Plus Net - ftp/throttling - new ADSL provider sought

Hi all

I'm having troubles with Plus.net - currently I can ftp quite happily to a
number of places during the day. In the evening EVERYTHING on port 21 just
times out and I cannot ping/ftp any ftp address other than ftp.plus.net

Customer services blandly tell me that if I can ftp/ping ftp.plus.net then
obviously there is not port 21 problem.

So - by my reckoning they are throttling me on Port 21. I use ftp a lot as I
do web design/website maintenance and being unable to access it in the
evening is a major liability.

My current useage is just <10 Gb a month - can anybody suggest a provider
that I can move to?

Graeme

"Graeme" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:4669c1f0$0$8738$(E-Mail Removed)...
> Hi all
>
> I'm having troubles with Plus.net - currently I can ftp quite happily to a
> number of places during the day. In the evening EVERYTHING on port 21
> just times out and I cannot ping/ftp any ftp address other than
> ftp.plus.net
>
> Customer services blandly tell me that if I can ftp/ping ftp.plus.net then
> obviously there is not port 21 problem.
>
> So - by my reckoning they are throttling me on Port 21. I use ftp a lot as
> I do web design/website maintenance and being unable to access it in the
> evening is a major liability.

Well I'm on Force 9 which is part of PlusNet. I've just (at 22:05) uploaded
a 650 KB file and it's taken 15 seconds to upload and 3 seconds to download.
The speed as reported by WS_FTP seemed pretty close to the theoretical
maximum: 400 Kbps up and 6 Mbps down.

I've never found that an FTP has timed out or run markedly slower than the
theoretical line speed.

Those figures were for F9's own FTP site. To ftp.qualcomm.com I get about 1
Mbps download which is throttled but still very usable.

"Mortimer" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:4669c705$0$8726$(E-Mail Removed)...
> "Graeme" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
> news:4669c1f0$0$8738$(E-Mail Removed)...
>> Hi all
>>
>> I'm having troubles with Plus.net - currently I can ftp quite happily to
>> a number of places during the day. In the evening EVERYTHING on port 21
>> just times out and I cannot ping/ftp any ftp address other than
>> ftp.plus.net
>>
>> Customer services blandly tell me that if I can ftp/ping ftp.plus.net
>> then obviously there is not port 21 problem.
>>
>> So - by my reckoning they are throttling me on Port 21. I use ftp a lot
>> as I do web design/website maintenance and being unable to access it in
>> the evening is a major liability.
>
> Well I'm on Force 9 which is part of PlusNet. I've just (at 22:05)
> uploaded a 650 KB file and it's taken 15 seconds to upload and 3 seconds
> to download. The speed as reported by WS_FTP seemed pretty close to the
> theoretical maximum: 400 Kbps up and 6 Mbps down.
>
> I've never found that an FTP has timed out or run markedly slower than the
> theoretical line speed.
>
> Those figures were for F9's own FTP site. To ftp.qualcomm.com I get about
> 1 Mbps download which is throttled but still very usable.
>
Hi there

I've just tried ftp to ftp.qualcomm.com - timed out
Ping ftp.qualcomm.com timed out

ftp to ftp.plus.net - connects
ping ftp.plus.net - TTL 248

???

Graeme

On Fri, 8 Jun 2007 21:53:58 +0100, "Graeme" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

>Hi all
>
>I'm having troubles with Plus.net - currently I can ftp quite happily to a
>number of places during the day. In the evening EVERYTHING on port 21 just
>times out and I cannot ping/ftp any ftp address other than ftp.plus.net
>
>Customer services blandly tell me that if I can ftp/ping ftp.plus.net then
>obviously there is not port 21 problem.
>
>So - by my reckoning they are throttling me on Port 21. I use ftp a lot as I
>do web design/website maintenance and being unable to access it in the
>evening is a major liability.
>
>My current useage is just <10 Gb a month - can anybody suggest a provider
>that I can move to?

I'm not being funny Graeme but most providers would welcome you with
open arms at that level of usage.

The UK market is your oyster so to speak but if you want reliability
and (perhaps - not sure now) a slightly better and more honest CS dept
then Zen still seems to be the obvious choice - even though their CS
is declining (aren't they all?). AAISP (aaisp.net/sod.ms or a host of
other intriguing domains) will supply anything and everything you
could wish for (apart from LLU) but it comes at a price. I wouldn't
consider any other ISPs than those two for business usage as they both
DO actually know what business usage means - eg ADSL gone down -
here's a quick/free dialup line so you are at least contactable. I'd
be inclined to go with AAISP were I you - I have used them before but
other options opened up (see below) and we didn't really need that
level of reliability.

