Additional Network Capacity

We are pleased to announce that we have now activated the first segment of our sixth 622Mbps Central Pipe.

The new capacity has been activated in line with the current budget and in response to our recent Broadband Your Way product launch as well for projected growth in signups and to support existing customers moving to the new products.

When new capacity is added to the network, it takes time for the network to balance and for a representative proportion of the customer base to connect to the new segment. In order to speed up this process and help balance the platform to give the most benefit to customers, it may be necessary for us to temporarily disconnect a number of customers from the network. Should we take the decision to do this we will announce further details as a planned maintenance notice otherwise it may take up to a week for the new segment to be balanced.

Edited by chrisparr (Tue 19-Jun-07 14:33:25)

A whole 2 hrs without a reply .... more bandwidth has to be a good thing ... long may it continue.

bs0d.

How does this affect/help those of us on the LLU (Tiscali) network? 2 or is it 3 segments have gone live over the last few months to improve capacity on the BT network, but I haven't seen any investment in capacity for those of us on the LLU side of the network.

What are plusnet's plans for the LLU component of the network? Most of the focus seems to be on the BT network, and I worry that those of us on LLU are being ignored to an extent.

Maybe my concerns are unjustified, but I would appreciate some reassurance.

Hi Snowwolf,

Our userbase on Tiscali is not growing as we are not placing any additional orders onto Tiscali's LLU service. In fact, due to natural churn caused by customers moving house or moving to a different ISP. As such we are not expanding our capacity on the Tiscali network. However, as our userbase on the BT Network continues to grow, we have continued to add extra capacity.

...and graphs now updated here :

http://www.plus.net/support/network_performance/broadband_packets_drop.shtml

Have PlusNet officially given up on their LLU plans since bought by BT then? Are no new customers at all put onto Tiscali's LLU?

Yes they have. A BT-owned ISP is not going to give business to rival local loop providers. There's already pretty fierce competition between BT and the rest in the most lucrative exchanges. And that's probably where most of the PN orders were going at the time too - for the biggest cost savings.

Oh, I can completely understand why they wouldn't. I just hadn't heard that they definitely had until now, I must have missed the memo

We haven't moved any customers to LLU in a long time now and there are no plans to restart activations/migrations, but on the other hand there are no plans for a mass migration back to IPStream.

What is the current cost to any customer who wishes to return to IPStream?

It's the cost of a normal activation -

Thanks Dave. I thought there was a mechanism in place to allow migration from LLU to IPStream, or was there a trail?.

Understood Dave, thanks for the info.

There is, it's now done via a MAC key but as it's a new IPStream activation BT charge the full activation fee rather than the migration fee that would apply if it was IPStream to IPStream.

Great news, Chris. Thanks for letting us know in such an open and transparent way.

If in future Plus Net decide to decommission a segment, will we be informed in similarly open and transparent terms?

Just asking because, for some reason, when PN last cut their bandwidth, it remained a secret between PN and PUG for quite a while before it was revealed here thanks to Columbo-like investigatory work.

It would be great to have a commitment that such an oversight won't happen in future.

PS: Before anyone gets upset, I fully recognise that last time you switched pipes off, Neil Armstrong said

"This is just a total non-event that is being blown out of all proportion for some bizarre reason. It's being spun as a 'story' by those in thinkbroadband forums who still want to wage a PR war against us despite not having been customers for well over 12 months."

and Mr Blobby said

"Yes I agree. I have just had my bashing and have decided those TB can sod off now as I am no longer going to bother. TB has gone to the dogs as far as I'm concerned. ",

but there were a number of factors which pointed to PN spin in the way in which they dealt with those announcements and understandable confusion among the customerbase. See the link below for a refresher.

http://usergroup.plus.net/forum/index.php/topic,3910.45.html

I presume that you wouldn't want that to happen again.

There must be something wrong with people who keep tabs on post from years ago to keep dragging them up at every opportunity.

Thanks for the clarification Dave.

Ignoring the "BT Owned" bit of it, the Tiscali migration was a mess and the reliability of Tiscali sucks badly, so any sensible ISP would kill it.

I hope we have an organisation that wouldn't consider doing it in secret again, but we will only have the answer if it ever happens. The way useage is going, unless there is a big push on LLU again or another technology, is it likely to happen?

It was only six months ago, George. Not sure whether that is sufficient for you to reconsider your ill founded and ill intentioned remarks. Based on past performance, I suspect not.

Channel, Let go, move on. Give them time and we will all see.

Another constructive post, well done, keep it up. Your posts are so well thought out, constructive, accurate and not personal, pity we can't have much more of these type. Excellent.

"but we will only have the answer if it ever happens."

Perhaps a promise now might go a looooong way!

All a promise now will do is to give certain people a stick to beat PlusNet with in the future if they ever, for some reason, fail to keep the promise.

I think if everyone is honest, the amount of so called Plusnet Beatings, has significantly reduced.

Why?

Perhaps because Plusnet have finally accepted that they did do wrong and have made postive steps to rectify them.

If they ever repeat their mistakes,

1) They deserve the so called Beatings

2) They probably won't survive

I welcome all the changes that have had a postive reaction and experience for their endusers.

Six months, twelve months or years it's the PAST. Some of us move on and not live in the past to try to score points when there are none to score.

I can't agree with that.

What plusnet have done is the barest minimum they could get away with. They haven't even been bothered to answer the questions posed to them a month ago, preferring to dedicate their time to "oooh, look, a new cable" or TalkTalk's misdemeanours.

You're right. I think plusnet have gone at least 48 hours without screwing up. We can all agree that that is cause for celebration and congratulation.

12 months ago, they would not have done anything.

but how do we know if they haven't answered the questions, you are assuming the negative, I'm assuming they have done more than the minimum, others on here may assume they have gone over everything. All we are doing is speculating based on little or no information.

Good grief ..you had some spam . People would think you suffered a life and death issue by the way you go on.

In reply to:

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All we are doing is speculating based on little or no information

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I'm assuming they've done all they've said and no more. And they've said [censored] all.