Broadband Premier Option 3 - experience

* This product is not available to new signups.

This page explains how we manage Broadband Premier Option 3 to ensure you get the right experience for your product. For more detailed information about how we manage our network read these articles:

• The PlusNet Broadband 'Blueprint'
• The Future of Traffic Management
• Managing our Network Under Abnormal Load

 

Product Design

Broadband Premier is designed for all kinds of Internet activity, including file downloading, as with peer-to-peer or Binary USENET. You should note that for these data-intensive activities, download speeds may slow down when the network is busy. See how Broadband Premier differs from Broadband Your Way.

Broadband Premier Option 3 is provided with 40GB allowance for peak-time (4pm-Midnight) usage.

When the allowance is reached, peak-time file transfer applications such as peer-to-peer are blocked until your next billing date. These management policies are designed to stop overuse of the product from affecting the service for everybody else.

Traffic Management Level	Peak-time usage within a billing month	Speed of P2P, USENET, file transfer applications	Speed of other Internet activities
None Applied	Up to 27GB	Up to line speed*	Up to line speed*
Level 1	27 - 32GB	Up to 256Kbps	Up to 2Mbps
Level 2	33 - 39GB	Up to 128Kbps	Up to 1Mbps
Level 3	40GB+	Blocked	Up to 512Kbps

* We cannot guarantee line speed as broadband is delivered over a shared network and will always be subject to our traffic management policies.

Broadband Premier Option 3 - Expected Speeds

We set speed restrictions on certain types of Internet activities, so that real-time activities such as gaming, broadband phone calls and video streaming don't slow down as a result of heavy network traffic.

The table below shows an example of the restrictions that are applied at the busiest times (at the time of writing these are on Monday and Tuesday evenings).

	Time
	2am to 12pm	12pm to 2pm	2pm to 4pm	4pm to 6pm	6pm to 8pm	8pm to 10pm	10pm to 12am	12am to 2am
Peer-to-Peer	NR	448Kbps	320Kbps	192Kbps	192Kbps	192Kbps	320Kbps	NR
Binary USENET	NR	NR	NR	NR	228Kbps	228Kbps	NR	NR
External FTP	NR	NR	NR	10Mbs per switch	10Mbs per switch	10Mbs per switch	10Mbs per switch	NR
Download sites	NR	NR	NR	512Kbps	512Kbps	512Kbps	512Kbps	NR
Download servers	NR	NR	NR	1Mbps	1Mbps	1Mbps	1Mbps	NR
Everything Else	NR	NR	NR	NR	NR	NR	NR	NR

Key

Downstream speeds

NR - No restriction*

*Even though there are no individual restrictions, the speeds you receive are still affected by traffic prioritisation and the activities of every other customer who is sharing the network. We constantly adjust these restrictions to match current network traffic levels. This gives Broadband Premier customers the chance to gain higher speeds when the network is less busy.

Expected speeds - The difference between Broadband Premier and Broadband Your Way

Our new Broadband Your Way products are designed to offer a level of performance which is set clearly on our Expected Speeds page for these products. Customers on BBYW products know exactly what to expect from their service, but cannot expect speeds that are higher than indicated.

Broadband Premier is different in that it will benefit from any spare capacity on our network, with less speed restrictions than the ones shown if more capacity is available. This could be as a result of less bandwidth usage on our network during quieter days of the week. As such, the speeds shown in the above table represent the lowest rate limits that will be applied at any time and they should be viewed as a worst case scenario, with available speeds often higher than those stated.

What do the categories represent?

• Peer-to-Peer (High Demand File sharing applications)
  Includes applications such as: Bittorent, Azeurus, Emule, Limewire and others. Does not include applications which happen to use P2P technology, such as Kontiki (used by the BBC and Sky) and 4OD, both of which are treated as 'streaming' and prioritised on our network accordingly.


• Binary USENET
  Includes access to commercial USENET providers such as easynews.com and giganews. These speed restrictions do not apply to text-only USENET servers.


• External FTP
  FTP is a protocol used to transfer files to and from remote servers. The restrictions listed apply to all FTP data transfers not hosted on our network.


• Download sites
  A small number of  high-volume HTTP download sites which are used for file sharing, such as Rapidshare, Megaupload and Imageshack, as well as a number of commercial Adult sites which provide big file downloads are included in this category.


• Download servers
  This includes speeds to some 'mirror' sites and servers run by Akamai which provide high-volume HTTP downloads.


• Everything else
Includes the vast majority of applications and sites which are not subject to speed restrictions. 70% of our customers only ever use traffic that falls into this category.

Why do the maximum expected speeds differ at different times of the day?

Ultimately, the speeds you can expect from any network depend on how many other people share the same capacity and what they're all doing. We apply heavier speed restrictions at times when we expect demand for prioritised applications (which are never slowed down) to be highest. The busiest times on our network are between 4pm and 10pm, reflecting the point when school finishes, through to the time people start to go to bed. When demand for priortised protocols decreases we can plan to provide higher speeds for other applications.

In time, the process of managing speeds on our network will become smoother, as discussed in our Traffic Management Roadmap.

Will the speeds shown here change?

The restrictions shown in the tables above are subject to regular change. Changes are made in response to both customer usage habits and wholesale capacity costs. Speeds that customers can expect will come down if average customer usage increases, but will increase if the wholesale cost of Broadband capacity falls.

In other words, as our customers' average usage increases over time, the speed each customer can receive may need to be reduced, ensuring that everyone receives a fair share of the available capacity. On the other hand, as we add more broadband network capacity, the expected speeds can be increased to allow everyone to benefit equally. We are committed to ensuring that our customers receive great value for money from our products, and will always look to improve the experience for customers wherever possible.

Whenever we make a change to our traffic management systems or the minimum speeds that our Premier customers can expect, we will announce it as a news article on our Community Site. It is possible to subscribe to updates from the Community Site, which will ensure you are always up-to-date with the latest information about how our network is performing and what you can expect it to deliver.

We also regularly talk about aspects of our traffic management systems in our discussion forums. You are welcome to join the discussion, where we will be happy to answer any questions you have.

Broadband premier customers who don't make intensive use of their service during the day may find Broadband Your Way products will better suit their needs. Free to upgrade to Broadband Your Way.

Our usergroup have published a side by side speed comparison table that some may find useful.
Please note that we are not responsible for the accuracy of this external site.

Why do we have to manage traffic on our network?

Like other ISPs we deliver our broadband service over a network which is shared amongst our customers. This means we have to manage our network to ensure we provide a sustainable quality broadband service to all our customers.

The principles of PlusNet's network management policies:

• To make sure that time-critical applications like VoIP and gaming are always prioritised
• To protect interactive applications like web-browsing and VPN from non-time sensitive download traffic
• To flex the network under demand to cope with normal peaks and troughs from day to day and month to month
• To flex the network more gracefully than other ISPs in the event of unusual demands in traffic or disaster situations such as a network failure
• To provide a service relative to the amount each customer pays in terms of usage and experience
  

For more detailed information about how we manage our network please read these articles:

Read the PlusNet Broadband 'Blueprint'
See PlusNet's Future of Traffic Management
Managing our Network Under Abnormal Load