usenet

30k from usenet (easynews).
Is every easynews user getting this?
Other sites are ok, but easynews is slow to load pages and pretty bad to download.

Support never offer explanation, other than deny restrictions.

I'm getting the same speed, but with a different isp.

The common thing is traffic shaping, not easynews tho.

Get full 8mb on easynews thanks

Of course - i use a decent ISP

PN have admitted on the portal that even the http side for Easynews is throttled in addition to their P2P/Usenet throttling policies.

So all the denials Ive been getting via the members centre has been lies.
They were almost inferring that I must be imagining it, and flat outright said they werent throttling or traffic shaping from easynews.
all lies.

Is there a usenet friendly ISP out there?

Unfortunately that is correct. I learnt it the hard way when I was with them and I too got the same responses from PN. They initially implied my equipment, exchange and all sorts of things could be faulty and then checked if I had been wrongly profiled on their system and traffic management. Not once was traffic shaping even mentioned to me. I then did a search for P2P on the portal and learnt what traffic shaping and throttling meant. I started asking questions - easy ones were answered by staff and then the more difficult ones went completely unanswered.

The best way I can describe it to you is with this link:
http://www.plus.net/support/broadband/network/broadband_bandwidth_usage.shtml?pn_session=34151a2236d39cea05550288a263139b

The second graph is the total bandwidth PN have bought and it shows how they distribute it to their customers. When more people are using hhtp, email and gaming there is less for P2P and when the same people go to sleep there is more available for downloading. That is fine if you want to use it in this manner so try downloading at night as it might cure the problem.

From my perspective I was given a peak time allowance that I could not use for Usenet/P2P no matter what I did because PN didn't and don't have enough peak capacity for the number of subscribers they have. I didn't like the fact that I was being forcibly told what protocols and programs I could use at different times of the day because an allowance is an allowance and how I used it was for me to decide & not PN. PN also believe in buying traffic shaping equipment (cheaper) than more bandwidth as most ISPs do. They then crammed on as many people as they could and tried to squeeze out every last drop. There is no margin in their network and hence why the first graph displays what information they are dropping/discarding from reaching its destination.

If you are happy to do your downloads late at night i.e. 3am then you could be OK with PN otherwise find some good ISP as there are many still out there.

Here is the link to verify what I have stated:
http://portal.plus.net/central/forums/viewtopic.php?p=359784&highlight=easynews#359784

http://portal.plus.net/central/forums/viewtopic.php?t=48489&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0

Is there a usenet friendly ISP out there?

Eclipse.

Yes the speeds during the day and evening suck, but midnight to 8am I can easily download 15-20GB a day.

How is that different to what he is getting now? Eclipse seem to be a clone of PN in every respect. They introduced traffic shaping without telling anyone and they are doing the same Tiscali LLU moves in exactly the same problematic way as PN.

If you want good speeds at all times of the day I would suggest you look at the 'Which Residential ISP' forum and ask for suggestions or better still do a search there that will throw up the answers. From the top of my head I think it is IDNET, UKFSN, Aquiss, Zen, Nildram etc. I personally am worried about Entanet and their resellers because I can't see how they will be able to provide 60GB peak and 300GB offpeak for subs they are charging. I hope I am proved wrong. Namesco are another ISP rated very highly.

edit: http://bbs.adslguide.org.uk/showflat.php?Cat=&Board=which_isp&Number=2679977&page=0&view=collapsed&sb=5&o=2&fpart=

Edited by rsharma (Mon 02-Oct-06 12:27:57)

How is that different to what he is getting now?
Can you download 15GB a day from PlusNet? I couldn't. I was told it wasn't econimcally viable. That's why I left. (Before I was pushed).

If you want good speeds at all times of the day
What does this have to do with the OPs question re: a usenet friendly isp?

I personally am worried about Entanet and their resellers because I can't see how they will be able to provide 60GB peak and 300GB offpeak for subs they are charging. I hope I am proved wrong.
I used to regularly download 300GB+ when I was at PlusNet on a 2Mb line. Presumably those still on 2Mb lines with Zen could be doing the same. Why aren't you worried about Zen?

For what it's worth (no idea if it's been posted elsewhere):

In reply to:

---

P2P Issues - UPDATE
ADSL Dial
Posted on: Thursday 28 September 2006, 19:21
This is an update to the previously reported problem affecting download speeds when using lower priority protocols such as Peer-to-Peer, Torrents and Binary Usenet. A copy of the original report can be found here for your reference:-

http://usertools.plus.net/status/archive/1158168848.htm


We have begun testing the software upgrade on our Ellacoya traffic management switches which will resolve the problem some customers have been seeing with slow P2P and binary Usenet downloads.

