This Sunday is going to be a big day for TV, at 7pm there’s the new episode of Doctor Who, at 8pm X-Factor and at 9pm a choice of the new series of Top Gear and the new series of I’m a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here amongst others. Both Doctor Who and Top Gear will be in HD too.

So how is this going to affect us?

Well in the past we’ve seen a little dip in traffic when Doctor Who is on then traffic starts to rise again while there’s a sizeable increase in iPlayer traffic, especially the last special as that was the first in HD. Top Gear we saw a massive increase in iPlayer for the last series so we’re expecting even more this time around. With it being in HD and an hour later and with I’m a Celebrity on at the same time we’re expecting as much if not more so on Monday as people watch it the next day rather than staying up.

Whatever happens, it’s going to be interesting. We’ve made some backend changes to our network configurations so that we’re prepared. The changes mean that network can allocate the bandwidth in the most appropriate way depending on how much demand there is for iPlayer to ensure the the streams work OK. The changes will also mean that at the same time ensure for those people browsing, using VPN or other interactive traffic also don’t see any major issues either. Some people may see a reduction in speeds particularly downloads or from speedtests but the priority will be to ensure that interactive traffic like browsing and streaming will be fine.

We’ll post an update on Monday or Tuesday showing what we saw and how much traffic everything did.

Dave Tomlinson

Plusnet Network Transformation

Customers connecting to the new segment will see their traffic routed through the gateway known as thn-ag2.

Whilst on the topic we also increased the bandwidth available on our 21CN network earlier today, this will benefit our Up to 20Mbps ADSL2+ customers and any ‘Up to 8Mbps’ customers who we recently emailed about moving across to the 21CN network.

Affectionately named ‘Plusnet 15′, we’ve already lit half of the new pipe (2 x 155Mbps segments) and have customers connecting to it as I type. If you do manage to get onto the new central then you’ll find that your traffic routes through the gateway known as thn-ag2.

This extra capacity will help us resolve the recent complaints of slow speeds during the evening, something we’ve been chronicling over on our Service Status feed.

That’s two whole 622Mbps pipes we’ve lit since July!

Those that have been suffering from the recent peak time speed problems will be pleased to hear that we’re not going to stop there either! We’ve more capacity scheduled to be lit next week too!

Anybody connecting to the new segment will see their traffic passing through the gateway known as thn-ag1. You can find out what gateway you’re connected to by running a traceroute or using the Gateway Checker on the Usertools website (this might not work if you’re a Madasafish customer).

When adding new capacity it can take some time for the network to ‘balance’ i.e. distribute users evenly across gateways. In order to accelerate this process it is sometimes necessary for us to temporarily disconnect a small number of customers from the Internet. We’ve no intention of doing this at the moment but if that changes we’ll let you know via our Service Status and Twitter feeds.

That’s hot on the heels of the one we lit three weeks ago, and the four we added throughout July and August.

This is the third segment of the current 622Mbps BT Central (there are four segments in total) and will be shared 2:1 between the Plusnet and Madasafish networks.

Anybody connecting to the new segment will see their traffic passing through the gateway known as thn-ag01. You can find out what gateway you’re connected to by running a traceroute or using the Gateway Checker on the Usertools website (this might not work if you’re a Madasafish customer).

When adding new capacity it can take some time for the network to ‘balance’ i.e. distribute users evenly across gateways. In order to accelerate this process it is sometimes necessary for us to temporarily disconnect a small number of customers from the Internet. We’ve no intention of doing this at the moment but if that changes we’ll let you know via our Service Status and Twitter feeds.

The data you send and receive down your broadband connection travels across these segments of capacity, so in basic terms we’ve just increased the amount of bandwidth available to our customers.

If you connect to this segment you’ll see a connection to PCL-AG02 when you look at tracerts or use the Gateway checker.

As ever when adding new capacity it can take some time for the network to ‘balance’ (i.e. distribute users evenly across gateways) and sometimes it is necessary for us to disconnect a number of users in order to accelerate this process. At present there are no plans to take any action of this kind however we’ll let you know if that changes via a service status post.

There’s an RSS feed for service status at http://usertools.plus.net/status/status.xml if you wish – this also propagates to our twitter feed so you can get status update notifications by following us at http://twitter.com/plusnet too.

That’s right, we’ve lit another 155Mb of central capacity, that’s 4 segments lit within the last month.

