In reply to a post by RobertoS:

As more than one current (savvy) ADSL24/Coms customer has said in the last few days, they are waiting to see how things shake out once the traffic management system has been tuned. When working properly these are a plus point, not a drawback - t h i n g s have c h a n g e d...

I'd agree with that if they were planning to implement a Plusnet type 'personal QOS system'.
What makes that work so well however is the guarantee they have made to always have enough bandwidth to satisfy customer demand, exceptional events aside.

Reading between the lines on this thread I'm assuming that this is more about implementing speed caps for certain protocols as they cannot afford to provide the bandwidth to satisfy their customer demand.
I'd guess the tuning talked about is how much they need to slow these protocols down and at what times of the day.

I've been following this thread with some concern.
I have been an ADSL24 customer for years and I was happy to be able to afford to pay over the top for a first class customer service with no restrictions on usage other than the capacity of my line and the usage limit that I paid for.
I got 22/5 Mb 24/7 and although I seldom approached my 30GB monthly limit, when I did download a large file I wanted it fast and wanted it now.
I will wait for a short while to see how this all pans out but if it turns out that traffic shaping ruins the service that I thought I had paid for, then Zen or someone like them will gain another customer.

Edited by deleted (Tue 25-Mar-14 12:32:39)

16:55 getting my full speeds now on usenet

Ditto.

The bandwidth ADSL24 provided with the Broadband and Phone package was sufficient. Like you, I don't want to continuously download via every protocol, just to know that no obstructions will arise if the need arises. That is clearly no longer the case.

Since taking over ADSL24, Coms have had considerable time to monitor usage and plan ahead. In the light if this, it's surprising that they did not foresee how their new system would cope. That they failed to do so - either through lack of competence or for some other reason - does not inspire confidence.

The only tangible benefit of Coms over ADSL24 is the phone rate pricing (though there is still no sign of ongoing usage reporting). Looks like I'll be shopping around.

Hello Everyone,

OK lots of important feedback here and a sincere thanks for the constructive feedback. I get that most of you are unhappy about traffic management, I note that speculation is rife as to why we are doing it. I have tried to explain our position without sounding like a robot and I'm sure that you can understand the difficulties faced when relaying a message that is going to cause concern.

I have been in touch with a few users over mail and have had calla with a few more to get a better understanding of the frustrations.
We really are trying to find a balance that isn't going to take away everything but at the same time there was a material problem affecting many more people than the introduction of the traffic management.
I'm sorry its not the same but there is no way we could stand by and do nothing to better manage the network. Once again throwing bandwidth at the problem isn't a viable long term fix.

We need to do things the right way and that sometimes involves taking the time to do it properly rather than making a knee jerk/short term action.

We are going to keep going with the trial until Monday but fix the settings during this next test phase and I'd like to share that information with you.
I know I said that we'd like to have a policy in place by Friday but its in all of our best interests to make sure that whatever we do is done by interrogating as much data as is possible.
For those that stick with it, thank you for your patience.

Now the dry statement bit......

As promised here is an update on where Coms are with our traffic management trial.
Having taken on board feedback directly from our users on this forum I am very clear on most people�s opinions and we have a duty to all of our customers therefore, any outcome needs to benefit as many users as possible. Really appreciate the time of those who have been in direct contact with me. This direct engagement will help shape the final outcome.

Why are we doing it?
The intention was to analyse and improve the overall quality of network throughput for real-time applications during peak hours. Bottom line is that customers were experiencing packet loss and buffering video stream issues.

How Long have we been doing it?
We have been testing different priorities over different periods of time over the past 16 days.
The trial will continue until at least Monday 31st March to ensure that we have enough data to validate before making a final decision on a Traffic Management Policy.

What traffic is being managed?
From Wednesday 26th march to Monday 31st March, the priorities for traffic on the network will be:
Priority 1) Voice & Gaming (e.g. Skype & Xbox)
Priority 2) Video (e.g. BBC iPlayer)
Priority 3) Web (e.g thinkbroadband)
Priority 4)P2P & NNTP.
Traffic management trial will operate from 1800-0000 Monday-Friday and 1000-0000 Saturday and Sunday. There has never been, and will NOT be any blocking of ports.

