looking at the graphs tonight

http://www.plus.net/support/service/network_performa...

Quite a few are currently maxed out - how does this affect traffic priority and is there any more capacity planned for soonish?

sorry to ask more questions am thinking of joining!

Quite a few are currently maxed out - how does this affect traffic priority and is there any more capacity planned for soonish?

What makes you say that?

They are a bit lower now but about 20 minutes ago 2 of the 3 WBC pipes were maxd out (i.e had a total outbound that matched that of the maximum).

Surely that shows that the pipes are at capacity?

In reply to a post by barker04:

They are a bit lower now but about 20 minutes ago 2 of the 3 WBC pipes were maxd out (i.e had a total outbound that matched that of the maximum).

Surely that shows that the pipes are at capacity?

"Max" means maximum value recorded during the graph's time period, not the maximum size of the pipe (which is not actually displayed).

The graphing software they use auto scales the y axis to the peak, so even if the pipes were peaking at 50% of capacity the graph will still show it going right to the top.

It is interesting to see some of the inner workings of an ISP.

They have different nodes that users connect to
They look to balance across all nodes, as the users are evenly spread.
The traffic upload/download profile of each node shows the same profile, so capacity management looks to be simple, we are creatures of habbit
Users are measured by being connected, which for ADSL means the modem is on. You could use these stats to work out the % of users who switch their model off during the day
Only they know the actual capacity of their nodes, but I would assume at least a 25% failure rate that needs to be carried by the rest

In reply to a post by iand:

I would assume at least a 25% failure rate that needs to be carried by the rest

I'd be rather surprised if it was that high on a daily basis.

its not, but if you look at the different pipes and then assume several of them actually fail at the same time, then the rest need to carry the load. Hence the 25% failure rate was a design decision assumption that says, I can fail up to 25% of the core pipes and I am still ok. Anything more and the end users may start to see a the problem as the rest can not carry the load. Some companies may have a 50% failure figure or even a 100% failure, with automatic duplicate capacity switch on.