Plusnet Fibre Value BB - Anyone have it ?

StuieUK34

Am looking to raise an order today or tomorrow......
Am narrowed down to either Sky for REAL Broadband, on most likely standard ADSL ot ADSL2+
Or.................
PLUSNET Fibre - Value 40GB with PRO Add-on......

However, does anyone have the Plusnet Fibre in there house, and more specifically, pay for the PRO Add-on ?

My thought train is this:
SKY might only give me say a 5mb down, but this will be real broadband, and i'll get what the line supports... so if watching telly on-demand (through the Playstation), it should'nt buffer or be rubbish (like it did on our 'o2' DSL2+ 13mb line)....
Gaming will be just that, letting the client/server game or P2P game (Call of Duty) use the required bandwith it needs to make the game playable, etc etc etc.....
So in terms of value for money, i get what i pay for, say a 5mb line....

Going with Plusnet on Fibre, just the normal package, that indicates i will get 33mb line......
However, digging deep, it says between normal operating hours (8am to midnight), the only 33mb line stuff u will get is for web pages, ALL the normal stuff, like gaming, file downloading (not p2p), streaming, on-demand, using the internet like your paying for it, etc etc, IE: normal stuff, then its reduced to like a 1mb line (which kind of defeats the object of paying for a 30mb + line ?????)

However, pay £5 extra, and it claims you'll run full line speed 24/7 (say 33mb down, 2mb up....)
Anyone confirm this is how the service works ? or is it just a ploy to make me pay more money for a heavily reduced service.....
Cheers

qpop

To be fair your connection to streaming video shouldn't be affected, as it's standard html webpackets on port 80 AFAIK. The shoddy connection with o2 is more likely a combination of factors such as contention ratio locally, copper line quality (which isn't fixed by anything other than new lines), ring wire interference, low SNR margins causing high error rates on the line (this is a killer for streaming video, depending on the server, as a string of bad data packets might trigger re-buffering).

In terms of P2P filtering, the reason that's easy to do (again, AFAIK) is due to the nature of the data packets that protocols like bittorrent use being easy to identify. This can actually sometimes be worked-around by encryption (but only if client-client are both encrypted) and other trickery.

Common misconception about COD - it is not picked up by an ISP as "P2P traffic". I believe (though not 100%) that your connection routes through the XBL / PSN servers, regardless of whether you're picked as host or not. Either way the port-ranges used are usually (i.e. with Plusnet) "prioritised".

Sky is likely to be poor, and try to force you to use their standard kit, which in real terms is far more likely to damage your ability to game/consistently download than the raw speed of connection. If you have a poor wireless connection to your router, for example, XBL gaming suffers far more than if you only ran a 2mbps line straight into the back of the XBox. In fact I remember reading that the minimum requirements to host a 32 player COD game was 64kbps. The ping is far more important and is slightly more complicated than raw connection speed!

I was marginally impressed with the quality of Plusnet connection (albeit LLU 10mbps not anything fancy like FTTC) when I was staying at my grandmothers temporarily. That was only hampered by the poor Thomson wireless box provided.

I really don't see any way that the ISP will throttle based on content type. If I connect to moneysavingexpert.com to view a webpage, the traffic isn't going to be much different from connecting to rapidshare.com and downloading a 3gb file.

Someone with far more knowledge about this might give you more in-depth information but this is my perception of the broadband world.

I'd recommend getting a decent, small, LLU ISP. I'm finding it a breath of fresh air after 3 years of poor customer service/poor quality broadband connections.

cajef

qpop wrote: »

I was marginally impressed with the quality of Plusnet connection (albeit LLU 10mbps not anything fancy like FTTC) when I was staying at my grandmothers temporarily. That was only hampered by the poor Thomson wireless box provided.

Very good recommendation except that Plusnet do not use LLU.

StuieUK34

ok, partial thumbs up for Plusnet in general, not FTTC specific...
Just to clear up prior BB though..
Had o2, DSL2+, sync rate 16.7mb, up 844kb
6db line noise, distance was 1.2km in cable return from exchange
on o2 all rounder.
All gaming through PC, all telly through PS3, P2P using torrent protocols on PC after midnight......
PS3 using iplayer/itv player/4ondemand, etc.... would buffer and play, buffer and play.. why ? cos o2's traffic shaping application is useless, as so admitted by 8 of there staff when i complained weekly (43 complaints in 11 months total).
Gaming: Client server gaming - ping normal ish to UK servers, if u cound normal being 60+ , yet lag was nasty....
COD which works on a similar protocol to torrents, using mesh style topologys means most ISP's put certain games into the 'other' catergory, so it gets shaped..
No matter how u try explaining or defending, gaming becomes poor (as WoW users found out).... a 2ltr bottle of coke with the lid chopped off empties quick, stick the bottle neck on as most bottles have, it comes out slow.... thats how broadband works, in a nutshell ISP's dont always shape on ports, they do on UDP/TCP packets, sniffers identify which..... and if i was worried about that, then in theory i would go through a private VPN, but on fibre, would be not so good for bandwith..

