PN's Exchange Information

Does anyone know where PN get their exchange information from? I notice Liam Martin is telling PN customers that nearly 50% of BT exchanges are red for capacity. Looking at SamKnows I can see 133 exchanges are red out of a total of 5074. Apart from the obvious, what could account for this huge discrepancy?

http://www.samknows.com/broadband/capacity-summary.php

TT

It is another excuse used by PN because if it isn't then how is it that a customer can download at high speed from http but restricted on everything else even on a red exchange? PN go round in circles blaming everyone and everything for the speeds except to admit not having the capacity to service its customers.

http://usergroup.plus.net/report_pncapacity.php

I am told that the information is wrong and over a year old.

Its just another way of PN passing the blame to someone else.


Surely if this was the case - then people on all ISP's would be complaining about slow speeds. .... oh no wait .. its just PN users...

strange that!

On samknows my own exchange is shown as Green, whilst on the PN and Zen checkers it comes up Red, so there would appear to be discrepancies.

Given that I can't find any "Next DSLAM" dates on samknows less than a year old, I suspect that to be the 'faulty' one. Also, the VP/DSLAM info isn't shown on the individual exchange pages, so that suggests to me that it isn't considered worth showing at the moment.


StealhyP

Here is the update:
http://www.plus.net/supportpages.html?a=2&support_action=messages&ispservice_id=other

See how carefully worded that is?

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Ellacoya who manufacture the switches used to identify different types of traffic across our network. It is this traffic identification that allows us to offer guaranteed quality of service for those applications that require it, whilst still allowing the use of lower priority, less latency-sensitive applications like P2P and Binary Usenet.

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Who decides what applications need priority? If they are guaranteed but not working to normal speeds should PN not be issuing refunds? Where on Premier does it state that P2P/Usenet packets will be dropped? The only reference is that other applications will get a higher priority but that doesn't imply that the available bandwidth will be limited for these other protocols. No mention of VPN or Remote Desktop problems even on standard ports. Round and round they go.

Having read a thread on the portal, if I was still on PN trying to use P2P I would encrypt my data and use port 3389 or one of the others ones PN allow for other encrypted services. It is clear that their traffic management identifies all encrypted data - not just P2P- and since they have to open ports for other encrypted data that would be the second best solution to get it to work.

"Its just another way of PN passing the blame to someone else."

That was the obvious!

TT

"On samknows my own exchange is shown as Green, whilst on the PN and Zen checkers it comes up Red, so there would appear to be discrepancies."

Seeing the same. Had a look at the Zen one and from the dozen or so exchanges I did check, the data appears to be identical to Usertools. It appears both PN and Zen are using the same source of data from BT.

TT

"I am told that the information is wrong and over a year old."

Did they figure this out today or have they known for some time?

TT

"It is clear that their traffic management identifies all encrypted data - not just P2P- and since they have to open ports for other encrypted data that would be the second best solution to get it to work."

The Ellacoya switches don't work as you would think. Whilst the switches can look solely at protocols and port numbers, they mostly look for application signatures to classify the flows. If the world ran p2p servers on tcp/80 they'd still recognise the traffic and classify appropriately.

The 6.4 software is still not classifying certain applications correctly. PN need to manually identify which applications are affected and implement a workaround on the switches to classify appropriately. If the signatures are particularly voluminous then it might be easier to use protocol and port numbers to identify the traffic. If you know of any apps/games that have been manually added, it might be worth running your p2p software on those ports to see if it improves speeds.

TT

There's a report you can get from BT Wholesale that has the RAG status and planned upgrade dates.

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The 6.4 software is still not classifying certain applications correctly. PN need to manually identify which applications are affected and implement a workaround on the switches to classify appropriately. If the signatures are particularly voluminous then it might be easier to use protocol and port numbers to identify the traffic. If you know of any apps/games that have been manually added, it might be worth running your p2p software on those ports to see if it improves speeds.

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Of course, if they have manually added a app/game, then they have also set a max size total traffic allowance for it, swamping that port with P2P traffic, will not only not see much of an increase in speed, it will also trash the performance gain that has been added for that app.

