FYI:

http://www.skyuser.co.uk/forum/sky-broadband-fibre-h...

Ah! Thanks. Good to see it's going to be fixed. It's outrageous and unacceptable that Sky think it's OK for connections to be very slow and unusable for time critical applications during peak times, for weeks or months at a time.

I dispute their product advertising of "And we'll never slow you down". Their lack of network management does indeed result in being slowed down at peak times!

In reply to a post by sean2003:

Their lack of network management does indeed result in being slowed down at peak times!

In the vast majority of exchanges where Sky LLU is not congested, network management is not needed on Sky Broadband.

I for one am quite happy Sky has no network management, perhaps a view Plusnet users will find exception with.

That's not really strictly true. I'm a network engineer by trade, and just because there is bandwidth available doesn't mean its not good practice to traffic manage. Moreover, not a single exchange will be "uncongested" - they are all contended services, so by definition there will be congestion - it's a very cost prohibitive model to run without congestion/contention. It's a matter of relative nature of congestion, whereby its not noticed or it is noticed.

That said, on a shared medium of different customers, especially domestic customers, wants and needs will differ, so very difficult to traffic manage appropriately. That doesn't mean that traffic management is a bad thing, just virtually impossible to get right for such a diverse customer base.

Lets be clear - those customers on traffic managed service providers who download large amounts of data using P2P or similar will hate it - customers on the same service provider who simply web browse will get a much better service than a non traffic managed service. Its all relative.

All I can say is from my own experience, having been on networks with no traffic management (UK Online, O2 and now Sky) is that the lack of traffic management on these networks has caused me no trouble whatsoever, regardless of which protocol I was using. Line speed on all protocols at all times of day.

That will be mainly because the low bandwidth usage protocols are generally less susceptible to congestion, or are less visibile when used in a congested/contended scenario.

E.G. A download will immediately be apparent if theres congestion, as the download rate will vary - very visible. Web browsing is stateless and transactional, not real time, and there is no obvious measure visible when you generally web browse.

Theres also a big difference between traffic management and traffic limiting/policing. If you really think that large service providers don't traffic manage in some respect, you'd be very wrong. They just don't overtly ramp back traffic available to "scavenger" traffic that's all.

In reply to a post by MrShed:

Theres also a big difference between traffic management and traffic limiting/policing. If you really think that large service providers don't traffic manage in some respect, you'd be very wrong. They just don't overtly ramp back traffic available to "scavenger" traffic that's all.

I know the difference. Are you suggesting that Sky use DPI and prioritise p2p traffic differently to http traffic in the same way that Plusnet do?

No, I didn't say they did it in the same way, I said that I would be absolutely shocked if Plusnet and/or other service providers do not apply traffic management across their core. and backhauls.

In reply to a post by MrShed:

No, I didn't say they did it in the same way, I said that I would be absolutely shocked if Plusnet and/or other service providers do not apply traffic management across their core. and backhauls.

We know Plusnet use DPI with protocol prioritisation, what I am saying is that Sky don't and I'm perfectly happy with that.

No what you said was that "exchanges that werent congested did not need traffic management" - this is the part that I am querying. If you are happy with something or not is clearly your own personal preference!

As an aside - you are saying really that Sky don't use DPI that you know of. Again, I'd be very surprised if any kind of ISP in this day and age didn't DPI traffic. They may not do anything with it but that's a different story - especially as Sky traffic is all proxied.

Plus, DPI isn't the only way to skin a cat. I maintain my position that Sky will traffic manage to some extent. No way they will just have a free for all across their core.