I just need to hear half decent things about ISPs (not worried about the usage either, as if i detect my usage going high when i aint using it, the fun will begin! )
Just curious to see if Plusnet 'Pro' really do give you broadband, and not shaped rubbish....

cajef

Probably better asking in the Plusnet forum here

http://forums.thinkbroadband.com/qthreads.php

qpop

I would be inclined to believe them, if it's what they say. LLU mistake = oops (forgot temporarily that Plusnet is OWNED by BT these days!)

I was a (happy) o2 customer for 18mth or so, when they basically just provided re-branded Be-Unlimited provision. They then rehashed (and renamed the services with stupid names as you point out) and it became awful. I quickly switched to Be Unlimited which was fine as long as you didn't mind doing a bit of Bulgarian-English translation when talking to their support (who to their credit were helpful, but poorly trained, as usual).

As per other threads I've written in, having moved to a small reseller of C&W broadband (amongst other things) I feel this is the way forward. I've had an in-depth conversation re: SNR margins and acceptable rates on the line, with two knowledgeable guys, and I'm paying less (I think) per month than I was paying Be. Can't complain really.

COD never ran noticably slowly on the Plusnet line (except for when the Thompson Router did the overheat-reboot trick that they're so fond of).

I still don't think any ISP snoops enough to differentiate between page fetch packets and download packets, but it sounds like you may well know more than I do!

If Sam Knows says you can have Bulldog/C&W then you have a whole world of small resellers you can sign up with (ADSL24, Xilo, etc.)

Mark_In_Hampshire

This page seems to have a summary

http://www.plus.net/support/broadband/speed_guide/download_speeds.shtml

In your position I wouldn't be able to put up with a slow 5Mbps connection and would be looking at cable or the FTTC service, the slow speed would drive me mad and our connection is only a bit quicker.

5Mbps should stream standard definition OK, but might not cut it if you have more than one person using it/several things going on at once or want to begin streaming things in Hi-Def at some point. Also, the 5Mbps is an estimate so it could be more or less than that. (So is the fibre, but you have a much wider range to play with and 30Mbps against a 33Mbps estimate is not so much of a disaster as e.g. 3Mbps against a 5Mbps one)

Back in the days of ADSL only, since almost no user was getting any serious bandwidth, it was much easier for ISPs to supply "unlimited" connections, since the amount that could ever be downloaded was strangled by the mechanics of running the service over a telephone line resulting in poor speeds and a kind of self-imposed cap on how much anyone could use.

With cable and now more recently the Openreach FTTC service there is the potential for users with good speeds to swamp the network. More capacity could go in, but then up go the prices.

To get the best speeds and the lowest pings, you'll want cable e.g. the 50Mbps down 5Mbps up package which doesn't have the traffic shaping, or the FTTC service but on an unthrottled connection. Nobody can determine which will have the fastest ping times unless you have them both installed and compare them.

Unthrottled and less "managed" services are available, but you'd need to look at the likes of IDNET, Zen and Aquiss, and note the price differential to Plusnet.

Finally, you need to be sure that Sky are able to offer you an LLU service. If they do not have their equipment in your exchange you end up on the Connect package which is BT based and diabolical. To check, use the Availability checker at www.samknows.com and check the LLU results page for Sky/Easynet = Yes. if it says No, I'd rule out Sky anyway.

StuieUK34

My exchange is LLU for BE/o2 , sky/easynet , Bulldog and talktalk.....
Distance is 1.7km from exchange, but as the crow flies, so am guessing around 3 miles of cables...
My exchange: http://www.samknows.com/broadband/exchange/SWLLD
Home location is new build (well, within 10 years old)...

I think in practise, i just want what i pay for.... ie: they say i get a 33mb line on FTTC with a 40gb limit, then fine, thats what i want... i want the 33mb
and according to Plusnet 'Pro' , you pay that extra for the advertised line rate.... and at £21.49 , should be fine.... just nice to know someone else on the same package

Mark_In_Hampshire

StuieUK34 wrote: »

My exchange is LLU for BE/o2 , sky/easynet , Bulldog and talktalk.....
Distance is 1.7km from exchange, but as the crow flies, so am guessing around 3 miles of cables...

It would barely work at all if it were 3 miles At that distance, the line length might be say 2.5km or longer. The estimate is probably reasonable, from memory 4 to 5Mbps is around 3km of good quality line.

StuieUK34 wrote: »

My exchange: http://www.samknows.com/broadband/exchange/SWLLD
Home location is new build (well, within 10 years old)...

Can get Sky LLU, so all good

StuieUK34 wrote: »

I think in practise, i just want what i pay for.... ie: they say i get a 33mb line on FTTC with a 40gb limit, then fine, thats what i want... i want the 33mb

The only thing which guarantees that is a leased line, install from £3,200 and over £2,000 a month

Virgin Media cable 50Mbps or 100Mpbs gets close to the advertised speeds and does not have traffic management, but no guarantees

For BT based services, see
http://www.zen.co.uk/business/broadband/fibre-broadband.aspx
http://www.idnet.net/solutions/home/broadband/default-fibre.jsp
http://www.aquiss.com/home-fibre-broadband.php

and compare with Plusnet. In general you get what you pay for, though it's far from always the case.

StuieUK34 wrote: »

and according to Plusnet 'Pro' , you pay that extra for the advertised line rate.... and at £21.49 , should be fine.... just nice to know someone else on the same package

http://forums.thinkbroadband.com/plusnet.html