Sorry to say it, but you seem like one of the 'ignorance is bliss' customers I mentioned.

The '50Kbps' quote has nothing to do with the technical limitations of MaxDSL.

It has everything to do with Plusnet's policy of deep packet inspection and imposed throttling, I even provided a link to 'Your Way Option 1' which clearly states the circumstances where a *Mbps connection is purposely throttled, rate limited to 50Kbps, which is slower than dial-up, denigration has nothing to do with it.

All Plusnet packages bar one have throttling applied, and all are traffic managed. If you do not subscribe to Plusnet's 'Your Way Pro', your connection will not be utilising it's maximum download/upload potential and is throttled to various speeds throughout the day.

Which package do you subscribe to?

Edited by deleted (Sun 28-Dec-08 16:00:58)

Its probably just ignorance on my part or the type of downloads I do but i really do not find throttling a big problem on my part !! my speed tests are as good as newnet if not better !! sometimes I just wonder if all the complaints about plusnet throttling speeds are predetermined ideas.
Sometimes it is easy to blame the Internet service provider rather than look at your exchange or your home set up

Speedtests will give an indication of your line's capability, I doubt even Plusnet throttle speedtests. If any speedtest sites were affected they would probably be prioritised, much like Google and the BBC are.

A truer test would be to find out which protocols are rate limited by your Plusnet package, then try and achieve full line capability whilst downloading real data using those protocols.

That is when you will notice a big difference compared to Newnet.

The OP''s dilemma makes perfect sense, Apple use Akamai servers to host most of their downloads, Akamai servers are throttled by Plusnet.

My comments were also based on everyday usage using the same sites as i did with Newnet !! my comment about speed tests were an observation !! in fact what is the point of a speed test then as surely your router stats will tell you more about your connection.
I do understand that Plusnet do throttle downloads from some servers but as I have commented what is very restrictive for some customers may not be for some others !! the term Plusnet throttle speeds so should be avoided at all costs does not apply in all cases .

There is life after Newnet ,Zen,etc at the end of the day you pays your money and you decide what is important to you.

There is really no point of a speedtest on a throttled service, unless you realise the resulting speed will not always be applicable, which I am not convinced all of Plusnet's customers do. It just demonstrates maximum throughput under x,y,z conditions.

Browsing may be fine, that is the way in which the network is prioritised, browsing is low intensity bandwidth use and even on dial up is still tolerable.

Which is basically what it comes down to, if you can tolerate 50Kbps downloads on a broadband connection, I suppose that is personal choice, or ignorance of what unthrottled broadband offers, which is what concerns me more.

Dont notice many people getting these sort of download speeds...

it may not fit your view of Plusnet but some of us happily browse, download and view iplayer all at the same time with no obvious throttling occurring... Not that they are perfect of course... no large company is... they all have horror stories... these days the norm is a sound service which given how quiet this forum has been for a long time now seems to be borne out by current customers..

I just wanted to point out that he 50kbps is only for P2P & binary Usenet on a package that states "It is not suitable for frequent gaming, binary USENET, Peer-to-Peer, VPN, FTP or lots of music and video downloads." (my bold).

Also, while it is theoretically slower, I never got that speed on dialup - the sych I got was generally around 44kbps & that was for everything! These days I'm on a 4500 profile (occasionally rising to 5000) and, while I don't watch the speed that closely, I'm more likely to be struck how fast something has downloaded than thinking "this is being slow".

A more futile thread it has rarely been my misfortune to read. So far as I have been able to determine PlusNet do "what it says on the tin". One can try without cost for 90 days. For goodness sake!

There may or may not be PlusNet offerings that suit you. If they don't go elsewhere. As an OAP whose internet activities are mostly during the day it suits me fine. Large downloads - do them at night and it does not even count towards one's monthly allowance.

Regarding Plusnet throttling, that's all well and good however I believe they have begun to throttle outside of their stated 'schedule', for instance peer to peer has been throttled to about 384-512kbps till around 2am over the past few nights as apposed to midnight when the throttles should be lifted for the package I subscribe.

When you call them they normally say 'oh it can take some time for the traffic management systems to refresh'.

Oh - and to backup these ramblings - when downloading from the same sites/torrent swarms on Virgin Media, Plusnet grouches along at 50kb/sec whilst VM is racing along at 700kb/sec - at 2am. My Plusnet sync is the full 7150kbps

Will see what happens tonight and call the CSC for the latest reason/fob story!

This is interesting and I was not aware of this new policy. However, I started the Apple update at 11.30am and it got dragged out to over 1.30pm. According to the table you provided, as a download site, it should not have been restricted until 4pm.

Anyway, this sort of restriction has been brought about due to the way that BT Wholesale sell broadband to ISPs. My point is that this BT Wholesale pricing policy is fundamentally wrong.

Edited by deleted (Tue 30-Dec-08 18:50:04)