Plusnet running network in PLAN B (SLOW) mode - why?

I see no evidence of (severe) packet loss at peak times and definately none in the daytime... so why?

Now my two connections are only maxing at 4-5meg instead of 7.15 and the protocols I choose to use are being slowed down even more than usual.

Last service status about this was on the 17th with a planned update on the 21st... it is now the 23rd and no word.

Lack of capacity and cheap pricing.

In reply to a post by Zadeks:

Lack of capacity and cheap pricing.

Oh yes I know all about the capacity thing, you get seasoned to it with PN but I thought it was going well lately - they even *appeared* to relax their traffic management - or they let it break and didn't realise, either way I wasn't complaining.

I don't think we can be accused of under-investing! We've lit plenty of capacity over recent months as per the blog post here.

That doesn't pay mentioned to the announcements here, here and here either, detailing what's been added more recently.

I'll update the Service Status thread today, however as mentioned in the last post, the vast majority of customers shouldn't be experiencing problems.

There will be even more bandwidth lit over the coming weeks.

@rsturbolad, what account type are you on, and what gateways are the lines you're having problems with connected to?

Edited by deleted (Thu 23-Sep-10 13:18:06)

Doors song:

Come on Plusnet light my wire...

Very good

That means absolutely nothing! You might have increased capacity by 20% but if your user base has increased by 40% it's bad news. We know Plusnet has increased very rapidly in recent months due to a lot of advertising and more aggressive pricing, so how about a comparison of percentage increase in capacity against increase in users?

Hi Jelv,

Since 1st January the userbase has increased by about 17% however the capacity has increased by about 50% in the same time period. We're about to add another big increase to the capacity as well for the beginning of October.

At the moment we aren't in the full Plan B config mode so the vast majority or customers won't see any difference because of it, the changes will really only apply to the higher users on one of our legacy products (Broadband Plus). We're looking at putting the usage allowance up on Broadband Plus but need to stagger the implementation out so that customers don't all use the new allowance all in one go and potentially affect other customers so at the moment for them the old usage allowance applies (hence they are on Plan B) and we'll gradually up the allowance and apply them to people over the next couple of months.

So, the network will struggle by just giving customers an extra 6gig or whatever you're increasing it by on an *old* legacy product that not very many users (surely!) are even on any longer? 6gig over a month is ~193mb extra a day they can 'use' and you are saying that will 'pressure' network capacity enough to run it in Plan B?

Both my lines are on legacy Unlimited - if PN decide to drop this in the future for "capacity" reasons that will just about put the icing on the cake for me.

I've said this before to PN and I'll say it now why don't you just light up decent chunks of bandwidth instead of running the network to the wire all the time and getting discussions like this going on.

How the hell is the 'network' going to handle the FTTC connections I've seen PN spout about trialling recently???

In reply to a post by rsturbolad:

I've said this before to PN and I'll say it now why don't you just light up decent chunks of bandwidth instead of running the network to the wire all the time and getting discussions like this going on.

Because you guys don't pay enough to make having lots of spare capacity an option sadly.

In reply to a post by Ignitionnet:

In reply to a post by rsturbolad:

I've said this before to PN and I'll say it now why don't you just light up decent chunks of bandwidth instead of running the network to the wire all the time and getting discussions like this going on.

Because you guys don't pay enough to make having lots of spare capacity an option sadly.

That maybe so but surely there are some handsomely paid business bods at PN who's job it should be to foresee these things. If they put products to market at the correct price instead of priced to entice customers with the aim of oversubscribing I guess it would be happy(ier) days.

Incidentally I also have 50meg VM cable here (Ignition) and I follow your posts on cableforum, I know VM have their own capacity problems but the issue here with PN is core network capacity not local congestion and for me there is no excuse for that.

It's a shame PN don't show graphs like they do for their gateways, for the state of their transit and peerings - would be interesting to see.

I imagine that their current packages have enticed some customers in, and soon the end of the three month discount will be kicking in for the customers, allowing Plusnet to increase the capacity. Said customers' bills will be rising by 100% for value pacjages and 63% for Extra packages.

That's my guess at least. It's a tricky way to do things if the customer base decides to move at the end of the first 'expensive' month. The extra cpacity will have been laid on, but runs the risk of not being fully utilised, or more importantly paid for.

Of course, that's all supposition on my part.

Plusnet are past masters at JIT (Just in Time, or possible Just too Late) provisioning of central bandwidth. By doing this they are able to provide reasonable service for relatively low cost. And for many users they don't even notice the contention that sometimes happens when it is just too late.

If you want networks that are higher provisioned then pay more money - there are alternatives that do this. Plusnet have a business model that seems to work for many people - but it won't work for everyone.