Kitz Forum

Broadband Related => ISPs => Topic started by: Chrysalis on July 03, 2017, 08:55:02 PM

Title: Plusnet Have Disabled Prioritisation for Unlimited Accounts
Post by: Chrysalis on July 03, 2017, 08:55:02 PM
Posting here as has been missed, plusnet have now disabled their traffic management for all unlimited customers, except those with the pro addon.

The basis of the decision is their network capacity is now large enough to no longer need it.
Title: Re: Plusnet Have Disabled Prioritisation for Unlimited Accounts
Post by: kitz on July 03, 2017, 09:30:48 PM
hmmmm  the cynic in me says it may be more down to the fact they now use dedicated rather than shared rather than actual capacity as they imply.  Whilst they arent lying by saying "Investing in their network", I wouldn't be surprised if its more down to logistics.

Dedicated gives them a lot more flexibility when it comes to routing, and they could set up regional gateways.... 
BUT what really strikes me is now that they are running dedicated then any possible points of congestion due to bandwidth issues will be at the MSILs which are dotted around the UK at the Core Node locations.   

In days of old the ellacoyas/proceras sat by the Juniper gateways which terminated the host links.  Obviously the hostlinks are the possible points of congestion for shared WBC.  If there were problems at the gateway, then the ellacoyas could spring into action.

So the question is... how effectively would an ellacoya in London manage traffic when the point of congestion could be at a MSIL in Glasgow without affecting traffic from other regions. 
I could be wrong, but ideally the ellacoya would have to be near to the MSIL to be most effective....  and the old gateway ellacoyas could in actual fact be pretty useless when it comes to MSIL congestion? 
I'd have to think about it a bit more and do a bit more digging, but off the top of my head I think they would have to steer traffic from certain MSILs to certain gateways, which doesnt appear to be part of their network design.
 
Title: Re: Plusnet Have Disabled Prioritisation for Unlimited Accounts
Post by: Chrysalis on July 03, 2017, 10:15:25 PM
I also think there is something else behind it, but I didnt want to speculate.

Remember the packet loss issues posted a few months back? I suspected at the time that was down to issues with the traffic management equipment and the cpu's been overloaded.  The logistical issue you mentioned may have contributed to that.

A giveaway sign was that when they disabled usage reporting for customers the issues stopped.

As I understand it, they havent just tossed the equipment aside, its just only legacy customers now been routed through it on the older limited usage packages.
Title: Re: Plusnet Have Disabled Prioritisation for Unlimited Accounts
Post by: jelv on July 03, 2017, 10:38:33 PM
I suspect that a major factor is the ASA and the idiots that complained to them saying that there should be no traffic shaping on "Unlimited" products. Note that Plusnet have not removed traffic management from legacy metered accounts.

Quote from: https://community.plus.net/t5/Plusnet-Feedback/Plusnet-Removes-Broadband-Internet-Traffic-Prioritisation/m-p/1454135#M77574
Bob Pullen posted:
We haven't used Ellacoya kit for a long time. We do have equivalents in place though, and traffic still flows through the kit.
Title: Re: Plusnet Have Disabled Prioritisation for Unlimited Accounts
Post by: ejs on July 04, 2017, 06:26:52 PM
Why have people somehow decided that the ASA must have had something to do with this?

The only ASA ruling that has been referred to was this one:
https://www.asa.org.uk/rulings/plusnet-plc-a15-292223.html

It's over a year old, and is especially concerned about the totally unlimited and truly unlimited wording used.

Quote
We considered, however, that a “totally unlimited” claim was stronger, and that consumers would understand it to mean that the service was free from any provider-imposed limitations.
...
Therefore, we considered that the traffic prioritisation policy Plusnet implemented was contrary to a customer’s understanding of a “totally unlimited” claim.

So Plusnet wouldn't have been allowed to advertise it as "totally unlimited".

I don't think BT will be making any changes to their wireless router due to the ASA ruling about the "UK’s most powerful wi-fi signal" claim.
Title: Re: Plusnet Have Disabled Prioritisation for Unlimited Accounts
Post by: BigJ on July 04, 2017, 11:22:55 PM
Thanks for the heads up Chrysalis. Not that I'll notice as I expect my VPN service is the limiting factor :)
Title: Re: Plusnet Have Disabled Prioritisation for Unlimited Accounts
Post by: niemand on July 17, 2017, 08:26:38 AM
For the curious the equivalent kit to the Ellacoya is from Procera Networks (https://www.proceranetworks.com/).
Title: Re: Plusnet Have Disabled Prioritisation for Unlimited Accounts
Post by: Chunkers on November 12, 2017, 11:50:20 AM
I have a PLusNet account and I have always been happy with the speed, even at busy times.  I'll be keeping an eye open now ......  :hmm:
Title: Re: Plusnet Have Disabled Prioritisation for Unlimited Accounts
Post by: ejs on November 12, 2017, 12:34:41 PM
I don't think this change was really about managing traffic at busy times. They've removed the prioritisation of one type of traffic over another when your line is being used for different things at the same time, for example when you're browsing the web and watching videos while downloading software updates, they no longer prioritise the web browsing and videos above the software updates.