Edited by deleted (Fri 27-Oct-06 13:58:27)

The same place Nildram/Pipex get it from, _TT_. Zen say red for mine, Nildram too, Plusnet too. Looks like sam doesn't know.

"Of course, if they have manually added a app/game, then they have also set a max size total traffic allowance for it, swamping that port with P2P traffic, will not only not see much of an increase in speed, it will also trash the performance gain that has been added for that app."

You are not required to set a rate limit when you add an application to an Ellacoya, although it would be prudent to set one.

TT

PlusNet have a long history of disinforming customers about the throttling of applications/protocols. They have either lied or they are genuinely incompetent. I think the former. Their so-called line speed packages are nothing of the sort because they don't have - and never did have - the necessary bandwidth to allow full line speed to anyone for anything. The notion that customers are paying for unencumbered data packages is laughable. This p2p "slowdown" will never be fixed because it has never been broken - it's working exactly the way PlusNet want it to; but rather than say so, they procrastinate forever and make believe that someone else (BT, Ellacoya, the customer, etc) is at fault. I don't give a toss because a) I'm as far away from PlusNet as I can get and b) I don't use p2p anyway -- but there are a lot of PlusNet customers who have been conned into buying data-defined packages which were misadvertised as having no throttling until data limits were reached.

I really can't see BT forking out for this bunch of street traders and their 3-card trick. Pity because it would probably be a better life for PN customers if they did.

Simon

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It is this traffic identification that allows us to offer guaranteed quality of service for those applications that require it

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I thought PlusNet used to bleat out the old "it's not a gauranteed service/quality/anything"?

PlusNet can't gaurantee anything. (other than an ever decreasing service...)

It is a fact that a large number of BT exchanges are heavily congested. I've had complaints from people on a number of different ISPs.
Probably the causer of that is the increased take-up of Max, plus people trying to max out their connections with p2p.

If you don't want any traffic shaping you pay for a fixed cap and a premium service, it will cost, but you can get anything from 2 GB too 50 GB a month unshaped, with a choice of paying more or not going online if you use it all.

Back in the days of dial-up when I was eith BT there was no cap, but anyone persistantly going over the fair use figure would have their contract cancelled for non-compliance. Maybe that would be a fairer way for PlusNet to go, say allow everyone 5 GB of p2p a month high priority?

Don't give them Ideas...

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If you don't want any traffic shaping you pay for a fixed cap and a premium service

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I've got "PlusNet Premier. That was sold to me as the premium service...

I'm not saying I don't want any traffic shaping. I think traffic shaping can be a "good thing", but there's no way that 19KB/sec top speed on FTP transfers during the day (any time between 11am and 1am the next morning) over the weekends is any good at all. For reference, in the first 20 odd days of this month the VMBU had recorded just over 20MB of peak time FTP transfer for me, so it's not as if I'm abusing the service and using silly amounts of FTP, which makes getting such a shockingly poor service all the more difficult to swallow. I've done "353.21MB" of FTP transfer in total in 25 days (much of which has been transfer trying to find out why it's so flippin' slow so as I can provide info to PN about what I'm experiencing )

For reference, my exchange is showing as "green" on the PlusNet Exchange checker. I'm also able to get massively higher http speeds than I am ftp speeds - 1am though I can max out the line on ftp downloads, so it's not my equipment causing the problem either. The FTP servers are working fine on other ISP connections, so it also isn't the FTP servers at fault.

Surely no one can feel that 19KB/sec top speed is acceptable for FTP transfers on an 8Mbps "Premium" connection?

They get their information from BT.

My new ISP has also said in their forums that there are a lot of exchanges on red at the moment - "There are currently alot of exchanges (and I mean alot) on RED VP warnings which can be resulting in slowdowns.".

Tim

19kb/s is not acceptable for ftp transfers, and I only get those speeds on very busy servers.
I maxed out my connection last night (9 pm onward) with ftp downloads from one sight. Another site gave me a max of 13 kb/s.
My exchange is heavily contended, it's been showing red for over a month and the non-plusnet customers I know, including my employer, have complained about that.

