Discussion Thread for RIN Decommisioning Announcement
See Bob's announcement here: http://community.plus.net/forum/index.php/topic,75842.0.html
Quote Morning all,
Thought I'd start a thread here to give people a heads up that we're going to be decommissioning access to the 'RIN' platform at the end of May.
For those that don't know, this was part of a trial we launched back in 2007 and there are currently around 500 users who are accessing the platform on a regular basis.
These 500 customers can expect an email from me at some point today as follows -
[Quote=Bob Pullen]
Your username: {username}
Hi {real_name},
We'd like to make you aware of some network changes that we're going to be making soon that might cause a very brief interruption to your Internet connection.
Don't worry, it's unlikely that you'll notice these changes, however we thought we'd take this opportunity to email you so you know what they involve.
Back in February 2007 we conducted a trial that allowed a small number of customers to connect to an alternative broadband platform, commonly referred to as the Retail Internet Network or 'RIN' for short. In order to connect to the RIN network we asked customers to change the 'realm' they use to connect to the Internet - this is the 'bit after the @ sign' of your broadband username. Instead of using <username>@plusdsl.net, we asked customers to connect using <username>@plusdsl2.net.
The RIN trials ended in September 2007 however we continued to allow those who had taken part in the trial to carry on using the '@plusdsl2.net' username to connect to the RIN network. Our Usergroup posted an article about the termination of the trial at the time, a copy of which you can see here - http://usergroup.plus.net...0912_RINtrialcomplete.php
We're writing to tell you this because we've noticed that you're one of the customers who may still be using the alternative version of your username to connect to the RIN network.
At the end of May BT are going to be making some changes to their network. These changes mean that we are no longer going to be able to route your Internet traffic over the RIN network. To minimise the impact of this change we're going to automatically route your traffic back over the Plusnet network before BT alter anything at their side.
You don't need to take any action and the only thing you might notice is a brief interruption in service when BT disconnect you from the RIN network. Don't worry though, you'll be able to reconnect immediately even if this does happen.
If you prefer, you can avoid any unecessary interruption to your Internet connection by changing the username you're using to connect to the Internet back to the '@plusdsl.net' variant.
If you have any questions about these changes, or would like to contact our support team to discuss anything else concerning your account, then please get in touch with us using the Help Assistant available on our website - http://www.plus.net/wizard/index.html
Kind Regards,
Bob Pullen
PlusNet Customer Support
http://www.plus.net
This email has been sent as it contains important information about your service from Plusnet. Please do not reply to this email, as it has been sent from an unmonitored address.
--
Plusnet PLC
Registered Office: Internet House, 2 Tenter Street, Sheffield, S1 4BY
Registered in England no: 3279013
1. I presume more segments are going to be lit to handle the extra traffic moving all these users back will generate - when? Surely this should have been done before you sent the emails out as if a lot of the RIN users do as you have suggested in the email it could affect the network.
2. I've dipped back and forward between RIN and the normal network several times and have consistently found that performance on RIN is better so I'm very sad to see this go.
2. I've dipped back and forward between RIN and the normal network several times and have consistently found that performance on RIN is better so I'm very sad to see this go.
Just switched again to run speed tests.
On RIN:
On normal Plusnet network:
On RIN:
On normal Plusnet network:
Lets phormulate some ideas about what BT Retail may be doing in May that PN do not want to be a part of? 
SW.
SW.
Quote from: Be3G Will the disappearance of RIN really require much extra capacity? IIRC only PAYG users were given access to it, so that 500 probably consists of quite a few people only using a handful of GB a month, which in turn suggests that the bandwidth hit will be minimal - bandwidth in its proper meaning that is (i.e. throughput in relation to time). Obviously it's theoretically possible that all those minimal PAYG users could use the internet at precisely the same time thus having a bigger effect on the network capacity, but I'm not sure it's that likely.
I wonder what percentage of the 500 are on the PAYG 15GB special (equivalent of BBYW Pro and Plusnet Pro)? They will be probably using more than a handful of GB per month and might be using streaming during the evening. Certainly as all their traffic is Gold (or better) there could be an impact.
I'm getting worried about losing RIN. Speeds have always been excellent day and night. Tonight as a result of seeing another post I've been doing some testing. See http://community.plus.net/forum/index.php/topic,76055.0.html
After connecting go to http://usertools.plus.net/@gateway to find out which gateway you are on. Then go to http://www.plus.net/support/network_performance/broadband_packets_drop.shtml to see if that is a busy or quiet pipe.
Ian, You read the graphs right.
Chris, If he has connected using username@plusdsl2.net, is there any reason why simultaneously you can't be doing a dial test on username@plusdsl.net? I thought the reason for asking people to disconnect for a dial test was to prevent two connections at the same time with the same IP - RIN and normal connections are on different IP ranges.
Ian, A wild stab in the dark (trying to think of things that may behave differently on RIN and normal connections): do you know what your MTU setting is on your router? It needs to be the same or bigger than the MTU on your PC (I set my router MTU to the maximum which is 1500)
Chris, If he has connected using username@plusdsl2.net, is there any reason why simultaneously you can't be doing a dial test on username@plusdsl.net? I thought the reason for asking people to disconnect for a dial test was to prevent two connections at the same time with the same IP - RIN and normal connections are on different IP ranges.
Ian, A wild stab in the dark (trying to think of things that may behave differently on RIN and normal connections): do you know what your MTU setting is on your router? It needs to be the same or bigger than the MTU on your PC (I set my router MTU to the maximum which is 1500)