PAYG v BBYW Option 2 & BBYW Pro

Hi All,

I looked into this about 6 months ago, at the time I decided to stay on PAYG however I dont know what has changed with the new products in the mean time.

I am on PAYG which includes 2GB per month, I am generally paying for an extra 4GB or so per month, this is likely to go up with more PS3 online gaming.

I am thinking of changing to BBYW Option 2 which includes 15GB per month however I cannot fully determine the differences between the PAYG and BBYW packages. One difference is that BBYW apparently features more traffic shaping than PAYG.

So the questions:

What are the implication of the current traffic shaping?

What are the differences between PAYG an BBYW as it stands today?

Are there any disadvantages with BBYW (other than traffic shaping)?



Many thanks and regards.

Having switched from PAYG to BBYW2 I haven't noticed any disadvantages.
I don't do P2P but I haven't noticed any problems with downloads or the BBC iPlayer.
A word of caution my synch speed is only about 3000kbps so I wouldn't notice any minor effects.
The difference between the two products is purely traffic shaping and the possibility that a game may not be given the correct priority although that seems to be a fairly rare occurrence nowadays,

http://www.kitz.co.uk/isp/plusnet_shaping.htm

or compare 2 products side by side
http://www.kitz.co.uk/isp/plusnet_shaping2.htm

Thanks for the info Jim. Maybe the 8GB will be worth it. I need only one but my iPlayer downloading has to be done before 8 in the morning.

For the small difference in cost, I have recently changed from BBYW Option 2 to BBYW Pro just to get a service with as few restrictions as possible.

Great info!

Re download sites and download servers, I guess that includes things like software updates, Windows updates, PS3 firmware updates etc?


Regards.

This page will explain what counts as a download site or server.

Thanks, though I am still not clear as to whether that includes software updates, Windows updates, PS3 firmware updates etc? I.e. whether these are within the quoted IP ranges.


Regards.

I haven't checked specifically but I haven't noticed the Windows updates taking an excessive time - the last batch took less than 5 minutes

Hi 50pence,

Windows update are classed as download servers as they use Akamai, so would fall within the IP ranges. Im not sure what server PS3 firmware updates are on, but the minimum you would receive on Option 2 would be 1Mbps. Im on option 3 and it all depends how busy the network is at the time, usually its not too bad and you get a lot faster speeds than quoted. When i was on Pro i usually got my full IP Profile download speeds apart from when the olympics where on, but then went back to normal.