Plusnet Value expected maximum downstream speeds

Can someone enlighten me as to the download speed I should expect for basic web surfing and sending/receiving emails during hours of 9am - 10pm? I'm not sure which option this is on their Speed Rating page.

I'm assuming that PlusNet is aimed at the gaming community as they seem to get the best speed!

it is a little unclear - but those should be upto line speed at all times..

Dont know why it is not clearer..

Thanks for that.

Looks like I may move to PNet. For £5.99 a month this seems like a no-brainer for me. 12 month contract and I would have jumped today but the 18 months PNet are requiring are holding me back.

what type of exchange are you on, market 3? if you are not sure goto samknows and take a look. if you are a low download type user, PN value is hard to beat, but if you are on market 3 you will have other options too.

To be fair for a low download user on market 3 exchange there are probably very few if any offerings to compete with Plusnet at that price.. despite the contract length...

I'd say the only competition at that price would be Sky, but you obviously need to be a customer of theirs anyway.

In reply to a post by fig:

I'd say the only competition at that price would be Sky, but you obviously need to be a customer of theirs anyway.

Probably O2 as you can take the 8Mbps LLU package if O2 LLU is there. And perish the thought, TalkTalk!

Lets just say O2 only £7.34 if you are an O2 mobile customer £12.23 per month otherwise... but only 12 months contract and LLU.. Still dearer but attractive if already a mobile customer.

Edited by deleted (Tue 24-Feb-09 13:22:18)

Web is not rate limited on Value.

It should always come down as fast as your line will allow.

Although I've not been impressed by the whole 12/18 month thing - One place PN lose out when people look at the speed/throttling charts is that the current version does not mention the protocols/uses that do not have throttling. Some might be cynical about that but it also makes things look worse than they are.

Agreed...

Show all protocol types... preferably in the order of most usage across the customer base.

In reply to a post by Metronet_James:

Web is not rate limited on Value.

It should always come down as fast as your line will allow.

That statement seems inaccurate. Plusnet Value rate limits 'Download servers' 12 hours a day from 2Mb down to 512Kbps which will affect a lot of web traffic. Considering three of the world's biggest content distribution networks on the web, Akamai, Limelight Networks and Level 3 are all rate limited, the number of websites that utilise these CDNs is huge, and most potentially throttled or partly-throttled.

Since these servers form an integral part of the web, rate limiting them and claiming the web is not rate limited seems contradictory.

Most popular websites will host content on CDNs and use all, or some of, the hosted elements to create a webpage.

Top Gear for example. Probably loads fast, but was it as fast as it could have been or has any of the webpage been rate limited?

A Wireshark capture shows who is hosting the webpage data;

Wireshark - Top Gear

As seen from this small part of the capture, a lot of elements, jpg, png and gif files, graphics which form the basic webpage, are hosted at destination 92.122.126.25, which is an Akamai server:

92.122.126.25 = [ a92-122-126-25.deploy.akamaitechnologies.com]

Watch a video clip and again, destination 92.122.125.172, an Akamai server.

92.122.125.172 = [ s172a.ddc.akamai.com ]

Just one example of how rate limiting a CDN means Web [browsing] is not always going to achieve line speed on Value. Plusnet used to prioritise the BBC and Google to negate obvious effects of this and still might.
Any other website that hosts content on a rate limited CDN may load data at a slower rate than potential line speed when the rate limits are implemented. It seems a bit misleading to state the web is not rate limited when most, or all elements of popular websites may well be rate limited on Plusnet's Value package, to as low as half a Mb, which is not in most cases, "...as fast as your line will allow".

James, when you implemented BBYW I suggested an Everything Else row on the expected speed tables which was added to those tables. This seems to have been omitted from the tables for the current products, It might make things clearer if it was added to these products as well.

You make valid points - maybe thats why they don't have an entry in the table for web/http since it would only apply to certain pages and confuse Joe Public.

I always tend to think of download sites (eg. rapidshare) being limited but its the additional affect on download servers where its an odd throttling clearly driven by overall load rather than unreasonable individual usage. In some cases they will used for bulk transfers and some throttle could be acceptable but - as you say - they now get used for many common sites and highly interactive content.

I am a Sky TV customer and have been for 14 years. Bit like Pnet, no loyalty bonus for long term customers. Set up fee for HD box, free for new customers.

I am also an O2 PAYG customer so would qualify for the discount. So just less that £12/month including mobile cost. They seem to have had a few outages recently on LLU.

I was under the impression that ipstream that Pnet use is a BTW?? thing and was heavily contended. Is that not the case?

There is a bonus for long term customers ... in that if customers took up a further 12 month contract then they received a £3 per month discount.. Its just the insistence on 12 (was 18 on launch) month contracts to switch to the new products is where they've given no thought to existing customers...

Plusnet is BTW access... I'm not up on the contention thing. so cant help you there.

In reply to a post by paddyclark:

Show all protocol types... preferably in the order of most usage across the customer base.

The thing is 98% of the customer base has no idea what a protocol is and has no chance of understanding the throttling tables as they are. There may be a few who have heard of P2P because of all the hoohah about copyright piracy, and iPlayer.

BtPnet are clearly now aiming for the mass market and for that 98% to become 99.8%. The point earlier about CDN usage though is extremely important to referrers.

It's a shame for the likes of James and Mand who have to spin the new products or leave. I've been there - done that.

Edited by RobertoS (Wed 25-Feb-09 14:05:00)