Kitz Forum

Broadband Related => ISPs => Topic started by: Al1264 on January 06, 2016, 02:37:04 PM

Title: Plusnet 'New Network - NOT LLU'
Post by: Al1264 on January 06, 2016, 02:37:04 PM
Any insight (or suitable guesses) about this?
http://community.plus.net/forum/index.php/topic,147447.0.html

http://community.plus.net/forum/index.php/topic,147446.msg1297561.html#msg1297561
Quote
Your line is being moved over to our new network which will add more capacity for us as we grow our customer base

http://community.plus.net/forum/index.php/topic,147467.msg1297723.html#msg1297723
Quote
Don't worry this is due to the network upgrades we're in the process of making
Title: Re: Plusnet 'New Network - NOT LLU'
Post by: aesmith on January 06, 2016, 03:28:06 PM
Getting rid of their creaking "gateways"?
Title: Re: Plusnet 'New Network - NOT LLU'
Post by: jelv on January 06, 2016, 04:56:39 PM
Does this give us a clue as to what the new network is?

http://community.plus.net/forum/index.php/topic,147467.msg1297824.html#msg1297824

Code: [Select]
tracert ntp.plus.net

Tracing route to ntp.plus.net [212.159.13.49]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

  1    <1 ms    <1 ms    <1 ms  RT-N16 [192.168.1.254]
  2     *        *        *     Request timed out.
  3     *        *        *     Request timed out.
  4     8 ms     9 ms     8 ms  172.17.7.237
  5    12 ms    12 ms    12 ms  172.17.11.230
  6    12 ms    12 ms    12 ms  be2.psb-ir01.plus.net [195.166.129.180]
  7    12 ms    12 ms    12 ms  gr-11-1-0.ptw-cr02.plus.net [195.166.129.189]
  8    12 ms    12 ms    12 ms  po2.ptw-gw02.plus.net [195.166.129.39]
  9     *        *        *     Request timed out.
 10    12 ms    12 ms    12 ms  cdns01.plus.net [212.159.13.49]

Trace complete.
Title: Re: Plusnet 'New Network - NOT LLU'
Post by: kitz on January 06, 2016, 08:23:03 PM
Someone already asked me about this and I responded last night that to me the obvious would be moving over to dedicated WBMC (http://www.kitz.co.uk/adsl/wbc_wbmc.htm#WBMC_dedicated).

Ive said for about a year that they have outgrown WBMC shared and have long suspected that it is the shared MSILs that were the cause of last years problems.  I dont think the WBMC shared network was designed to cope with an ISP of the size that Plusnet has grown in to.  One of the PN reps assured me that the issue wasnt with Plusnet's own capacity and this came from one of the few people there that I know wont do any BS and never has.   This only really left the shared MSILs as the source of the issue.

Basically c&p what I said last night..  but may as well put it on here too.


I dont see anything for IBH that would affect the EU's physical line.     I would imagine that IBH would cause little more disruption than say plusnet installing new centrals (host links) in another location or say buying larger centrals/hostlinks and I certainly dont think it would change the EU asset in any way.

Quote
    Your line is being moved over to our new network which will add more capacity for us as we grow our customer base, as this order is technically us taking over your line this does place a cease on the current asset,


That sounds like something much bigger and an actual BTw SP service provision change rather than the point of bandwidth termination [re IBH].  The word cease is the interesting bit as long as its been used accurately in the above sentence..  it wouldnt be needed for an EU based product change. 'Modify' is the term used for a EU product change with the same SP or say move from 20CN to 21CN.   Therefore implying to me a change of ISP service provision

Some examples of a service provision change could be
WLR - but we are talking their dsl not phone line?
LLU  - which I doubt.
WBC - doubtful.   Who would provision the backhaul and why would PN go with say Murphx when BT have their own backhaul
WBMC shared service
WBMC dedicated service.

Sorry I dont know for sure...  but my guess would be something to do with WLR or WBMC[dedicated]
Title: Re: Plusnet 'New Network - NOT LLU'
Post by: kitz on January 06, 2016, 08:42:26 PM
Does this give us a clue as to what the new network is?

http://community.plus.net/forum/index.php/topic,147467.msg1297824.html#msg1297824

Code: [Select]
tracert ntp.plus.net

Tracing route to ntp.plus.net [212.159.13.49]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

  1    <1 ms    <1 ms    <1 ms  RT-N16 [192.168.1.254]
  2     *        *        *     Request timed out.
  3     *        *        *     Request timed out.
  4     8 ms     9 ms     8 ms  172.17.7.237
  5    12 ms    12 ms    12 ms  172.17.11.230
  6    12 ms    12 ms    12 ms  be2.psb-ir01.plus.net [195.166.129.180]
  7    12 ms    12 ms    12 ms  gr-11-1-0.ptw-cr02.plus.net [195.166.129.189]
  8    12 ms    12 ms    12 ms  po2.ptw-gw02.plus.net [195.166.129.39]
  9     *        *        *     Request timed out.
 10    12 ms    12 ms    12 ms  cdns01.plus.net [212.159.13.49]

Trace complete.