The data you use on your broadband connection travels across these segments of capacity, so in basic terms we’ve just increased the amount of bandwidth available for all your internet needs.

If you connect to this segment you’ll see a connection to PCL-AG02 when you look at tracerts or use the Gateway checker.

This is the first new segment on “Plusnet 14″.

As ever when adding new capacity it can take some time for the network to ‘balance’ (i.e. distribute users evenly across gateways) and sometimes it is necessary for us to disconnect a number of users in order to accelerate this process. At present there are no plans to take any action of this kind however we’ll let you know if that changes via a service status post.

There’s an RSS feed for service status at http://usertools.plus.net/status/status.xml if you wish – this also propagates to our twitter feed so you can get status update notifications by following us at http://twitter.com/plusnet too.

This is the last 155Mb segment of our current 622Mb pipe is live and accepting customers.

Don’t worry – we’ve got another 622Mb pipe lined up and we’ll let you know when we’re due to start lighting capacity on this.

In the same way as your phone line connects your home network to us, these segments connect us (and therefore you) to the central BT network. This means there’s more bandwidth available for your web pages and video streaming and other online activities.

You’ll be able to connect to this new pipe via the PCL-AG03 gateway. You can see the new segment sneaking into the corner of the image below.

As ever when adding new capacity it can take some time for the network to ‘balance’ (i.e. distribute users evenly across gateways) and sometimes it is necessary for us to disconnect a number of users in order to accelerate this process. At present there are no plans to take any action of this kind however we’ll let you know if that changes via a service status post.

There’s an RSS feed for service status at http://usertools.plus.net/status/status.xml if you wish – this also propagates to our twitter feed so you can get status update notifications by following us at http://twitter.com/plusnet too.

Yes, that’s right we’ve activated another 155Mbps segment of central capacity. This is hot on the heels of the last segment we lit under 2 weeks ago.

All the data you send and receive from your broadband connection travels across these segments of capacity so basically what we’re saying is that we’ve just increased the amount of bandwidth that’s available to you all.

The new segment went live this morning and we’ve already a couple of hundred or so customers connected to it as can be seen in the picture on the right.

We add extra bandwidth in line with financial forecasting, projected growth of customer numbers and traffic trends on the network over time.

This extra bandwidth will help accommodate the last of our LLU customers as we move them back to the BT Wholesale network.

Anybody connecting to the new segment will have their traffic routed via the gateway known as pcl-ag03.

When new capacity is added to the network, it can take time for the network to balance and for a representative proportion of the customer base to connect to the new segment. In order to speed up this process we may need to briefly disconnect some broadband subscribers from the Internet. If we decide to do this we’ll announce the details on our service status feed nearer the time.

This morning we activated another 155Mbps segment of central capacity.

All of the data you send and receive from your broadband connection travels across these segments of central capacity so to put it in simpler terms, we’ve just increased the amount of bandwidth that’s available to you all.

The new segment was lit just after half past nine this morning, see that little line creeping into view in the picture below?

That’s from our monitoring graphs and it represents the first 100 or so of you that managed to get connected to the new segment earlier on today.

We add extra bandwidth to the network in accordance with our financial forecasting, projected growth in customer numbers and detailed analysis of the traffic trends on the network over time.

Another reason we’re lighting extra capacity this time around is to accommodate for the rise in customer numbers as we start moving people off some of our older legacy and trial broadband networks and back onto the BT Central pipes. This includes those who were using our LLU platform or taking part in the limited Retail Internet Platform (RIN) and IPStream Connect trials.

For those of you who are interested, anybody connecting to the new segment will have their traffic routed via the gateway known as pcl-ag01.

When new capacity is added to the network, it can take time for the network to balance and for a representative proportion of the customer base to connect to the new segment. In order to speed up this process and bring maximum benefit to customers we’re planning to briefly disconnect some broadband subscribers from the Internet early next week. We’ll announce further details about that though nearer the time.

We’re not stopping here though, the final segment of the current 622Mbps central pipe is also scheduled to be lit over the next few weeks (each 622Mbps central consists of 4 155Mbps segments, more here for those interested). Don’t worry though, we’ve recently had another 622Mbps central provisioned and there’s more on it’s way too.

Anybody currently taking part in our ADSL2+ trials might be interested to hear that we’re also looking to increase the available bandwidth on our 21CN hostlink shortly (you guys don’t use the BT Centrals either).