The End of Traffic Management?

[#1]

Introducing Traffic Management a few years back to me was always seen as a short term solution to the problem of network capacity being overloaded. Now we see Plus.net introducing new capacity again are we likely to see a reduction in the level of Traffic management applied across the network or is there still no way of bringing down the wholesale costs of bandwidth. Something which I expected with talk of Broadband Wholesale Connect.
I ask because I've just spent the last month troubleshooting a problem with a game which failed to work correctly. Hopefully amazing Dave Tomlinson has found the solution (we'll know in a few days). But the one thing this experience has left me wondering is how many other games and applications are going to suffer/ do suffer... I'm thinking about all those odd errors I get from time to time, from incorrect traffic management profiles. This has left a doubt in my mind about how user friendly Plus.net is.
Reliability has always been bulletproof with Plus.net and along with Plus.nets support staff are by far the 2 best features of the service. Ease of use seems to be getting harder and harder though and this has left me craving a more straight forward connection without any sort of restrictions. Just a fixed speed like the old 0.5Mbit service which I still to this day think is better then ADSL MAX is or will ever be. At least back then everything just worked without any complex configuration.
We likely to see a return to a Traffic Management free network anytime soon?

[#2]

Hi Firejack,
In all honesty, although I'm unable to predict future pricing changes, I do not think that we will ever see a Traffic Management free PlusNet.  Whilst we do add capacity in line with our growth, central capacity is still insanely expensive and I do not see this changing within the next few years.
I too hope that Dave has managed to find the solution to your problem and can only apologise for the frustration that this will have caused.

[#3]

As James said, I think even in a world where there is fibre connecting your nearest lamp-post add huge amounts of capacity by today's standards, there will still need to be a degree of traffic management and prioritisation. Experience in other countries even with the limited applications in use today also bears that out...
As we iron out the glitches from our traffic management process (As Dave is doing every time he works on a case like yours), this will be seen less and less as a negative. The goal is that traffic management won't be noticed by consumers except for good reasons.
Ian

[#4]

Yes. It was an option Dave gave me. Problem is I couldn't fit my peak time usage into the 10GB allowance.

[#5]

This is the thing. For the hours of 8am to midnight I'd expect somewhere between 15-20 GB's of usage. But this is likely to dramatically increase over the next year as applications are only using more and more bandwidth. Especially since I'm planning on building a media server next month.
I'm expecting my 8am to midnight usage to raise to somewhere around 25-30GB's by Christmas so 20GBs extra at 75p is £35.49 with Referrals. Not really worth considering when Be and Sky are now active in my area and touting for business on their new ADSL2+ services.
Staying on Premier Option 1 I can probably fit my increased usage into the 4pm to midnight peaktime allowance of 20GB. But I'll still have issues, particularly with new games.
My best hope at the moment is someone spilling their coffee on the Traffic Management platform. I probably should of planned ahead and infiltrated the server room at this years Plus.net LAN party

[#6]

Following up on something I mentioned earlier...

Quote from: Firejack

.....the old 0.5Mbit service which I still to this day think is better then ADSL MAX is or will ever be. At least back then everything just worked without any complex configuration....

Ever since connections started getting faster, first with 1 or 2Mbit services and then ADSL MAX, its been the case that the faster your connection the less you can use it for. At least thats what it feels like 
Everyday this last month troubleshooting my latest issue with the Traffic Management system I've been desperate to return to simpler times where you logged in and everything worked without any need for complex setups or calls to the support team to get your new application added to the system.
Is it not possible for Plus.net to make a profit off low speed fixed rate products such as 1Mbit down 832 kbps up with no Traffic Management for £21.99 a month?

[#7]

Firejack,
An unrestricted 1Mbps connection could potentially accrue ~300GB data, costing the ISP in the region of £175-250 to supply.  It would be somewhat open to abuse as I'm sure you can imagine from the above figures.

[#8]

Quote from: Firejack

Following up on something I mentioned earlier... Quote from: Firejack .....the old 0.5Mbit service which I still to this day think is better then ADSL MAX is or will ever be. At least back then everything just worked without any complex configuration.... Ever since connections started getting faster, first with 1 or 2Mbit services and then ADSL MAX, its been the case that the faster your connection the less you can use it for. At least thats what it feels like

That's absolutely true... Basically, the cost to us per Mbps has stayed in the same region during the same period. We've passed on all the savings that have been given to us to our customer base as a whole, but as you say, more people are using more so overall it balances out. Prices are slowly coming down, but it hasn't matched increases in demand. My own feeling is that even with 21CN supply will not catch up and management will always be needed. The LLU providers are on a different cycle, but I'm convinced they will also experience the same issues once they have their target number of customers using their networks.

Quote

Is it not possible for Plus.net to make a profit off low speed fixed rate products such as 1Mbit down 832 kbps up with no Traffic Management for £21.99 a month?

Zen do a £17.99 256K product which is as near Unlimited as  I think you can get. That is the sort of ballpark we would need to look at for a product of that nature. The problem is it will mainly attract people who want to download pretty much constantly. If you consider it costs us £180 per month per Mbps of backhaul capacity, you can see why the costs are what they are.
If we turned off traffic management, the experience for just about everyone would be horrendous. The aggressive file sharing protocols would swamp the network and latency would go through the roof.
Ian

[#9]

Ian's got a point, it's unfair for people like me who don't use  p2p or usenet, mainly as we don't wish to risk a prision sentence for what you can buy in the shops without the fear.
I buy PRO as i like to game, but i also like the fact the net does not slow down for me. all the time it's fast and constant. And that's why i pay for 10GB at £19,99 rather than 40GB at £29,99 - (although i might try that for 1 month to see how badly the rate limits might affect me)
I'm going to add 832 to my product asap as i am now sending alot of brochures and things and backing up business files daily.
£29,99 is till good value - atleast i know Ellacoya is watching. without TM PN's network would tear itself apart, as would any ISP. I used to pay back in the IAP days around £21,000 a year for a 2MB Leased Line, then and only then did i have the right to download 24/7 and use TB's of BW, mainly as that's exactly what LL's are for.
However i must ask if the costs above are realistic then how can PN offer free overnight usage? surely this is still built into those figures?

[#10]

Quote from: pcoventry76

However i must ask if the costs above are realistic then how can PN offer free overnight usage? surely this is still built into those figures?

Overnight, the titanium and gold queues are very lightly loaded.  This means that the entire pipe can be flooded with bronze traffic.
All the customers using P2P overnight are basically fighting it out between themselves for a slice of the bandwidth.  It's highly unlikely you'll get a consistent line-rate download speed because of this. 
PN still have to pay for the line so it may as well be utilised. It makes a good Selling Point too.
B.

[#11]

I do.. my traffic sits at gold on Pro so i don't suffer - if i do then i don't notice it.

[#12]

Quote from: Ian

.... My own feeling is that even with 21CN supply will not catch up and management will always be needed.....

Its very depressing reading about 21CN. The fastest wholesale connection they offer is only 10Gbps. I know this is just about the fastest technology available but it still seems so inadequate
What we really need to do in dig a trench and put 100 of these in to give us a nice 1TB link. I have a free weekend coming up and a shovel. Who is with me? Oh and anyone got a few hundred miles of spare Fibre Optic cable and a JCB?