What have been the results so far?
Improved quality for Voice, Gaming and Video traffic. This has been measured by monitoring users connections, with their cooperation, and this has had led to a significant decrease in reported issues of packet loss.
This change to the network has been to the detriment of P2P and NNTP traffic which has been given the lowest priority during peak hours.

What happens at the end of the trial?
A decision will be made on a Traffic Management Policy.
If there are fundamental changes to the service then these need to be carefully considered and communicated.
Should any definite policy be put in place then this will communicated to the customer base by email and posted on the coms.com website.

Thanks,
Paul

In reply to a post by PaulComs:

What traffic is being managed?
From Wednesday 26th march to Monday 31st March, the priorities for traffic on the network will be:
Priority 1) Voice & Gaming (e.g. Skype & Xbox)
Priority 2) Video (e.g. BBC iPlayer)
Priority 3) Web (e.g thinkbroadband)
Priority 4)P2P & NNTP.
Traffic management trial will operate from 1800-0000 Monday-Friday and 1000-0000 Saturday and Sunday. There has never been, and will NOT be any blocking of ports.

What have been the results so far?
Improved quality for Voice, Gaming and Video traffic. This has been measured by monitoring users connections, with their cooperation, and this has had led to a significant decrease in reported issues of packet loss.
This change to the network has been to the detriment of P2P and NNTP traffic which has been given the lowest priority during peak hours.

Thanks for posting the latest situation.

At the end of the day, it is up to COMS to make the commercial decisions that make sense for their business model and it is up to the customers, (those lucky ones who fortunately have not been locked in to lengthy contracts on the back of promises that they THOUGHT had been made), to decide where to spend their money.

I will make my decision based on trust, previous customer service history, and lastly and least important for me, bangs for bucks.
If throttling effects my Internet usage in any way I will probably be off even if I end up paying more than the £27/month that I pay now.

In reply to a post by PaulComs:

Why are we doing it?
The intention was to analyse and improve the overall quality of network throughput for real-time applications during peak hours. Bottom line is that customers were experiencing packet loss and buffering video stream issues.

I have a few questions in response:

- As far as I am aware this was not the case before the switchover from ADSL24. So what have you done that is making it an issue now?

- Will you be issuing a written apology to your customers for testing traffic throttling without at least notifying them first that their service would be adversely affected during testing?

- Once you implement throttling, will you be issuing a written apology to your customers for breaking your promises regarding not adversely affecting our service?

- Once you implement throttling, will you be halving your prices, since you will not be differentiating yourself in any way from the larger, cheaper, identikit broadband providers?

Hi Paul,

I appreciate this is still in the testing phase but are P2P and NNTP ever likely to see improved service? I would've thought that you and your team would have a good idea of the answer to that by now. It still seems very "it's packet loss or very slow P2P + NNTP" and there's no clear indication that you intend to do anything about the excessive but currently necessary throttling. If "throwing bandwidth at it" isn't a long term fix, may I ask what's so different about your "future proof" network compared to the previous one? Is it flawed?

I was planning on migrating due to this issue but the very high cost of moving from MPF has killed off that idea beings as I'm student and only live here for another 4 months.

If tl;dr; will we see improved P2P and NNTP or is it always going have the bits throttled out of it?

Edited by deleted (Wed 26-Mar-14 11:37:53)

- Once you implement throttling, will you be halving your prices, since you will not be differentiating yourself in any way from the larger, cheaper, identikit broadband providers?


This is a major issue for me too, and one Coms cannot seem to understand. We have been paying for an un-throttled service, with good CS, so why are they changing it?
I believe they, Coms, think that by doubling existing customers usage caps , it is a fair trade. But I dont!! I also believe they know a lot of us on mpf connections are virtually hostages in this situation and so don`t really care.

New legislation is just about in place to enable providers to "pull" you off of another's MPF platform.