Traffic Management Issues?

[#1]

Okay i'll put my hands up and say guilty. I inadvertantly left my PC on, downloading several gigs of data over several nights. Thus have incurred the wrath of your traffic management.

Quote

You have exceeded 66% of your allowance. This usage includes any downloading and uploading during peak-times (4pm till Midnight).      Action: Level 1 Management will apply to your peak-time usage until the end of the billing month. Please avoid exceeding 17GB or further management will be applied.

Thats fine... I just have to be more sensible with my usage, plus it only affects me peaktime right....? No. ALL DAY AND NIGHT.
Not just level 1 management though, normal HTTP transfers... fine... go at my line speed. Streaming from Youtube, or Google Video, goes at 11KB/s. My line speed is 2mbps, with typical speeds (speedtest.co.uk, btspeedtester, and some other speedtests) of around 1.5mbps.
FTP transfers (non-plusnet) go at a rip roaring speed of 25KB/s confirmed both in my FTP program, and my firewall.
That said I've noticed that plusnet has now stopped offering my current contract of Broadband Premier Option 1, and now offers "broadband your way" and that all links to traffic management point to the BBYW offerings... still after searching the help site I find the traffic management policy that applies to Premier Option 1 connections.
It states just as my broadband usage page says, "Peak time usage will be affected", not off-peak, and that Peak time is between 4pm and Midnight. Its 2:27pm by my watch here, and I cant play flash games, watch vids, or trailers because it takes so damn long to load.
Can someone at plusnet give me a definative answer. If this is level 1 management, what the hell is level 2 or 3?! And why is it affecting my off-peak usage?
Followed your fault checker through, did 3 tests... all came back with 1.5mbps connection, contention was green, no faults on my line, and I was told you can no longer persue it further as it was above 400kbps on the bt checker.
http://www.plus.net/support/broadband/products/archive/bb_premier1.shtml - Broadband Premier Option 1 Traffic Management Link.
I think your traffic management policies have gone awry personally (not that they are a bad thing, I just think I maybe being restricted as a BBYW customer, instead of a Option 1 customer).

[#2]

Hi,
The FTP speeds are probably about right, on level 1 peak time management the priority of non-interactive traffic liek P2P, FTP and Usenet is set lower than normal so when the network is busy the speeds on these types of traffic will be reduced. The network can be busy off peak as well as peak.
Interactive traffic though should be unaffected. I've checked the rules on the Ellacoyas and there's nothing there that would cause flash games or videos. Are you uploading anything at the same time? Or tried rebooting?

[#3]

Its occurred over the previous few days.
This isnt occurring randomly, the traffic management is constantly on. Not just at "busy times" or at the "peak times" as stated in your documentation as being between 4pm and midnight, but constantly, be it 2am, 4am, 9am, 11am, 2pm... any time of the day, I get 25KBps... which is perfectly in line for your level 1 traffic management speeds, but level 1 traffic management should only be being applied during peak times according to your site.
Flash games work fine from time to time, I've a feeling its more the site I visit rather than plusnet after checking it out further today, however videos from stage6 in particular are incredibly slow, and they worked fine until the alert occurred.

[#4]

P2P, FTP and usenet I would expect to be slower between about midday and 2am but should give good speeds overnight/in the morning between 2am and midday. There are no changes made to non-interactive traffic between midnight and 4pm so performance there should be exactly the same as not being on level 1 management.
I've double checked the speed profile for your account and that shows correct too.
When you are downloading have you tried stopping the download and restarting it? Or tried downloading from somewhere else? Certainly after 2am the speed on FTP should be faster than that.
Are the other video sites you mention any better or is it just Stage6?

[#5]

Thanks for double checking.
Yeah i've checked flash video again.. and it works now. what on earth and now stage6 is working fine. Hmmph... perhaps it was my end after all.
Apologies for wasting your time Much appreciated though that you went to the effort of having a look around.
Thanks

[#6]

Glad to know you've got to the bottom of it, shout up if you have any other questions.

[#7]

I've just been over at thinkbroadband after wondering what on earth is going on with FTP transfers (they have not returned to normal) outside of the published 4pm - 12am times.
I am shocked that plusnet have not landed in hot water previously for this but according to all official and unofficial literature, your traffic management for the "premier option" type of connection only applies during peak times.
Peak times on the same sources are listed as: 4pm till 12am.
Appears that instead of that occurring, plusnet apply speed restrictions between 12pm and 2am.
Can you answer me why such misleading information was allowed to be placed on official documentation? And also why it has not been changed either to fall in line with what I believed I was signing up to over a year ago, or why you have not simply corrected the times.
As I stated over on thinkbroadband, I've no problem with being capped and restricted, its my fault. What I do have a problem with is being misinformed.
The solution is clear. Change the documentation.
If I knew the times with which to schedule my heaviest use, then this problem would never have arised. I wouldnt have wasted my time posting on here, and other forums, searching for network faults on BT, doing line tests, and speed tests, and tweaking my connection. I would have simply told the people I deal with about the times I will be available, and set some times up in my scheduler... and worked around it.
Thanks to Dave and Chris for helping, but I really think you should give your superiors a kick up the proverbial to change the documentation. May also find it prudent to recommend providing a link from the BBYW traffic management pages, back to the Premier option pages, as trying to find it using the search engine was troublesome.