The upgrade has been completed on our ADSL test platform and testing has commenced on the new software. The software upgrade will gives us a set of new signatures which will allow us to correctly set the priority of encrypted P2P software and will allow the available bandwidth to be more evenly spread between encrypted P2P and unencrypted P2P, Usenet and FTP traffic.

So long as the testing is successful this will be completed on 2nd October and we will rollout the upgrade to one of our Ellacoya switches on 3rd October before rolling the upgrade out to the remaining switches the following day.

We will post a further update next week.


Kind Regards,

Dave Tomlinson
Customer Support

---

So today appears to be the day.

I wish I was able to buy into their marketing speak but the fact is that the only people being affected by encrypted P2P are the people browsing the web and not anyone else. At the end of the day, if the same people using encrypted P2P were prioritised as bronze traffic then there would be even less bandwidth available for the other p2p users. By encrypting their traffic they are only stealing from the silver and gold ques. There is nothing PN can do about the slow speeds because they are actually working to design and the only thing that will allow people to get decent speeds on p2p or Usenet is more bandwidth being bought. Do they have any plans?

No idea. Why don't you ask them?

I'm just posting info for those using the service. Not interested in speculation on PN.

I wasn't trying to speculate either. I was asking if PN had announced that they were going to buy more bandwidth. Simple question really. I don't ask questions from PN anymore because they are selective in their answers and I do not feel that they are honest either. I have stated this much to IW in my last PM to him.

It doesn't detract from the fact that the service announcement is absolute rubbish. Introducing a new signature will only free up some bandwidth back for web browsing and gaming by allocating the p2p traffic in the proper ques. It will not improve speeds for existing P2P/Usenet users and if anything it will make it worse for them. If the service announcement isn't marketing speak then I don't know what is TBH.

It sounds like "You can't get a quart into a pint pot"

No matter what how you adjust the pot, it won't fit.

So rearranging the current bandwidth is not going to do the trick.

Well I'll copy and paste some posts from the PN forums. Names omitted.

In reply to:

---

I have to admit that the other night I was seeing amazing speeds of about 277 Kb/s. I was downloading a load of small files in a big 1.3Gb consignment, but for the first time ever I actually got a decent speed.

---

In reply to:

---

The pessamist in me thinks it went live this morning as my VMBU tells me i've moved 1.4Gb since 12am whereas the last day or two its been 5Gb since 8am

---

In reply to:

---

I was thinking it might have gone live last night as my torrent was pretty fast last night.

---

I don't use torrents myself, but occasionally would like to, so am taking an interest of late.

"It will not improve speeds for existing P2P/Usenet users and if anything it will make it worse for them."

It'll only make it worse for encrypted p2p users. Most people should see faster speeds.

The p2p arena is an arms race that will only end when download quotas significantly increase. Developers will be continually making it as difficult as possible for hardware manufacturers and ISPs to identify their products. Ellacoya and PN are always going to be playing catch up. It took them over three months to identify these versions of encrypted p2p (if they did indeed identify them properly) and bring service levels back to the norm. How it affects future service levels will be interesting to watch.

TT

Keep an eye out on this thread:

http://portal.plus.net/central/forums/viewtopic.php?p=365797&sid=1537a4c7a55f4311e59715ed4bfc643a#365797

I suspect that I and others will be proved right about the effects of the new signatures. No matter which way PN spin it the truth of the matter is that they don't have the peak time capacity on the network for the number of users they have.

I have a solution for PN. Why don't they just refuse all P2P as well as binary usenet during the day? This would instantly enable the traffic management not having to drop any packets from the other ques and instead force everyone to use downloading protocols offpeak only. This is turn will allow web/email/ftp/vpn to run perfectly during peak time. Genius. If they are so inclined they could also buy new bandwidth from BT to ease the problem instead but I suspect this won't happen anytime soon (considering that it has been needed since July 05).

@rsharma

Unless Plusnet want to start a MAC Key or Cancellation war... It would be a very bad idea to lock out people using P2P software.

Given the relatively small number of customers using P2P on a large scale....... would that worry them too much?

PN has seemed to proved of late they don't want P2P users.

They just want the people who just have a look on
the internet an hour a day.

I rather imagine that would be the prefered type of customer for any ISP...... unless you know of one that specifacally asks for customers that download 300-400Gig or more per month..

yes, but PN seems to be very eager to
cherry pick of late. But their prices are to
high with all the "free" ISP now.

" But their prices are to high with all the "free" ISP now."

