Unacceptable throttling

I have a Plusnet account that I rarely use; the router has been switched off for the last three months. On Tuesday at 11.30am I switched on the router and the connected Apple computer. I found the Apple computer needed to have 600mb of updates downloaded. This took about 2.5 hours to complete solely do the severe throttling being applied by Plusnet.

By way of comparison, when I got home in the evening I used the Be* service to download a 700mb .iso of Ubuntu and got that in 6 minutes. I installed that and it had 235mb of updates to download, This 235mb arrived in 2 minutes.

BT seem to have got broadband fundamentally wrong if such throttling has become the norm. I know now that I will never go back to a BT based broadband service.

In reply to:

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I know now that I will never go back to a BT based broadband service

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Sadly some of us don't have any other options at the exchange, and in the case
of my rural one it's unlikely to see any ISPs providing a LLU service .................. ever!?!?!!!

It isn't BT Wholesale - which is the service you are using. It is Plusnet, your ISP, throttling details here.

For an unthrottled BT Wholesale experience look at IDNet, Zen, Newnet and O2. The last of those is unlimited downloads as well.

Or of course it could be exchange congestion, which would affect any - but normally gets fixed so not a damning indictment of BTW. VP info here.

Edited by RobertoS (Sat 27-Dec-08 11:13:57)

You have to provide a lot more information to help determine if it is a PlusNet issue or a local line problem.

What Plus net package are you on

What line speed to you get - use one of the line speed test site.

What are your sync rates -

How far are you from the exchange

You also need to see what IP profile has been set for your line.

This should be matched by PN - you can check here (you'll need to login).

The BT IP profile can be found by running the [url=http://speedtester.bt.com/]BT speed tester[/ul].

I have no need to do any further detective work. I did sufficient tests at that time to establish that the problem is caused by ISP throttling. Ultimately BT Wholesale is to blame for this situation as they have structured their wholesale pricing to encourage ISPs to adopt throttling to reduce broadband costs.

O2 are not on the BT network, they are on the Be* LLU network.

O2 Access is BT Wholesale ADSL Max just like Plusnet.

Well, not very like Plusnet! Unlimited and unthrottled.

i find it hard to believe that a line that hasnt been used in 3 months would have that sort of throttling. i would hazard a guess that there is a problem with the line .and unless you raise a ticket with plusnet chances are it wont get fixed.

As this is a connection you rarely use would it be reasonable to assume that you are on the cheapest package - BBYW Option 1