Interesting - Private IPs at 8ms and 12ms! 

6/7/8ms is exactly where I'd expect the RAS.. or more correctly the 21CN Interconnects to be.   This is where an ISP would install their own MSILs. 
12ms is where they are hopping off the core (or hopping off some other third party transit).   
Dedicated WMBC still uses the core for transit, but can hop on and off where-ever they wish and have a lot more freedom of routing than shared WBMC.
If it was third party I wouldnt expect to see those private IPs.

Hops 2 & 3 arent responding..   this isnt unusual for the BT RAS/21CN interconnects.     Dedicated doesnt tend to use L2TP like shared.  Its L2TP which  hides the RAS nodes, yet why you can still see them on BTretail who also use dedicated WMBC.   

That trace implies that Plusnet isnt using shared WMBC between the interconnects and london.   The other available options are WBC or WBMC dedicated.   Ive already said that because they are owned by BT, then it would be extremely unlikely that Plusnet would use WBC.    That would be the equivalent of owning British Airways then flying all your paying passengers on Virgin Atlantic planes.   :-X     
Title: Re: Plusnet 'New Network - NOT LLU'
Post by: burakkucat on January 06, 2016, 10:02:10 PM
Quote
Your line is being moved over to our new network which will add more capacity for us as we grow our customer base, as this order is technically us taking over your line this does place a cease on the current asset, . . .

I find the above part-sentence to be rather intriguing. Specifically, the use of the word cease.  :-\
Title: Re: Plusnet 'New Network - NOT LLU'
Post by: kitz on January 06, 2016, 10:25:35 PM
Cease is confusing I agree, but it is also used when type of dsl service provision is made.
Its not necessarily cease of the telephone line.   
This is what caused much confusion and panic for those of us on BE (me included) when the change from SMPF LLU to WBMC shared.   I nearly freaked out at 'Cease'.

I suppose that could also open up another option.. in the Plusnet are handing the asset over to A.N.Other ISP, but that doesnt seem like what they are doing either.
Option dismissed as soon as I read content of text message on PN forum.
Title: Re: Plusnet 'New Network - NOT LLU'
Post by: jelv on January 06, 2016, 10:30:16 PM
If the move is supposed to be transparent with no need for the EU to change login or anything else at their end why on earth are PN not suppressing the alarming messages?

See http://community.plus.net/forum/index.php/topic,147467
Title: Re: Plusnet 'New Network - NOT LLU'
Post by: kitz on January 06, 2016, 10:41:10 PM
I dunno about that.   I dont think most customers will see anything.    It was the PN rep on the forum who used that term.. and what got me thinking this has got to be a change of service provision type.

They shouldnt be issuing any messages and the EU's should never see the term 'cease'.    BE* boobed because their messages went out automatically with the same words used by BTw for the service provision.    The EU should have seen 'migrate'.

The 1st EU to report it, wouldnt have known if the PN rep hadnt said anything.

I suppose they should suppress the  "Your broadband order successfully completed" messages..  but then again would that impact valid upgrades or incoming accounts.

To be perfectly frank the best all round option would have been to say
"We are making some changes to our network provisioning.  Customers will be migrated to the new platform over the coming 'x' months"
Then be open with those on the forums etc what they are doing.    That way no-one would really be alarmed if they got an auto text


Title: Re: Plusnet 'New Network - NOT LLU'
Post by: Chrysalis on January 06, 2016, 11:16:30 PM
ahh you can ignore my pm kitz since its already posted here.

I agree the most likely explanation is they ditched the shared msil's.

It would seem BT made a business decision to move plusnet rather than to fix the shared capacity issues.

Now if BT werent so been stupid censoring this information then plusnet may not have lost me as a customer.
Title: Re: Plusnet 'New Network - NOT LLU'
Post by: jelv on January 06, 2016, 11:28:59 PM
I dunno about that.   I dont think most customers will see anything.

I think I made the addition to my post ("See http://community.plus.net/forum/index.php/topic,147467") while you were typing.

