Poor Speed/Hi Packet Drop on AG02 10/06/08

[#1]

Just terrible browsing speeds tonight -- laggy, jumpy, slowwwww.
speedtests < 1500 down <190 up
Checked AG02 (which is what I'm on) and I see a huge spike on dropped packets this evening.
Any of you networky comms types know why?

[#2]

Same here the last hour or so. I'm on the "unknown" gateway.

[#3]

For me, the speeds have been c**p inconsistent for four days now. I appear to be be on PTE-AG1 today but I was on PTN-AG2 at the weekend.
I know there has been some well documented specific issues over the weekend about speed (not one of PN's finest moments) but it seems to me that there are a lot of people on the forum grumbling about speed generally or rather the quality of it.
It has been so inconsistent for me I have had to stop using skype and the PN Voip for calls as the quality was not acceptable. I have had to use the landline and telediscount to make my international calls.
I also would like to know why this is happening
I expect the master socket and filters advice will be coming too.

[#4]

Looking here it would appear that there was a period of gold drops around the 8:00pm-10:00pm region.
This is particularly visible on the new gateway (although in comparison to the others, the vertical scale's a lot smaller on this graph):

The first thing that springs into mind is what media was broadcast last night.
We had the Spain Vs. Russia Euro game at about 5:00pm (that I'd imagine will have been made available on iPlayer after), followed by Sweden Vs. Greece at 8:00pm. It will have been possible to watch either of these live, or via catch-up services. Combine this with Big Brother at 9:00pm which can be streamed via Channel 4's simulcast services amongst others.
The strange thing is that there doesn't seem to be any unusual spikes in streaming traffic for last night:

There'll be somebody looking at this in more detail this morning I'm sure.
Edit: Just thought of something else. It was Microsoft patch Tuesday yesterday too!

[#5]

Can I suggest that the Microsoft site be treated as a download site so that it's traffic can be rate-limited?

[#6]

<Edit: Just thought of something else. It was Microsoft patch Tuesday yesterday too! >
Strange I always get my updates on Wednesday for some reason.

[#7]

Guess it depends when your auto updates are set to check, as we are ahead of the states on time if you check at 10am daily for instance the patches wont have been release on to the update site.
Mine came down at about 7PM last night.

[#8]

And they tried to send me XP SP3

[#9]

Quote from: axisofevil

Can I suggest that the Microsoft site be treated as a download site so that it's traffic can be rate-limited?

YES PLEASE! 

[#10]

Quote from: axisofevil

Can I suggest that the Microsoft site be treated as a download site so that it's traffic can be rate-limited?

Windows updates are served across Akamai.

[#11]

I dug a bit and according to http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/06_39/b4002094.htm?chan=top+news_top+news+index_technol...

Quote

...So Akamai distributes iTunes' song, video, podcasting, and audio-book catalog to its network of more than 20,000 servers, which are placed on the premises of Internet service providers and other network operators across 70 countries. (Most are happy to host Akamai's servers without charge, to help their own nets run smoothly...

Is there a Akamai server perched on top of PlusNet Towers?

[#12]

No there isn't although I know Dave's looked into the possibility before.

[#13]

Again, it falls to the differing economics of ISP's in the US and the UK.
In the UK, most ISP's peer with LINX so that is one of the logical places to host Akamai servers, as most peering occurs there at high speed (and a fraction of the cost of the 'last mile' provision).
In the US, the peering charges are much higher in comparison, so hosting Akamai boxes on the local network reduces peering requirements (and cost) dramatically.
B.