Bit peeved you have to pay £0.99 per month just for Caller ID... Especially when it's free with BT. But that's no real biggie.

If you don't sign up for the BT Privacy at Home option then BT charge £1.75 per month for Caller ID.

Hi Domsy,

Any chance you could drop me a PM with your username on it? I'd like to check on that order, make sure it's all going through okay.

Thanks very much, Matthew! I really appreciate you taking an interest in my order I'll PM you it now.

Thanks!

Ah, I wasn't aware of this! My mum had originally set-up the line in my house and all I was aware that she added Caller ID for free.

I'm not too familiar with what BT Privacy at Home is, but by the sounds of it it's the need to make a few calls a month to prevent being charged, which I do recall her mentioning.

I guess £0.99 is fine then Thanks for the clarification!

In reply to a post by Domsy:

I'm not too familiar with what BT Privacy at Home is, but by the sounds of it it's the need to make a few calls a month to prevent being charged, which I do recall her mentioning.

They can be inclusive calls though, which essentially makes caller id free on BT.

Thanks for that, got it - I'm very happy to say the appointment is indeed booked in for the 28th in the afternoon slot (between 1pm and 6pm) which is about the shortest time I've seen it happen!

Hope it all goes fine, I'll check again early next week for you to make sure there's been no delays.

Woo, that's great news, thanks! I was surprised when I was able to choose it as I thought it was quite sooner than I was expecting.

I also got an SMS earlier saying my service is due to be active by midnight on 29/03/2013

I just realised I totally forgot to ask how the migration works for the phone line itself. My phone line is currently with BT, so we're paying them. There's no minimum time left on the contract (as far as I know).

Is it migrated automatically by Plusnet, or am I meant to cancel it with BT myself as well?

Thanks!

Edited by deleted (Sun 24-Mar-13 19:27:17)

Plusnet seem to like to move the line about 3 weeks after the broadband. When they set that in motion expect calls and emails from BT telling you your line is being moved away, and whether you want that to happen and please will you stay - we'd hate to lose you [sob] [sob].

Thanks! Good to know I don't need to worry about cancelling myself

Hey everyone!

Engineer rang at 16:41 to say he's on his way. Traffic was really bad so it was about an hour later before my net got disconnected and he then arrived. He only took a few minutes to install it and get it running. I'm using the supplied TG582n router (its configuration is [censored] compared to my old D-Link, but it'll do for now). I did ask about the extension kit that I did request on my order, but he didn't seem to even know what that was and said he's just supplied with the basics. It doesn't matter, though, as I decided to keep the modem and router next to the socket anyway.

I just did a test and... wow... I'm blown away by the speed. Here's the result: http://i.imgur.com/o0MlqUo.png
I'm amazed I'm getting higher than my estimated (69/20) less than an hour after it was installed. I wasn't even expecting it to be this good after the 10 day period! Perhaps it may actually get slower within the next 10 days? Regardless, it's insane! I'm loving it.

So a very good and smooth migration to Plusnet so far! I'm very happy

In reply to a post by Domsy:

Hey everyone!

Engineer rang at 16:41 to say he's on his way. Traffic was really bad so it was about an hour later before my net got disconnected and he then arrived. He only took a few minutes to install it and get it running. I'm using the supplied TG582n router (its configuration is [censored] compared to my old D-Link, but it'll do for now). I did ask about the extension kit that I did request on my order, but he didn't seem to even know what that was and said he's just supplied with the basics. It doesn't matter, though, as I decided to keep the modem and router next to the socket anyway.

I just did a test and... wow... I'm blown away by the speed. Here's the result: http://i.imgur.com/o0MlqUo.png
I'm amazed I'm getting higher than my estimated (69/20) less than an hour after it was installed. I wasn't even expecting it to be this good after the 10 day period! Perhaps it may actually get slower within the next 10 days? Regardless, it's insane! I'm loving it.

So a very good and smooth migration to Plusnet so far! I'm very happy

I also got mine installed this morning. BT Checker said I would get 53mb but am getting 70mb

Just a quickie, there is NO 10 day period with FTTC, in general connections start at their fastest then slow down if errors are detected, this can happen after a couple of days. DLM constantly monitors and reduces (quickly) or increases (slowly!) speed as it sees fit.

TRue, but BT Wholesale, and as a result most BTW-based ISPs, seem still to insist there is. PsITA!

Edited by RobertoS (Fri 29-Mar-13 10:01:25)

Ah, thanks for the clarification! Let's hope it doesn't decrease

In reference to www.btwholesale.com/shared/document/Products/Broadband/IPStream/dsl...:

5 The 10 day stabilisation period 8
5.1 What is the 10 day stabilisation period and what is it for? 8
5.2 What actually happens during the 10 day period? 8
5.3 What happens once the 10th day has passed and the MSR and FTR are set? 9
5.4 What happens if I do not use my modem until (e.g.) the 7th day? 9
5.5 What happens if I�ve been on holiday and haven�t used the service in the first 10 days? 9
5.6 Does this mean I�ll get the same Line Rate when I retrain the modem after the stabilisation period?

That doc is about IPStream; this discussion is about Fibre,

The quote was about the origins of the 10 day DLM. Nowadays, things like BRAT use 7 days of DLM data.

And relevancy is?

The so-called myth of the 10 day training period.

But for FTTC, it's not a "so-called" myth, it is a myth!

I see a lot of posts on this site saying that, but I also see posts indicating that it does exist and of course, plenty of responses from call centres saying it exists. I have seen no official documentation from BT stating what you said.

Well RobertoS has posted the link to the Openreach document that gives the lie to the 10-day training period for FTTC on these forums on several occasions.

Yeah, that's the Openreach DLM. I mean the BT BRAS profile system which has a 10 day training period.

What the point of DLM, ip profile on the fibre to the cabinet for god's sake ? Fibre superfast don't need these dreadful DLM and ip profile system from your local exchange. Stupid BTW.

Edited by adslmax (Sat 30-Mar-13 10:52:03)

In reply to a post by BatBoy:

Yeah, that's the Openreach DLM. I mean the BT BRAS profile system which has a 10 day training period.

Which on FTTC does not appear to anything except set the IP Profile. Which is expected always to be immediate on a re-sync.

What does it do after the 10 days?

The BRAS controls the throughput to the user, to prevent packet discards at the cabinet. After the training period, the maximum rate is set.

In reply to a post by adslmax:

What the point of DLM, ip profile on the fibre to the cabinet for god's sake ? Fibre superfast don't need these dreadful DLM and ip profile system from your local exchange. Stupid BTW.

DLM on fibre runs on the line from the FTTC cab to the customers premises not from the exchange.

In reply to a post by BatBoy:

The BRAS controls the throughput to the user, to prevent packet discards at the cabinet. After the training period, the maximum rate is set.

I don't have sufficient knowledge or evidence to refute this, but I have seen no real-world evidence whatsoever that the 10-day period has any significance for FTTC, and even Plusnet reps here and on the Community Forum have said that it doesn't apply.

In reply to a post by kasg:

Plusnet reps here and on the Community Forum have said that it doesn't apply.

Can you provide a link please?

In reply to a post by BatBoy:

In reply to a post by kasg:

Plusnet reps here and on the Community Forum have said that it doesn't apply.

Can you provide a link please?

No, I'm sorry, life's just a little too short to go hunting at the moment, if I find anything I'll post.

I remember this. I hope someone knows for sure