In reply to a post by baby_frogmella:

In reply to a post by Rastus:

In reply to a post by baby_frogmella:

... Surely its wrong to have a 'one size fits all' approach? What if one of your customers wants P2P downloads given a higher priority over Netflix streaming?

What an excellent idea - why didn't I think of it? Ideal for the few people who like to watch jerky movies caused by constant buffering.

Then why aren't people shifting in masses from BT, TalkTalk, Sky et al to PlusNet if their 'throttling' is the bestest thing ever? Traffic priority should be left up to the customer, not spoon fed by their isp.

Personally I prefer PlusNets logic on traffic prioritisation to yours (on a subject which I doubt you fully comprehend).

Although there are probably many PN customers who are unaware of the PN traffic prioritisation system, I'd say that the vast majority of those who are aware and understand the logic of it, are appreciative of it.

e.g. I use VoIP (an extremely time-critical traffic type) quite a lot and know for a fact how the quality of calls is improved by prioritising that type of traffic, which I have noticed ever since PN started doing it several years ago. Put it the other way, before traffic management was introduced, VoIP calls could often be 'choppy' or even drop due to other traffic hogging bandwidth - choppy calls being something we sometimes get when making SIP (VoIP to VoIP if you like) calls to a particular person whose ISP obviously does not prioritise time sensitive traffic.

Due to the logical order in which different types of traffic are prioritised I generally don't get any noticeable slow-downs with other traffic when using things such as VoIP, so as you must've guessed, PNs traffic prioritisation gets a thumbs-up from me.

Edit - typos

Edited by Rastus (Fri 28-Feb-14 09:57:25)

In reply to a post by baby_frogmella:

Then why aren't people shifting in masses from BT, TalkTalk, Sky et al to PlusNet if their 'throttling' is the bestest thing ever? Traffic priority should be left up to the customer, not spoon fed by their isp.

Actually the Plusnet customer base is rapidly increasing. It won't be anything to do with shaping being seen as a plus though as the majority will have no clue about it. What it will be is the bargain basement pricing from a major ISP. Why can they offer that? Because those that fear shaping will prevent them running torrents flat out 24x7 and in consequence use excessive bandwidth will go elsewhere.

It certainly isn't the case.

http://www.plus.net/support/displayImage.php?strImag... shows the number of customers connected over the past year (there's some obvious glitches where data has been lost but the trend is clear).

In reply to a post by ian72:

What I don't get is why you have such a big problem with them as I assume you aren't with plusnet so it doesn't affect you.

ISPs often like to hear from potential customers what they want in an ISP, it helps them form products which customers want which is good for everyone. Since Plusnet is small relative to the likes of Talktalk and Sky we have Plusnet staff in these forums who might have some influence on product design.

If Plusnet as a whole thinks people not in favour of protocol discrimination are misinformed and need to be educated I feel it's only right I should state my opinion to them and I don't see a problem with that.

Thanks, I needed a laugh this morning. Glad you are happy with your service from Plusnet. I find that their customer support is pretty poor and the service they provide average at best.

Not much different to Tiscali who I was with before.

In reply to a post by Oliver341:

I feel it's only right I should state my opinion to them and I don't see a problem with that.

Understand your view, but it's a little odd (discussing it) when you indicated you didn't want to open up a repeat discussion on the matter. I know you suspect there are others similarly interested in a "no management" option, but the question is, would PN be happy with it.

Obvious answer is "no" else they would have that now - I don't know what proportion of users will have switched to one of the Unlimited accounts since they came in during December 2012, but if 90% are happy/uncaring, and the other 10% either want it (and may decide to switch ISP) or have it (by opting in to Pro) then PN has absolutely no reason to change.

I'm guessing you'd want no traffic management kit in your path, so would it be worth a few quid a month to you for it, or not? Seems an obvious "no" but if cost isn't the attraction for possibly using PN, what is?

In reply to a post by ultra:

Understand your view, but it's a little odd (discussing it) when you indicated you didn't want to open up a repeat discussion on the matter.

It was only meant to be a little bit of feedback for Chris but I guess this topic always ends in debate so I should have known better.

In reply to a post by ultra:

I'm guessing you'd want no traffic management kit in your path, so would it be worth a few quid a month to you for it, or not? Seems an obvious "no" but if cost isn't the attraction for possibly using PN, what is?

From a purely selfish point of view, when choosing a new ISP I want as much choice as possible. ISPs with traffic management obviously limit my potential choices due to my stance on net neutrality and protocol discrimination. Possibly my words and other peoples' words will have no effect on Plusnet, but who would have though a £2.50 ISP like Talktalk would drop their traffic management?

Feedback is good, no problem with that. But, I feel you think you are representative of the majority whereas most users I know (those that don't use this site) have either no interest or no issue with Plusnet's current policy.

This thread in itself has to make you think you are in the minority even on this site? It doesn't change your opinion and it doesn't make your opinion wrong for you but it does suggest that Plusnet aren't doing anything particularly wrong for most of their user base (at least as far as this is concerned).

Personally, I think most people would have no clue about setting QoS on their routers/systems and so an ISP that does that for them to ensure critical traffic has priority is going to be a hidden benefit for them.

In reply to a post by ian72:

Personally, I think most people would have no clue about setting QoS on their routers/systems and so an ISP that does that for them to ensure critical traffic has priority is going to be a hidden benefit for them.

Open to argument, but surely setting QoS in your router can only affect outgoing traffic?

In reply to a post by ian72:

Feedback is good, no problem with that. But, I feel you think you are representative of the majority whereas most users I know (those that don't use this site) have either no interest or no issue with Plusnet's current policy.

I don't assume I'm in a majority and I'm not really bothered either way since I'd still have the same opinion. But I would say that the vast majority of UK DSL connections are not traffic managed; whether that means most people prefer not to have traffic management is open to interpretation. Also up for debate is whether Plusnet would have 1.5 million customers instead of 800,000 if they dropped their traffic management, we have no way of knowing.