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Slow speeds / proxy servers

ToxicWarMonkey
Newbie
Posts: 2
Registered: ‎29-09-2009

Slow speeds / proxy servers

I am a new customer to plus.net, and have been experiencing what I consider to be slightly OTT traffic shaping on their / our network. I appreciate the logic behind the traffic shaping, and how this helps them to reduce the backhaul costs, resulting in the respectable rates of their subscription fees. However when I subscribed I spoke to one of the plus net connection team, and he assured me that at no time would traffic be shaped to anywhere near as low as 1Mbps... however using ftp in the evening, I am seeing the throughput shaped down to around 128Kbps - putting an IPSEC tunnel terminating outside of the plusnet network, and repeating the same test through the tunnel sees the same FTP run closer to 5Mbps... so not sure the service was sold accurately. Would be happy to pay a premium to limit the level of traffic shaping.
My main gripe is that I am finding the BBC iPlayer to be particularly affected, and I am unable to view BBC HD content (requiring >3.5Mbps) at any time, despite having a line speed of around 6Mpbs. The iPlayer is a very predictable service, and accounts for a significant proportion of all UK bandwidth. It is therefore a service which makes good sense to replicate on a plus.net proxy server.
Does such a proxy server exist? (I have looked around, but been unable to find the details if it does) If it doesn't exist - why not?!
7 REPLIES 7
James
Grafter
Posts: 21,036
Thanks: 5
Registered: ‎04-04-2007

Re: Slow speeds / proxy servers

Hi,
Who did you speak to?  They want shooting.
We do rate limit some protocols to speeds below 1Mbps.  iPlayer traffic should be fine.  Which product are you on?
VPN traffic *should* be okay.  Have you managed to run a wireshark capture?
I'm not sure I understand your reference to using a proxy server?
ToxicWarMonkey
Newbie
Posts: 2
Registered: ‎29-09-2009

Re: Slow speeds / proxy servers

Hi Jameseh
Appreciate your response. Unfortunately cannot tell you who I spoke to, it was one of your sales advisers when ordering my connection - and I actually placed my order via the website so I assume they are now untraceable.
So I am generally happy now I understand the parameters of your traffic shaping - if anything large needs moving, I know to schedule it to happen after hours. The only application that frustrates me is the HD VoD via the iPlayer. My reference to a proxy server is as follows:
The BBC iPlayer is a limited collection of content, which is constantly being updated - but is notably finite (unlike say YouTube). So while the sum total size of the content is large, it could comfortably be mirrored and replicated on a proxy server hosted within the Plus.Net cloud - and depending on the percentage of the total plus net traffic for which it accounts, this could even be replicated at each of your POPs. Assuming that your network is LLU DSLAMs - then you would only be bringing the content into the network once, regardless of number of requests. I'm also fairly sure that iPlayer has a scheme in place to work with ISPs to help realise this.
My assumption would then be, that because it does not increase the traffic going through plus.nets link to the Internet - it could be done without applying traffic shaping.
Incidentally - do plus.net operate any proxy servers?
scootie
Grafter
Posts: 4,799
Thanks: 1
Registered: ‎03-11-2007

Re: Slow speeds / proxy servers

first of all your hd iplayer traffic should be coming down at line speed.
you might want to use wireshark http://www.plus.net/support/broadband/troubleshooting/wireshark.shtml to tell you what prioity and what rate limits any traffic has. 
expected speed tablehttp://www.plus.net/support/broadband/quality_broadband/speed.shtml
is your thoughput stable through out the day on speedtests. if not is your vp capicty at your exchange ok http://usertools.plus.net/exchanges/
can you try the wireshark on some iplayer HD content and make sure its being picked up as 0x80(gold,streaming) on PN network
James
Grafter
Posts: 21,036
Thanks: 5
Registered: ‎04-04-2007

Re: Slow speeds / proxy servers

BBC don't care about the additional costs they're causing us Smiley
Because your solution wouldn't help at all.  At best it might save a tiny little bit in transit costs, but nothing in central capacity - you still download the same amount.
mapletree
Grafter
Posts: 644
Registered: ‎28-07-2007

Re: Slow speeds / proxy servers

If it were cached within PN's network then surely each programme would only need fetching from the beeb once, rather than every time someone views it on iplayer?  Or do I misunderstand how this works?
James
Grafter
Posts: 21,036
Thanks: 5
Registered: ‎04-04-2007

Re: Slow speeds / proxy servers

How's it going to get from our network to you?
Your traffic is received via our servers in London.
It's really not worthwhile doing anything like this at all.
scootie
Grafter
Posts: 4,799
Thanks: 1
Registered: ‎03-11-2007

Re: Slow speeds / proxy servers

the only way to reduce bandwidth and cost on PN's side would be to have the content on BTw's part of the network after the central's that PN have to pay BTw for. ive seen ideas of this before but it was all idea's.
cant see BTw doing this at all for the benfit of ISP's