plusnet... devil in details?

Howdy.

I was about thinkin about Plusnet Broadband Plus.

I'm waiting on a call from their sales dept but also was lookin for feedback
from any existing users re the throttling.

#################
http://www.plus.net/residential/broa...resbb_pluslink

"With Broadband Plus you can use any type of Internet services you want. In
order to ensure we deliver a high level of service, during busy periods we
will give priority to services such as web browsing and email and a lower
priority to high usage services such as downloading and file sharing."
##################

Just how slow is the service when throttled?
Is NNTP or FTP throttled?
What's a "busy period"? When Plusnet say it is I guess...
Isn't web browsing and retrieving mail "downloading"?

Hi,have been with Plusnet for eighteen months price has gone down -always
one of the cheapest,and there is no limit to downloads.I used to be with
Freeserve but left owing to poor service.Plusnet have excellent customer
relations,having rung them twice and the call was answered within a couple
of minutes,and problem was sorted virtually straight away.No problems with
disconnections and dropping lines,very reliable and extremely helpful



The Which report stated the following and I quote"The Plusnet package is a
BestBuy with a good download speed which have been really consistent over
the last quarter.Plusnet stood out in our satisfaction survey, performing
well in almost all areas, from ease of use to connection speed and customer
and technical support.""

If you choose to sign up with Plusnet,please use my ID- beechville96 as a
referrer and save me a few pence



Thanks, Keith


"brownstar" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:d9h861$mtj$(E-Mail Removed)...
> Howdy.
>
> I was about thinkin about Plusnet Broadband Plus.
>
> I'm waiting on a call from their sales dept but also was lookin for
feedback
> from any existing users re the throttling.
>
> #################
>
http://www.plus.net/residential/broa...?link=resbb_pl
uslink
>
> "With Broadband Plus you can use any type of Internet services you want.
In
> order to ensure we deliver a high level of service, during busy periods we
> will give priority to services such as web browsing and email and a lower
> priority to high usage services such as downloading and file sharing."
> ##################
>
> Just how slow is the service when throttled?
> Is NNTP or FTP throttled?
> What's a "busy period"? When Plusnet say it is I guess...
> Isn't web browsing and retrieving mail "downloading"?
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>

I switched from PAYG to PLUS in April and don't notice any difference. We
use it a lot, but not for P2P or binary downloads. NNTP is subject to
slowing, but again no effect on text newsgroups.
Their busy period is from 16 - 22, so it shouldn't be difficult to do any
heavy downloads outside that time.

I hope that you would be kind enough to use my ID 'wester' as a referrer if
you sign up with PlusNet (in preference to Dicki Dido who copies my post
almost word for word and haven't even tried to answer your question..)
Regards,
Martin

"brownstar" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

>Howdy.
>
>I was about thinkin about Plusnet Broadband Plus.
>
>I'm waiting on a call from their sales dept but also was lookin for feedback
>from any existing users re the throttling.
>
>#################
>http://www.plus.net/residential/broa...resbb_pluslink
>
>"With Broadband Plus you can use any type of Internet services you want. In
>order to ensure we deliver a high level of service, during busy periods we
>will give priority to services such as web browsing and email and a lower
>priority to high usage services such as downloading and file sharing."
>##################
>
>Just how slow is the service when throttled?
>Is NNTP or FTP throttled?
>What's a "busy period"? When Plusnet say it is I guess...
>Isn't web browsing and retrieving mail "downloading"?
>

I migrated from Pipex last Sat. I use BNR for binary downloads & have found
that the throttling to be quite severe. It seems to operate from about 8am
to sometime after midnight, download speeds on my 512 connection drop from
around 57kB/s to around 20kB/s which is a bit of a pain. Can't say about
FTP yet, & waiting for my 1m upgrade to complete, but I don't think it will
make much difference. I think that if you want to utilise a 1 or 2meg
connection for anything other than web or email you should go for the
premier account.

On 24/06/2005 Dicki Dido wrote:

> If you choose to sign up with Plusnet,please use my ID- beechville96
> as a referrer and save me a few pence


Why is it that a post from a sycophant always ends with a line like
this?


--
Jeff Gaines
Damerham Hampshire UK
Using XanaNews 1.17.5.3 http://www.wilsonc.demon.co.uk/d9xananews.htm

On 25 Jun 2005 09:46, Chris <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

> have found that the throttling to be quite severe.

It will depend on others wanting to use their connections for higher
priority types of traffic, probably just mail or web browsing...

> It seems to operate from about 8am to sometime after midnight, download

Yes, that seems reasonable (despite someone from Plus.Net saying, perhaps
in a press release, that it was from 1600!) Check the ADSL traffic graph
<http://portal.plus.net/support/adsl/troubleshooting/adsl_utilisation.shtml>
and the 'trough' in demand is for roughly 8 hours after midnight.

>speeds on my 512 connection drop from around 57kB/s to around 20kB/s which
>is a bit of a pain. Can't say about FTP yet,

PN staff, in the past, have commented that anything which requires fairly
high traffic is likely to be given lower priority. I don't know if that's
likely to affect something like the BBC output (I don't know how much is of
high bitrate, to be honest) but it would be a bit odd if some types of 'web
browsing' was also 'traffic shaped' while other types of use weren't. For
example, while browsing, one might click a link for some video or audio,
and hopefully that will play at reasonable speed - if it is throttled it'll
make it unusable, whereas file transfers just take a bit (lot!) longer.

>I think that if you want to utilise a 1 or 2meg connection for anything
>other than web or email you should go for the premier account.

Good suggestion. PN staff have recommended it for anyone wanting to use a
peer-to-peer application or binary newsgroups. Peter M.


--

UK ADSL <http://tinyurl.com/5jpa4> - Happy to save cash with Plus.Net!!
E-mail + files - 30 day free trial - <http://web.vfm-deals.com/runbox/>
USENET news service? <http://tinyurl.com/3rjw4> (plans from under US$5)

On 25 Jun 2005, I wrote:

>PN staff have recommended it for anyone wanting to use a peer-to-peer
>application or binary newsgroups.

I should have added - the product description for Broadband Plus (for
anyone who might think the 'traffic shaping' isn't described on the PN
web site) does indicate "Priority given to basic use such as surfing and
email at busy times [ Find out more ]" and the link shows the section on
'data transfer' which says

"With Broadband Plus you can use any type of Internet services you want. In
order to ensure we deliver a high level of service, during busy periods we
will give priority to services such as web browsing and email and a lower
priority to high usage services such as downloading and file sharing."

It goes back to the OP, and when 'busy periods' exist (18 hours a day, but
I guess that's often the peer-to-peer and binary downloaders on the PN ADSL
traffic graphs, and not those on Broadband Plus :-) Peter M.