19kb/s is not acceptable for ftp transfers, and I only get those speeds on very busy servers.
I maxed out my connection last night (9 pm onward) with ftp downloads from one sight. Another site gave me a max of 13 kb/s.
My exchange is heavily contended, it's been showing red for over a month and the non-plusnet customers I know, including my employer, have complained about that.

A couple of days ago a BT speed test gave me under 500 kb/s in the evening. Yesterday it gave me over 2200 kb/s throughput, so for me at least it seems that non-p2p traffic isn't being capped in peak periods. But p2p is another story, so it's fortunate that I rarely use it because it was unusable last time I tried. But if you look at the usage graphs, over 50% of all traffic is p2p.

Maybe there should be a special p2p account with a cap 24 hours a day, with an extra charge? I'd pay extra to use p2p a couple of times a year and pay for a few unthrottled GBs to do so, if that were possible.

True, at one time we were sold an unlimited service, but that's not been so for years. Before I moved from the old Easystart package to Premier there were limits, although only the higher ones. Now no ISP provides an uncapped service, they can't afford to do so and stay in business. They all use traffic shaping as well, but most don't admit to it.

Now I could, say, move to Zen and pay more for a 50 GB cap, but that is a 24 hour cap, costs more, and doesn't give me the extras I need but many don't. I doubt I'd ever reach a 50 GB limit as my average is closewr to 20 GB a month for everything, but I like not paying extra for a static address, having a reasonable amount of web space, a cgi bin (even though there have been too many problems with that) mysql, fax2email if I ever need to use it, and so on.

I don't like the series of crises and I don't like the continual failing of important equipment. But at least tickets are answered fairly promptly and you don't have to keep hassling or I don't anyway. I just overwhelm the CS people with helpful information until they reply.

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19kb/s is not acceptable for ftp transfers, and I only get those speeds on very busy servers.
I maxed out my connection last night (9 pm onward) with ftp downloads from one sight. Another site gave me a max of 13 kb/s.

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This was last weekend. it might have been better "last night". Possibly PN have tweaked something since, although it's a shame their service status fails to mention that...

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True, at one time we were sold an unlimited service, but that's not been so for years.

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I'm not bothered about "unlimited". I didn't sign up for "unlimited" and don't expect it (certainly not from PlusNet...) but what I did sign up for was a Premium account, with Premium quality connectivity, and no shaping/throttling. I know that's been introduced since (and we all agreed to the T&C's which were bought in to allow PN to do effectively whatever they want without a care... although at the time I raised very real concerns over that part of the T&C's, and mentioned them on here... shame more people didn't question PN over their intentions...) but even still the speeds which are now being provided are WAY BELOW what PlusNet themselves told us we'd get.

Anyone remember the thing about "10% slower"? That downloads which would take 60 minutes would take 66 minutes...? A lot of people didn't mind (I can understand that a P2P'er possibly wouldn't be too worried about a file taking 66 rather than 60 minutes) but if you take that a bit further it's like listening to a live radio stream, and being 6 minutes behind after the first hour... listen for five hours and you'd finish listening a whole half an hour after everyone else who had listened to the same live 5 hours of radio show...

No matter what though, I most certainly didn't sign up for a service which only offers 19KB/sec on FTP transfers during the vast majority of the day. It's totally unacceptable.

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Now I could, say, move to Zen and pay more for a 50 GB cap, but that is a 24 hour cap, costs more, and doesn't give me the extras I need but many don't. I doubt I'd ever reach a 50 GB limit as my average is closewr to 20 GB a month for everything, but I like not paying extra for a static address, having a reasonable amount of web space, a cgi bin (even though there have been too many problems with that) mysql, fax2email if I ever need to use it, and so on.

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For reference, Zen's static IP's are "free", and they include 2GB of webspace, which is much more than PlusNet provide.

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But at least tickets are answered fairly promptly and you don't have to keep hassling or I don't anyway.

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You've had a considerably different experience of PlusNet's CSC/Ticket system to me, I can assure you.

It must be someone else's fault because Ian Wild told us in no uncertain terms that PlusNet have bought and paid for all the bandwidth that they have sold to customers in data packages.

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I'd also add that, because of the way we budget for bandwidth, in any case where a customer was on a product with for example, a

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Now no ISP provides an uncapped service, they can't afford to do so and stay in business. They all use traffic shaping as well, but most don't admit to it.

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Nearly but not quite true, Bulldog are *still* unlimited/no shaping, how long for is anyone's guess though. Personally if limits are needed I would prefer a set cap (pref quite large), rather than PNs by protocol shaping. *I* would like to decide what and when I download and not have to bother with what time of day is it and how much have I downloaded on protocol 'x' so far. IMHO UK broadband is heading the wrong way, especially with the new downloading of tv progs etc in trial.

If you look at the VP upgrade dates listed at http://www.samknows.com/broadband/capacity-league.php, it is obvious that the data SamKnows is using is way out of date.

A list of all red and green exchanges in the latest update that PlusNet had from BT can be viewed at http://users.plus.net/exchanges/huge_list.php.

Tim

When the BT speedtester shows a throughput of way below the speed you should be getting and a number of people with other ISPs who are on the same exchange are also complaining?

I don't think so.

There exchange info was correct for my exchange (dudley hill) it was red and scheduled for a fix today, and yep I lost my connection all afternoon. drove past the exchange and manhole covers and cable everywhere!

My connection is v quick right now - hopefully permenent not just because no one is back on the exchange yet

You were lucky, my exchange has been Red for a few weeks, and has passed about three "fix" dates, each time the fix date just jumps forward a couple of weeks. I don't believe that the upgrade has happened and then usage has caught up immediately (not a very well planned upgrade if it does!), so it looks as if the dates are just slipping.

Not a major issue for me at the moment as I'm only on 1meg (not with PN) and usually get a reasonable speed, but I'm planning a migration to a MAX service within a month or so, it might be more of an issue then I suppose.

StealthyP

"It must be someone else's fault because Ian Wild told us in no uncertain terms that PlusNet have bought and paid for all the bandwidth that they have sold to customers in data packages."

You should know than to believe someone who works in Marketing, Simon!

From the information BT are handing out it appears that PN aren't wrong and the BT DSL kit in nearly half of the UK exchanges is running hot. It appears that BT are entering a period of underinvestment in the DSL network and will milk it for all it is worth until they deploy the next technology (vdsl). I can see peak times becoming a struggle for a lot of people for a couple of years at least.

There are quite a few companies who could compete with BT, but Ofcom has created a climate where any investment in infrastructure can easily be countered before it flourishes by BT cutting their prices. What company in their right mind would make such a substantial investment in the telecoms market given its recent performance?

TT

Meltdown, eh? Laughing stock of Europe? It might be credible if there weren't still a few good ISPs out there who are still managing to keep their customers happy. If the exchanges are melting, why isn't it affecting all ISPs?

Simon