MAAF, Plusnet or Post Office

I've been a happy customer of MAAF for 3 years now on their 5GB package. But since I moved house and cancelled Sky I have been watching some fotty via SOPcast which has been eating into my monthly limit. I also use utorrent to download music, maybe the odd film but I'd also like to get some games as my wii has been modified.

So I decided I need to switch to a higher GB package. There are no LLU's in my exchange so choice is limited and I'm thinking the Plusnet value 10GB (free between 12am and 8am) or the Post Office Unlimited.

I admit to not not understanding a great deal about throttling etc but have always been happy with MAAF. Would I better moving onto a higher limit with them?


Thanks

Newnet Home S would be better and cheaper than a Madasafish upgrade. For 12GB (Newnet count uploads) the Home M should do you for a while.

Comparisons.

The Post office doesn't seem a good idea to me. Have a browse in the Other Providers forum. A search may be worthwhile in there as well, in case it isn't obvious in the Subject.

MAAF and Plusnet are I believe the same company, maybe con move from one isp to the other, best put a post up on the plusnet section and I'm sure someone will help you.
There are restrictions though, the speeds can be found here

http://www.plus.net/support/broadband/quality_broadb... downloads are throttled at the stated times

A bit about throttling and such.

Background - line speed
Most people get sold lines that support upto 8Mbps (8 Million bits per second).
Thats about 1MBps (1 Million bytes per second); a byte is still roughly the same as a text character. (Or worst case about half a text character).
The actual speed we get depends on our distance from the exchange since the signals get weaker and noiser the further you go. Some lines and locations are better than others and cabling and devices in your home can often make it worse.
So in practice people get a maximum speed of between nearly zero and almost 8Mpbs.
This is your line speed.
Some services now provide a line speed of upto 24Mbps (3 times faster) BUT all the same limitations apply a few extra ones.

Cost vs Capacity
So that's pretty marvelous unless you live a long way from the exchange or have a cabling problem. The trouble is broadband is actually retailed very cheap in the UK, but is quite expensive to supply. So if everyone used their line at full capacity all the time the ISPs would either go broke or charge maybe 10 times more. Luckily a lot of usage can average out as businesses use more in the day, home users more in evenings, etc.

However there are times where the total usage is (or would be) more than the capacity the ISP have available. This is where words like "contention, throttling, packet loss, latency" come in:

contention: Basically the overload is left to fend for itself. Like a congested motorway things slow down, its very stop start and there are "accidents" with data getting lost and resent. As more people use more capacity (eg. p2p, video, iPlayer, etc) arbitrary contention like this leads to a very unpredictable service, thats often good for noone be they gamers, businesses, massive downloaders or just shoppers.

throttling: There are types and degrees of throttling. The simplest says that there is not enough capacity and evenly slows down everyone. Some ISPs slow the fastest connections down first, others slow everyone by a percentage, some are bit mad and just slam the brakes on for everyone. More complex throttling says that some protocols and uses of your connection are less important (or less time critical) and aims to slow those down more than others. If you use those protocols a lot its pain (but sometimes quite cheap), if you don't its a bonus as other people can't hog the capacity you wanted a share of.

packet loss: Sometimes the internet or ISP connection will lose a packet of data and it will get resent. This slows things down. One way of handling contention (or even throttling) is to throw away some packets. This might be done carefully to unimportant protocols (uses) or just be a random consequence of overloading a device. Packet loss is terrible for online gamers, while stalling access to web pages is often a symptom of packet loss for light users. Some ISPs try to tune their throttling to minimise (or stop) packet loss, as its what causes the most obvious side effects to both gamers and browsers.

latency: One effect of congestion and packet loss is that it can take a long time for your data packets to transit across the connection and internet. Think of it like the christmas post. This can feel similar to packet loss and is very sad for online gamers. Even a throttling scheme can add latency if the equipment takes too long handling the data, or if the throttle is implemented in certain ways.

Quite a long post but I hope that helps.