For what it's worth (no idea if it's been posted elsewhere):

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P2P Issues - UPDATE
ADSL Dial
Posted on: Thursday 28 September 2006, 19:21
This is an update to the previously reported problem affecting download speeds when using lower priority protocols such as Peer-to-Peer, Torrents and Binary Usenet. A copy of the original report can be found here for your reference:-

http://usertools.plus.net/status/archive/1158168848.htm


We have begun testing the software upgrade on our Ellacoya traffic management switches which will resolve the problem some customers have been seeing with slow P2P and binary Usenet downloads.

The upgrade has been completed on our ADSL test platform and testing has commenced on the new software. The software upgrade will gives us a set of new signatures which will allow us to correctly set the priority of encrypted P2P software and will allow the available bandwidth to be more evenly spread between encrypted P2P and unencrypted P2P, Usenet and FTP traffic.

So long as the testing is successful this will be completed on 2nd October and we will rollout the upgrade to one of our Ellacoya switches on 3rd October before rolling the upgrade out to the remaining switches the following day.

We will post a further update next week.


Kind Regards,

Dave Tomlinson
Customer Support

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So today appears to be the day.

I wish I was able to buy into their marketing speak but the fact is that the only people being affected by encrypted P2P are the people browsing the web and not anyone else. At the end of the day, if the same people using encrypted P2P were prioritised as bronze traffic then there would be even less bandwidth available for the other p2p users. By encrypting their traffic they are only stealing from the silver and gold ques. There is nothing PN can do about the slow speeds because they are actually working to design and the only thing that will allow people to get decent speeds on p2p or Usenet is more bandwidth being bought. Do they have any plans?

No idea. Why don't you ask them?

I'm just posting info for those using the service. Not interested in speculation on PN.

I wasn't trying to speculate either. I was asking if PN had announced that they were going to buy more bandwidth. Simple question really. I don't ask questions from PN anymore because they are selective in their answers and I do not feel that they are honest either. I have stated this much to IW in my last PM to him.

It doesn't detract from the fact that the service announcement is absolute rubbish. Introducing a new signature will only free up some bandwidth back for web browsing and gaming by allocating the p2p traffic in the proper ques. It will not improve speeds for existing P2P/Usenet users and if anything it will make it worse for them. If the service announcement isn't marketing speak then I don't know what is TBH.

It sounds like "You can't get a quart into a pint pot"

No matter what how you adjust the pot, it won't fit.

So rearranging the current bandwidth is not going to do the trick.

Well I'll copy and paste some posts from the PN forums. Names omitted.

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I have to admit that the other night I was seeing amazing speeds of about 277 Kb/s. I was downloading a load of small files in a big 1.3Gb consignment, but for the first time ever I actually got a decent speed.

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The pessamist in me thinks it went live this morning as my VMBU tells me i've moved 1.4Gb since 12am whereas the last day or two its been 5Gb since 8am

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I was thinking it might have gone live last night as my torrent was pretty fast last night.

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I don't use torrents myself, but occasionally would like to, so am taking an interest of late.

"It will not improve speeds for existing P2P/Usenet users and if anything it will make it worse for them."

It'll only make it worse for encrypted p2p users. Most people should see faster speeds.

The p2p arena is an arms race that will only end when download quotas significantly increase. Developers will be continually making it as difficult as possible for hardware manufacturers and ISPs to identify their products. Ellacoya and PN are always going to be playing catch up. It took them over three months to identify these versions of encrypted p2p (if they did indeed identify them properly) and bring service levels back to the norm. How it affects future service levels will be interesting to watch.

TT

Keep an eye out on this thread:

http://portal.plus.net/central/forums/viewtopic.php?p=365797&sid=1537a4c7a55f4311e59715ed4bfc643a#365797

I suspect that I and others will be proved right about the effects of the new signatures. No matter which way PN spin it the truth of the matter is that they don't have the peak time capacity on the network for the number of users they have.

I have a solution for PN. Why don't they just refuse all P2P as well as binary usenet during the day? This would instantly enable the traffic management not having to drop any packets from the other ques and instead force everyone to use downloading protocols offpeak only. This is turn will allow web/email/ftp/vpn to run perfectly during peak time. Genius. If they are so inclined they could also buy new bandwidth from BT to ease the problem instead but I suspect this won't happen anytime soon (considering that it has been needed since July 05).

@rsharma

Unless Plusnet want to start a MAC Key or Cancellation war... It would be a very bad idea to lock out people using P2P software.

Given the relatively small number of customers using P2P on a large scale....... would that worry them too much?