A couple of days ago a BT speed test gave me under 500 kb/s in the evening. Yesterday it gave me over 2200 kb/s throughput, so for me at least it seems that non-p2p traffic isn't being capped in peak periods. But p2p is another story, so it's fortunate that I rarely use it because it was unusable last time I tried. But if you look at the usage graphs, over 50% of all traffic is p2p.

Maybe there should be a special p2p account with a cap 24 hours a day, with an extra charge? I'd pay extra to use p2p a couple of times a year and pay for a few unthrottled GBs to do so, if that were possible.

True, at one time we were sold an unlimited service, but that's not been so for years. Before I moved from the old Easystart package to Premier there were limits, although only the higher ones. Now no ISP provides an uncapped service, they can't afford to do so and stay in business. They all use traffic shaping as well, but most don't admit to it.

Now I could, say, move to Zen and pay more for a 50 GB cap, but that is a 24 hour cap, costs more, and doesn't give me the extras I need but many don't. I doubt I'd ever reach a 50 GB limit as my average is closewr to 20 GB a month for everything, but I like not paying extra for a static address, having a reasonable amount of web space, a cgi bin (even though there have been too many problems with that) mysql, fax2email if I ever need to use it, and so on.

I don't like the series of crises and I don't like the continual failing of important equipment. But at least tickets are answered fairly promptly and you don't have to keep hassling or I don't anyway. I just overwhelm the CS people with helpful information until they reply.

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19kb/s is not acceptable for ftp transfers, and I only get those speeds on very busy servers.
I maxed out my connection last night (9 pm onward) with ftp downloads from one sight. Another site gave me a max of 13 kb/s.

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This was last weekend. it might have been better "last night". Possibly PN have tweaked something since, although it's a shame their service status fails to mention that...

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True, at one time we were sold an unlimited service, but that's not been so for years.

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I'm not bothered about "unlimited". I didn't sign up for "unlimited" and don't expect it (certainly not from PlusNet...) but what I did sign up for was a Premium account, with Premium quality connectivity, and no shaping/throttling. I know that's been introduced since (and we all agreed to the T&C's which were bought in to allow PN to do effectively whatever they want without a care... although at the time I raised very real concerns over that part of the T&C's, and mentioned them on here... shame more people didn't question PN over their intentions...) but even still the speeds which are now being provided are WAY BELOW what PlusNet themselves told us we'd get.

Anyone remember the thing about "10% slower"? That downloads which would take 60 minutes would take 66 minutes...? A lot of people didn't mind (I can understand that a P2P'er possibly wouldn't be too worried about a file taking 66 rather than 60 minutes) but if you take that a bit further it's like listening to a live radio stream, and being 6 minutes behind after the first hour... listen for five hours and you'd finish listening a whole half an hour after everyone else who had listened to the same live 5 hours of radio show...

No matter what though, I most certainly didn't sign up for a service which only offers 19KB/sec on FTP transfers during the vast majority of the day. It's totally unacceptable.

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Now I could, say, move to Zen and pay more for a 50 GB cap, but that is a 24 hour cap, costs more, and doesn't give me the extras I need but many don't. I doubt I'd ever reach a 50 GB limit as my average is closewr to 20 GB a month for everything, but I like not paying extra for a static address, having a reasonable amount of web space, a cgi bin (even though there have been too many problems with that) mysql, fax2email if I ever need to use it, and so on.

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For reference, Zen's static IP's are "free", and they include 2GB of webspace, which is much more than PlusNet provide.

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But at least tickets are answered fairly promptly and you don't have to keep hassling or I don't anyway.

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You've had a considerably different experience of PlusNet's CSC/Ticket system to me, I can assure you.

It must be someone else's fault because Ian Wild told us in no uncertain terms that PlusNet have bought and paid for all the bandwidth that they have sold to customers in data packages.

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I'd also add that, because of the way we budget for bandwidth, in any case where a customer was on a product with for example, a

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Now no ISP provides an uncapped service, they can't afford to do so and stay in business. They all use traffic shaping as well, but most don't admit to it.

