A curious WBC capacity question

Looking at the capacity graphs (http://www.plus.net/support/service/network_performance/broadband_bandwidth_usage.shtml) it looks like the peak time for plusnet is around 8pm to 10pm. It's probably a similar story for most other consumer ISPs.

So am I right in understanding that the ISP pays for sufficient bandwidth for that peak; all usage at other times is effectively 'free' for the ISP? I.e. their charges are based on the peak usage rather than averages or similar?

The reason I ask is that I'm aware I'm a heavier user - despite being on the Unlimited package I'm making sure that my bulk usage happens between midnight and 8am (the 'off peak' hours for Plusnet's usage based packages). Is it worth me continuing to do this?

Cheers,
Blueacid

correct, generally the bill is based on peak time demand.

I see we have gained a new portal (MSIL?) - Colindale 2. I think Stepney wasn't long ago either.

Edited by RobertoS (Mon 10-Feb-14 00:30:49)

Do you know if there's any way to see which MSIL your traffic runs through? I have found how to see which gateway I'm connected through but I can't subsequently identify which gateway connects to each MSIL?

I've never yet seen those graphs 'flatline' at the top (against any hard or soft limit); just wondering if there's any way to see how close to the limit things are - much like the enta.net NOC with the percentage capacity dials.

Thanks to all for the answer so far - seems therefore that Plusnet are basically prepared for heavy usage from around 11pm til 7pm, looking at those graphs. I'm still sticking to the midnight-8am period, just so that my 'off peak' usage is shown as such on their billing pages. Might make it easier in the future if I need to choose a new ISP that has a limit in place at times

I don't think there is a way. The MSILs are between us and the gateways.

We may not always even be on the same MSIL, unlike with Entanet, at least in the early days. From the data James at ADSL24 published it seemed at that time that MSANs were fixed-routed to a corresponding MSIL, but that was before resilient fail-over of MSILs was (I hope!) implemented by BT Wholesale.

Entanet however uses WBC, where all 20 nodes have Enta MSILs. Plusnet are using WBMC where BT Wholesale route from the MSAN to the Plusnet MSILs, so I don't know how fixed or variable that routing is.

It appears to me that "Portal" is what Plusnet are called an MSIL. What happens if one dies I don't know. Whether we get a major blackout for customers, or whether they can be auto-rerouted by BTW to a different one, or whether a disconnection/reconnection by the user triggers a reroute.

The graphs look to be auto-scaling to the usage, with no mention of the capacity rented on that MSIL.

Seems that your findings line up with mine!

That must be a real pain for Plusnet to keep track of though; if the routing changes, suddenly placing a far greater demand on one MSIL than another..yeesh!

It's still quite interesting to see! Seeing how it looks, I certainly shy away from doing anything too taxing between about 8:30pm and 10:30pm. I wonder how many others do the same?

I would ignore the times and only revert to them (with appropriate comment here and in the Community forums) if you find any issues. There aren't supposed to be any.

Though I do understand your wanting to have some idea of your peak/off-peak figures if you decide you want to migrate out. But most people don't do that on impulse, so if necessary you could change to "patterned" usage for a couple of months to get the info.