I'm on Be and I wouldn't recommend them to anyone running a business
or working from home. When it works then its fine (duh - obviously)
but when its not then there's no point in phoning Be as the muppets in
London have no idea what O2 engineers are doing. Even if they were
told I doubt they'd understand - I had an interesting chat one night
with one of the support peeps in Sofia who expressed some frustration
along these lines (support is in Sofia but is "run" from London by two
people apparently). I am fortunate in that I can (sometimes) force
transatlantic traffic in ways that Be don't consider "optimum"
(cost-wise I suspect) but otherwise I see speeds to usenetserver (and
a host of other sites) down as low as 800kbps - force a route change
and I get 17000kbps. The sooner O2 close Be and do their own product
the better as the people running Be are not people I'd consider
competent to run a PTA. IMVHO of course :-)

Sorry - went way off-topic there :-D If O2 launch a business package
that doesn't involve anyone from Be then I think they'd be on a winner
because the raw speed is (currently) there in the UK - its just
upstream.....

AAISP. Or Zen. Either would be an incredible improvement on Plusnet.

On Fri, 8 Jun 2007 21:53:58 +0100, "Graeme" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

>Hi all
>
>I'm having troubles with Plus.net - currently I can ftp quite happily to a
>number of places during the day. In the evening EVERYTHING on port 21 just
>times out and I cannot ping/ftp any ftp address other than ftp.plus.net
>

If there is a isp block on outbound port 21 it shouldn't affect your
pinging.

Can you ping or connect to the (numeric) ip address of any of these
ftp servers?


Jim.

I used to be with Plusnet. They're a bunch of muppets with a piss poor
network. I've been with UKFSN (entanet reseller) and are the best ISP I've
been with. The CS are honest, speeds are terrific and they don't throttle
any ports. They have an anti loss tool which slows down your connection when
the pipes get saturated but this is to prevent packet loss and works a
charm.

Dan

"Graeme" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:4669c1f0$0$8738$(E-Mail Removed)...
> Hi all
>
> I'm having troubles with Plus.net - currently I can ftp quite happily to a
> number of places during the day. In the evening EVERYTHING on port 21
> just times out and I cannot ping/ftp any ftp address other than
> ftp.plus.net
>
> Customer services blandly tell me that if I can ftp/ping ftp.plus.net then
> obviously there is not port 21 problem.
>
> So - by my reckoning they are throttling me on Port 21. I use ftp a lot as
> I do web design/website maintenance and being unable to access it in the
> evening is a major liability.
>
> My current useage is just <10 Gb a month - can anybody suggest a provider
> that I can move to?
>
> Graeme
beinternet seems OK.
They have a package for heavy users and do not restrict downloads or block
ports like Virgin, Tiscali, BT, Demon and others.

Graeme wrote:
>
> "Mortimer" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
> news:4669c705$0$8726$(E-Mail Removed)...
>> "Graeme" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
>> news:4669c1f0$0$8738$(E-Mail Removed)...
>>> Hi all
>>>
>>> I'm having troubles with Plus.net - currently I can ftp quite happily
>>> to a number of places during the day. In the evening EVERYTHING on
>>> port 21 just times out and I cannot ping/ftp any ftp address other
>>> than ftp.plus.net
>>>
>>> Customer services blandly tell me that if I can ftp/ping ftp.plus.net
>>> then obviously there is not port 21 problem.
>>>
>>> So - by my reckoning they are throttling me on Port 21. I use ftp a
>>> lot as I do web design/website maintenance and being unable to access
>>> it in the evening is a major liability.
>>
>> Well I'm on Force 9 which is part of PlusNet. I've just (at 22:05)
>> uploaded a 650 KB file and it's taken 15 seconds to upload and 3
>> seconds to download. The speed as reported by WS_FTP seemed pretty
>> close to the theoretical maximum: 400 Kbps up and 6 Mbps down.
>>
>> I've never found that an FTP has timed out or run markedly slower than
>> the theoretical line speed.
>>
>> Those figures were for F9's own FTP site. To ftp.qualcomm.com I get
>> about 1 Mbps download which is throttled but still very usable.
>>
> Hi there
>
> I've just tried ftp to ftp.qualcomm.com - timed out
> Ping ftp.qualcomm.com timed out
>
> ftp to ftp.plus.net - connects
> ping ftp.plus.net - TTL 248

It does seem very odd that you can't ping these sites. As another poster
has observed that does suggest something other than management of your
traffic (that and the fact that it seems to be completely blocked).

What account type are you on and is this problem refined to the
4:00pm-Midnight time slot or has it happened outside of these hours before?

If you have a recent ticket ID then I can look into things further. As a
last resort we could try and replicate the issue on our test line here
whilst logged in as you. That would say for sure whether you're looking
at a local problem or something at this end.

Kind Rgds,

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