First week impressions of Plusnet fibre.

Firstly, ping times are fantastic. Can't fault them there.

Secondly...when it's fast, it's really fast.
But when it's not...it's annoyingly slow. Especially for the speed it should be running at.

So I know about the traffic management on Plusnet (in my mind prioritisation is still managing your traffic ) and from what I've read it relates to your own individual connection i.e. if you're torrenting or something and go for an HTTP download or a youtube stream, the HTTP/youtube will get prioritised over the torrent which will get slowed.

Is this prioritisation actually just relating to your own connection or is it network wide?

I can run a speed test and see basically max speeds. Go to download via some P2P protocol and see it start at 6+MB/s and then quickly slow down to 2-3MB/s or even as low as 1MB/s. The fact it started off at a high speed shows the bandwidth is availble but the fact it got throttled (or slowed) shows some sort of traffic management in progress. This is when there are no other bandiwdth utilising applications running on the PC.

And just to prove to myself that there was plenty of bandwidth available, I start a 10GB HTTP download from the same server and it gets 7.8-8.8MB/s.

http://community.plus.net/blog/2012/12/21/its-unlimi... implies that the prioritisation relates only to what is actually happening on your own line but that does not at all seem to be the case.

So in all I'm not as happy with Plusnet as I was hoping I would be...the slowdown I see using it when I actually want to use it in the evenings (and apparently weekend) just isn't good enough for me. If I could connect to the FTP server and just use that it'd be fine but that isn't do able in the real world.

I guess I have 18 months to see how it goes and hope things improve for me :/

The question was asked very soon after that blog was published. The prioritisation is also across the network. Logically it needs to be, for the VOIP etc.

The slowing down you are seeing is recent and is not supposed to happen. A few get it, most don't. There's a thread either in this forum or Fibre Broadband with Chrysalis for one in it and I think IgnitionNet, and there is at least one over on the Community forums. I suggest you join in, as the more reporting the symptom the more chance of finding the cause.

My issues are different and relate to a lack of capacity somewhere along the chain rather than traffic management. All traffic is suffering equally and pings are being dropped.

I spent a few days with an old friend away from home, they had PlusNet fibre. I noticed the exact symptoms described in the original post, this was around Birmingham. I did give it a little 'whirl' to test how the traffic management worked. This was around 2 weeks ago.

Birmingham? Surely not

On the outskirts of Birmingham in a remote-ish area, but yes.

I only mention it due to this, completely off-topic #FoxNewsFacts

Hmmm, Don't sound great,

That will surely have a bit of an off putting impact when I make a decision for FTTC soon!

In reply to a post by BatBoy:

I only mention it due to this, completely off-topic #FoxNewsFacts

Oh just got that

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-30773297

Is it the "Any capacity issues?" thread on the plusnet community forums?
8 pages since the end of december and doesnt really seem to be getting anywhere :|

That's the main one, yes. I haven't seen any others, but I haven't looked. I'd be surprised if there weren't round about the time of the start of that one. (Which if posted to will be somewhere between the time of the start and end of the one you've found).

Yeah i've spotted a couple of threads which link off to other threads too from the likes of BT who seem to be having issues themselves.
Sigh looks like i picked a good time to upgrade my internet!

It's possible there is an issue somewhere in the BT Wholesale network, which will affect Plusnet, BT broadband and Infinity services, and many other ISPs. These problems can be geographic in nature, as with the issue that affected me and others in the Milton Keynes area in September 2013.

The only FTTC customers exempt from the effects of a BT Wholesale problem are those whose ISP uses an alternative backhaul network. Non-BT Wholesale users include Sky, TalkTalk (own customers and those using TalkTalk backhaul via wholesale arrangements) and those Zen customers who are on Zen's own backhaul.

Interestingly we have been on PlusNet 80/20 FTTC for a week and are outside Birmingham by Tamworth and have experienced something similar. Try a BT or TBB speed test and its 73Mbps down but download a large test file and it can drop to 15 to 20Mbps, sometimes it stays there but it can slowly ramp back up. But this morning its straight to 73Mbps.

lately there has been performance problems on plusnet reported by many on the plusnet forums, the staff are been a bit evasive as to the real reason.

Given that people are getting improved performance simply by hopping gateways (rules out SVLAN) and pro for me mysteriously improves performances the finger seems to point at plusnet.

I have also asked at least 3 times directly if plusnet can confirm their endpoints are not full but they have chose not to answer the question.

Edited by Chrysalis (Wed 14-Jan-15 23:00:51)

Well...i had awful performance yesterday and there was SVLAN maintenence at my exchange last night...things havent been so bad today but connecting to a server in la france is sub 500KB/s speeds which is pretty ridiculous (via P2P and HTTP) so indicates some major congestion on plusnets own network and/or peering etc

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

That's the main one, yes. I haven't seen any others, but I haven't looked. I'd be surprised if there weren't round about the time of the start of that one. (Which if posted to will be somewhere between the time of the start and end of the one you've found).