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Nearly but not quite true, Bulldog are *still* unlimited/no shaping, how long for is anyone's guess though. Personally if limits are needed I would prefer a set cap (pref quite large), rather than PNs by protocol shaping. *I* would like to decide what and when I download and not have to bother with what time of day is it and how much have I downloaded on protocol 'x' so far. IMHO UK broadband is heading the wrong way, especially with the new downloading of tv progs etc in trial.

If you look at the VP upgrade dates listed at http://www.samknows.com/broadband/capacity-league.php, it is obvious that the data SamKnows is using is way out of date.

A list of all red and green exchanges in the latest update that PlusNet had from BT can be viewed at http://users.plus.net/exchanges/huge_list.php.

Tim

When the BT speedtester shows a throughput of way below the speed you should be getting and a number of people with other ISPs who are on the same exchange are also complaining?

I don't think so.

There exchange info was correct for my exchange (dudley hill) it was red and scheduled for a fix today, and yep I lost my connection all afternoon. drove past the exchange and manhole covers and cable everywhere!

My connection is v quick right now - hopefully permenent not just because no one is back on the exchange yet

You were lucky, my exchange has been Red for a few weeks, and has passed about three "fix" dates, each time the fix date just jumps forward a couple of weeks. I don't believe that the upgrade has happened and then usage has caught up immediately (not a very well planned upgrade if it does!), so it looks as if the dates are just slipping.

Not a major issue for me at the moment as I'm only on 1meg (not with PN) and usually get a reasonable speed, but I'm planning a migration to a MAX service within a month or so, it might be more of an issue then I suppose.

StealthyP

"It must be someone else's fault because Ian Wild told us in no uncertain terms that PlusNet have bought and paid for all the bandwidth that they have sold to customers in data packages."

You should know than to believe someone who works in Marketing, Simon!

From the information BT are handing out it appears that PN aren't wrong and the BT DSL kit in nearly half of the UK exchanges is running hot. It appears that BT are entering a period of underinvestment in the DSL network and will milk it for all it is worth until they deploy the next technology (vdsl). I can see peak times becoming a struggle for a lot of people for a couple of years at least.

There are quite a few companies who could compete with BT, but Ofcom has created a climate where any investment in infrastructure can easily be countered before it flourishes by BT cutting their prices. What company in their right mind would make such a substantial investment in the telecoms market given its recent performance?

TT

Meltdown, eh? Laughing stock of Europe? It might be credible if there weren't still a few good ISPs out there who are still managing to keep their customers happy. If the exchanges are melting, why isn't it affecting all ISPs?

Simon

"Meltdown, eh? Laughing stock of Europe? It might be credible if there weren't still a few good ISPs out there who are still managing to keep their customers happy."

I'm seeing some effects on my Zen connection and my local exchange is flagged as red. I fired up E-Mule for my weekly fix of Battlestar Galactica and it picked up well over 1000 sources. Normally, the download rate sits between 40kbps and 160kbps and 350MB arrives in three or so hours. During peak time it rarely got above 25kbps.

Lots of PN folks aren't likely to see anything wrong with bronze queue protocols as the draconian rate-limiting and QoS keeps speeds down. Gold & silver, very possibly. The question is, what experiences are folks at all the other exchanges flagged as red currently seeing during peak time? If your exchange is red, can you max your connection continuously during peak time?

"If the exchanges are melting, why isn't it affecting all ISPs?"

I'll correct my last post. It isn't the kit that is running hot, it's the ATM Virtual Pipe (VP) from the DSLAMs at the local exchange to its aggregation point within the BT network. It's looking like BT have decided upon certain limits for the number of users on a particular size VP and are rigidly sticking to it. If this is how BT are going to run their ADSL network, then peak times around the country and going to be sluggish for many people for a number of years.

TT

'scuse me all,

but what does this mean from samknows about my exchange?

"BT have set a target date of Q4 2010 for the switch to 21CN for the ???????? exchange"



thanks

http://www.adslguide.org.uk/newsarchive.asp?item=2819