Again that could apply to a lot of ISP's as well now..... especially those that are touted as being "pay a bit extra and you get a bit more" the trouble is the "more" is starting to get "less" so it is getting harder to justify paying the "extra" in my opinion.To quote an example off the top of my head someone would have to come up with something really tangible for me to move to someone like Zen for example as I personally don't think they are worth the extra for my needs, which is certainly a lot more than just checking my emails and surfing for an hour a day.

I agree with it's getting harder to justify extra.

I had to leave PN as the throttling was a joke,
was getting about 5 KB/s on torrents.
Now i'm getting at least 10 times that speed,
last night it was 40 times that speed.
Also I now can download at all times and
don't have to worry about capping.
The Cost?
55% cheaper than PN

Horses for courses Zen suits your needs,but for what I do it would not be worth paying the extra...... I know I may be accused of not using my connection properly but my only use for P2P is in one of my video conferencing pieces of software...... but the important thing for me is that for the money I pay I get a rock steady connection,and my binary newsgroups (I have just checked) come down to me at between 160 and 234KB/s.So I don't really need any thing else from my connection:well nothing that would in my case warrant moving to a higher priced ISP just for the sake of it.

I didn't move to Zen, I moved to AOL
paying �9.99.
If someones happy with their ISP I would say don't move
If it wasn't for me starting using P2P I would still be
using PN, I hardly ever had a problem.

But in saying that, when I signed to PN they
were one of the cheapest, now they are
far from that.

It probably would but they aren't offering the service now so not much different to reality. Wouldn't it be better to be upfront with the users and tell them they can only use it at night time instead of pretending that everything is fine with their capacity and blame it on people's setup, hardware, firewall or even the software they use? Would it not benefit the majority because PN would finally free up much needed network capacity for web browsing, VPN and emails etc?

For months people have been led around in circles and have conducted dozens of checks and tests thinking it is their problem or a BT one when it has almost always been PN that is the cause. I know, I have been there, done that and have my t-shirt for it.

Let's look at this issue a little bit more deeply. If someone can't use their allowed usage, at full speed upto 13GB on Premier Option 1, through P2P/Usenet then how will they use this limit in other cases? A user only surfing the web, watching a few video clips, a little FTP and email doesn't really need more than 2-5GB/month. Therefore the usage allowance being given by PN are meaningless to the majority of users. The fact is that PN advertise 20GB headline figures when the real figure IMO should state clearly that it is 13GB but if people can't use even this lower limit when they want for what they need then it makes no difference what allowance is allocated by PN. Hell, they could claim to give everyone 400GB peak time allowance but if they in turn make it unusable due to traffic shaping then it is unachievable and meaningless

PN don't admit that they doubled their number of customers but not once bought more capacity and that is at the heart of the problem. They don't admit that the reason for their comparatively high profits is due to the fact that they have managed to squeeze on too many people on their available bandwidth. I would therefore think it prudent for PN to be honest and make it clear and should people then choose to leave at least they will do so on good terms rather than on feeling totally ill-done by PN.

I did state that this would happen in my post of last week and called their announcement a marketing release. PN can only spin the issue so many ways before they get caught out. This issue has been ongoing for well over 12 months and every two months more people pop up, are fed the same nonsense and realise it after weeks/months and move on. It is history repeating itself but each time a new group come up for air they are fed the same lies to pacify them but those of us who have been witness to all this know what the real issues are. My previous post was therefore not a prediction but I could guarantee it.

Well my usenet speed has increased to virtually my line max (grr@bt BRAS) tonight. I have been downloading with 2 connections at approx 2.5Mb. On Sunday it was so bad I couldn't get a connection until late in the evening. It will be interesting to see what the speeds are like for the rest of the week, but aside from the past week I usually get around 2Mb at peak time using usenet.

From Nov 2004 to February 2006 I didn't use anything more than web surfing, email and a few video clips from sites like BBC and it was only in Feb this year that I tried to use a couple of P2P apps, one of them was SkyByBroadband, and it was then I realised what the problems were. Until that time I never saw a problem with my connection, never had to call support, never had major disconnections or DNS problems and didn't use their binary new server. I never used their email.

I too never achieved halfway decent speeds and ofcourse it was blamed all on my connection, setting etc. Therefore they were happy for me to pay them

Great news. I really (and I really mean that) hope that everyone else sees the same. The problem is that if only a select few do then it isn't fair and a lot of people haven't had good speeds for a very long time. Let's wait for it to settle down over the next week but I'll bet

Edited by rsharma (Tue 10-Oct-06 23:47:46)

Unfortunately for me I didn't loose the

Between 4pm and 12am. Usenet (giganews) is blocked from being used.

Even the HTTP side of it is unusable. This started 3 days after I got a Giganews account, and I was only using 3GB of my peak time for the whole month. I [censored] disgrace.