There is many other recent threads.

In reply to a post by ganicholls:

Interestingly we have been on PlusNet 80/20 FTTC for a week and are outside Birmingham by Tamworth and have experienced something similar. Try a BT or TBB speed test and its 73Mbps down but download a large test file and it can drop to 15 to 20Mbps, sometimes it stays there but it can slowly ramp back up. But this morning its straight to 73Mbps.

Try using a download tool that can kick off multiple threads. I'm finding that my multi-threading results are normal. My current theory is that the congestion has kicked off the PN traffic management and it's throttling on a per application basis where each thread is being seen as an application. But that's pure speculation so don't take it as fact

tonight I am going back to my pro enabled account, and will deliberately try to get slow speeds by hopping if it is fast.

Now is slow on my normal account as well.

Plusnet is a mess right now.

Try using a download tool that can kick off multiple threads. I'm finding that my multi-threading results are normal.

I agree with Andrue. I have not had the Thinkbroadband HTTPx6 or upload tests drop significantly below my normal rate (38/18.6 on PlusNet 40/20) at any time, but the TBBx1 test often drops in the evening to half or less.

I tend to use the internet more during the day anyway, so I haven't noticed any significant real impact of the issues, but they are clearly there and hitting some people quite hard.

Quibbling: probably not technically multiple threads but multiple simultaneous connections that are important.

I'd like to know how that goes to see what difference (if any) pro makes...
Because from what I've read it shouldn't make that much difference on the unlimited fibre :|

Also I dont know if it's just congested gateways as per what I wrote here

I'm not going to bother reposting here but yeah...there's certainly congestion somewhere and not just on the gateways...at least from my usage

I had the same burst type slow downs back in Jun-13, few months after signing up. posted here-> http://forums.thinkbroadband.com/plusnet/t/4243585-t...

The issue for me isn't consistent, but reminds me the traffic prioritization on Plustnet certainly isn't perfect.

On the plus side, my gaming pings are generally v.good !

I was looking at joining Plusnet from BT but I have been reading their forums and the forums here and It looks like the cost saving is not really worth giving up my perfect speeds with BT... Hmm

http://www.thinkbroadband.com/speedtest/results.html...

I have been with Plusnet FTTC from Nov '13. At the start speeds were great, as good as BT FTTC. Since halfway through last year speeds have just got worse. I don't get huge speeds anyway so the drop is very noticeable. Just over the last month or so I have also had bad connection warnings and the internet dropping out In a few months time my contract will expire and am really considering jumping ship.

In reply to a post by Speedchaser:

I have been with Plusnet FTTC from Nov '13. At the start speeds were great, as good as BT FTTC. Since halfway through last year speeds have just got worse.

The thing is, you have absolutely no way of knowing whether it would have been exactly the same with BT FTTC. If the drop is due to crosstalk, then it would have been.

In reply to a post by kasg:

In reply to a post by Speedchaser:

I have been with Plusnet FTTC from Nov '13. At the start speeds were great, as good as BT FTTC. Since halfway through last year speeds have just got worse.

The thing is, you have absolutely no way of knowing whether it would have been exactly the same with BT FTTC. If the drop is due to crosstalk, then it would have been.

You can have a good crack at knowing. If the sync speed as shown by the modem (if unlocked) or BT speedtest further diagnostics has dropped, and the internet disconnections are at the modem-cabinet level; then the issue would almost certainly have been pretty much (*) the same with any other FTTC ISP. Otherwise, the issues are probably down to something PlusNet isn't doing right.

(*) One difference between ISPs is how helpful and knowledgeable they may be at trying to help get such issues sorted out. For example, deciding if it is a line issue that you may be able to get fixed by Openreach, or a crosstalk issue that nobody is going to fix unless vectoring comes along. You are probably better off with PlusNet than BT retail for that; but to get real service you need to pay more for a high end ISP, and there is no guarantee that even they would be able to get it sorted.

I'm wondering whether ~Vectoring is having an affect on my line - 20mths ago line speed was 72mb (350ft from Cabinet) - today the line speed is 59mb.- I've got an open call with PN about this so will be interested if they try to fob my off with Openreach saying it's fine, or openly admit vectoring is knocking back my line speed.

Are you in the vectoring trial area then?

Why on earth would vectoring make your speed go down? We're all desperate for it to get our speeds back up! Perhaps you meant crosstalk, which could very well have reduced your speed from 72 to 59 Mbps in that time and there is nothing Plusnet can do about it.

well it could if it wasnt working properly, bad configuring, bugs etc. But I would think it be unlikely.

I dont think he has vectoring enabled.

More likely just confused terminology and meant crosstalk rather than vectoring.

In reply to a post by ian72:

More likely just confused terminology and meant crosstalk rather than vectoring.

Sorry, yes Crosstalk.