ADSL Home Surf - Traffic Management

[#1]

I was just checking out options for whether to try changing our package from ADSL Home Surf to one of the newer ones - mostly trying to match the differences between the traffic management allowances. ADSL Home Surf has long been consigned to the bottom of the bin of archived products, so I know it gets the same treatment as one of the other archived products. The trouble is... I can't see which. It used to be written somewhere one the site, but I can't find it now.
What package is it equivalent to? And are there any non-obvious Gotcha's I should be wary of when comparing with the current packages (mostly the Premier though).
Cheers,
    Mike

[#2]

From memory, I think the Home Surf product had traffic management policies similar to that for Broadband Plus.
Peak Time on BB+ was defined as 4pm to midnight whereas for current products it is 8am to midnight. However allowances on current products will normally more than offset that change.

[#3]

That sounds about right for the peak times. I recall it being a limit of something like 14 or 18 GB during peak hours.
I'll check the BB+ figures...
  Mike

[#4]

if you look at the first page of Vue my usage that should show you your monthly limit https://portal.plus.net/view_my_broadband_usage/index.php

[#5]

My usage page only shows usage & peak times, but not what the allowance is.
However, the history shows we've used more than 5GB of peak data for the last 3 months, so it definitely isn't Broadband Plus (which is limited to 4GB).
My memory tells me that the limit is in the 13GB-17GB range, so I'm pretty sure it's going to be equivalent to Broadband Premier Option 1.
That's what I'm using to compare against the modern "Plusnet Premium" option (over at Kitz http://www.kitz.co.uk/isp/plusnet_shaping.htm ; ).
It isn't looking brilliant at the moment - there seem to be more restrictive rate restrictions on more activities, starting earlier in the day, and ending later in the evening.
I've also found a disconcerting bit on the "Download Speeds" page, where the blurb at the top implies "Activities not listed are not restricted", but then every table has a column labelled "Other", suggesting that there are no unlisted activities.
  Mike

[#6]

Home Surf is equivalent to Premier Option 1 I believe so the first level of restrictions are at 13GB and the next at 17GB.

[#7]

I've been with Force9/Plusnet since the dialup days (anyone else remember the 0800 weekend numbers????) and have been on a Home Surf Monthly contract for the past 6 years... one of the reasons I stayed with it was that it's supposed to be an 'unlimited' tariff... I seem to recall some time ago when fair usage was introduced the traffic shaping kicked in at 30Gb downloaded - now I'm getting emails when I'm approaching 13Gb... (I'm not a big user, but with 5 of us in the family all with laptops, iPhones etc I can imagine it building up quickly).
Is there a point at which I will get 'cut of' or charged extra for exceeding a limit on an 'unlimited' account???  If that's the case I'll probably move to Sky and save £5 a Month too!

[#8]

If it's the same as our "ADSL Home Surf", and treated as "Broadband Premier Option 1", then these seem to be the pages you want:
https://portal.plus.net/support/broadband/products/archive/bb_premier1.shtml
https://portal.plus.net/support/broadband/products/archive/broadband_premier_archive.shtml
That suggests "unlimited" is wrong, and "20GB" is the real limit (but it only counts in the peak hours - 4PM-Midnight), but there are throttle points at 13GB and 17GB.
But note that "standard" traffic shaping applies to all traffic, even below the 13GB.
The current "Premier" has a limit of 80GB, with a different set of peak hours, and a very different traffic-shaping profile.
I haven't yet decided whether it's worth the slightly cheaper price, for the more restricted traffic-shaping.
  Mike

[#9]

Thanks Mike,
I think you're right - "Home Surf" is the "Premier" tariff now, even though it's billed each Month as "Home Surf"... (I think the 'Premier' was the name given to the 0800 dialup all those Years ago!)
I'm a bit miffed at the 20gb limit - I'm sure it used to be 30Gb... I think I need to look at the new Premier as I'm in a Market 3 area, the price is the same as Sky - it's not unlimited, but it's more than I'm likely to use!  Better check out the traffic shaping on that tariff.

[#10]

Yes, when Plusnet came up with their ‘sustainable usage policy’ Premier was initially given a 30GB peak time allowance. It does still have such an allowance to a certain extent, in that your Premier connection will continue to operate beyond 20GB, but only at 512Kbps and with P2P etc. blocked. This applies up to 30GB, at which point the 512Kbps is reduced to 128Kbps. Or at least, that use to be the case; no mention of the 128Kbps rate limit appears to be present on the PN pages linked to earlier.

[#11]

OK, so there is no mention of 'throttling' on the current product pages for the Premium product, just that there is a limit of 80Gb download per Month and a set of traffic profiles depending upon application which vary the speeds available dependent upon time of day... is that the case??? I don't want to swap to that premium only to find that there are still 'pinch points' at 13 and 17Gb!

[#12]

The best and easiest site for that is http://www.adslnation.com/phpapps/catalog/ but if you want it from the Plusnet site there are two pages
http://www.plus.net/support/broadband/speed_guide/download_speeds.shtml
http://www.plus.net/support/broadband/speed_guide/traffic_prioritisation.shtml
But to answer the specific question - there are no changes as you move up the usage until you reach the 80GB cap. The intermediate throttling levels were dropped for the new products

[#13]

Thanks Jim (old or not!) that was what was confusing... not that it will bother me too much, but I'm guessing that my current product 'just' has the 13/17Gb points at which shaping is applied - so any P2P (although I don't use any) would operate at line speed at any time of the day.
Sounds like it  would be worth chnaging product to Premium or Pro then!
It's a shame that Plusnet are starting to become more like a mobile phone company whereby the customer has to keep checking to see that the rules haven't changed!  To be fair I think they have been pretty good with emails, but the onus is still on the customer to 'run the numbers'.

[#14]

Only on Pro and even then there are underlying restrictions as it is classed as gold so could get chopped a bit if there are gold packet drops.
However I am on Value and don't use P2P so I really have no idea how significant that is.

[#15]

Thanks Jim, I appreciate the help.  Probably 'upgrade' to the Premium and save a few quid - at least with the 'no contract' deal I can review again in a few Months!