True to form, it looks like they've overlooked a crucial detail.

That should generate a lot of extra calls and chat sessions!
Title: Re: Plusnet 'New Network - NOT LLU'
Post by: kitz on January 06, 2016, 11:38:50 PM
ahh you can ignore my pm kitz since its already posted here.

Saw this too late - I directed you here anyhow :)

Quote
I agree the most likely explanation is they ditched the shared msil's.
It would seem BT made a business decision to move plusnet rather than to fix the shared capacity issues.

WBMC shared was never designed for an ISP the size of Plusnet.    Plusnet just grew, but they had a problem in that they had already invested 10's of millions of pounds in equipment designed for shared.   Moving over to dedicated would be expensive and would require the purchase of some new kit at various points around the UK.

Quote
Now if BT werent so been stupid censoring this information then plusnet may not have lost me as a customer.

I agree.. they should have come out and told us why.    I knew it was the reason and have been saying for a year now that it must be the MSILs.   
I bet the reason they had to stay stum is because it would be pointing the finger at BTw..   which in turn would make the other shared ISPs sit up and take notice and moan that the shared MSILs were struggling.   As it turned out there was only really AAISP and certain PN customers who were astute enough to notice it.   I think a couple of Zen users did..  but not enough EU's to cause a major stink.

You know what a hard time a few of us had convincing certain people that it wasnt local/SVLANs etc.   Certain people also caused a lot of noise which often took the topic and caused threads to be closed and become garbage.   That in turn wound even more people up.. and why some started moving away... and why I stopped bothering to post.   
I had a hellish time convincing people that there was such a product as WBMC dedicated in the first place.    I also recall someone throwing the blame over to TBB  ::)

Can we please keep this thread on topic

1) I don't want it closing like the old one was
2) The latest speedtest/flash result has nothing to do with it. - Please don't give plusnet an excuse that isn't there to back out and ignore whats going on.  This happened in the other thread. :/

I've shown above that its not a fault with the TBB speedtester by checking throughput on my local machine & its nothing to do with flash because I was doing normal http stuff.    You could clearly see that Im getting the same speed on single thread using Netmeter whilst doing a http download.
Of course things are going to look better after 10:30  ::)

Has it not occurred to anyone that just possibly its the BTw MSILs that are in melt-down and that's why loads of people are seeing the same thing regardless of ISP.
Deathtrap/Tommy45, the reason youre likely seeing it too is because you also use an ISP that uses the shared WBMC MPLS core.
I told you that via PM about 8hrs ago that multi-threaded speedtesters just mask the problem.   I said about 5 months ago that this issue could likely stem from the MSILs.   




Title: Re: Plusnet 'New Network - NOT LLU'
Post by: Chrysalis on January 06, 2016, 11:50:17 PM
Well uno have noticed and are angry enough now to moan in public (on tbb).

I assume once enough plusnet customers have been moved then BTw shared will work good again without any investment in it.
Title: Re: Plusnet 'New Network - NOT LLU'
Post by: kitz on January 06, 2016, 11:54:44 PM
yep I guess.   tbh Ive not looked at TBB for ages so dunno whats being said over there.
Title: Re: Plusnet 'New Network - NOT LLU'
Post by: kitz on January 07, 2016, 02:11:05 AM
Well it's good news for Plusnet customers.

I imagine there will be a period of settling in though as they will be on their own whilst they try to figure out how much bandwidth they will need at each of the nodes at various locations around the UK.
I don't know, but for this reason they may not transfer everyone at once.  Enta had a bumpy ride when they first purchased WBC MSILs.
Title: Re: Plusnet 'New Network - NOT LLU'
Post by: kitz on January 07, 2016, 07:19:48 AM
New thread

http://forum.kitz.co.uk/index.php?topic=16711.msg308130#msg308130
Title: Re: Plusnet 'New Network - NOT LLU'
Post by: Chrysalis on January 07, 2016, 08:20:54 AM
Basically I replied to uno saying BTw lately has had issues with capacity management, I was expecting no comment back but instead they said my reply was an understatement O_o.
Title: Re: Plusnet 'New Network - NOT LLU'
Post by: kitz on January 07, 2016, 02:29:32 PM
RevK has also been harping on about it at various MSILs since early last year.   I think they must have fixed Manchester because I seem to have been OK for the past few months.   Plusnet moving away should in time benefit the others.
Title: Re: Plusnet 'New Network - NOT LLU'
Post by: Weaver on January 07, 2016, 03:53:16 PM
RevK does indeed love to stick it to BT. At least he published stats about his own internal congestion levels to be fair in return.