Value and VNC

[#1]

I recently switched over to Value as I saw the ads and liked the sound of a cheaper fee ... but was I too hasty?? (Seeing the ads the day before my billing month ended meant that I dived in fairly quickly rather than checking out all the pros and cons really carefully first)
Specifically, it seemed that the new monthly download limit was higher, so I figured that I would be able to listen to more internet radio without busting the 2Gb limit if I listened several times in a month ... but what I didn't worry about too much was VNC - I use this to help out on my parents PC, watch my dad play his poker software, whatever. But it seems that it works ok for a while (40 mins? 1 hour? not sure) then just stops - is this some kind of plus.net limit on daily use or something?
Re-reading the speed notes, I can see it says Value is not appropriate for lots of VNC, so although the expected speeds sound good enough is this the problem? Maybe I shouldn't be using it for hours each day on Value? (In practice I would expect to use it maybe once or twice a week, say for an hour or two each time.)
Should I consider a switch to something else if moving to Value was a mistake (to what?) and will I be able to do this?
- buylow

[#2]

Hi Buylow,
Even though VPN traffic on Value is rate limited, you should still see half meg speeds throughout the day and night.
There shouldn't be anything as such causing it to physically stop.  Is VNC using the standard ports, or have you tweaked it a bit?

[#3]

Hi James, thanks for the comments. Yeah, I saw the half meg on the expected speed list and thought that would be fine, I don't mind turning down the colours a bit or whatever (I'm not sure I should need to at that speed anyway - I'd better check that). If anything I thought it might be an improvement if you're now spotting VNC type traffic. And given my usage pattern the 10gig limit instead of 2 sounded like heaven. If there was any throttling effect I assumed that would just cause it to respond a bit slower, I'm a bit surprised at the total stop. (Sometimes the desktop window closes, sometimes it just sits there but stops updating, or never starts if it's one that's just opened.)
I'm using the standard ports at the moment, it works fine for a good while (half hour or hour at a guess) then dies. After which restarts don't seem to help. I should point out this is only a small sample at the moment (happened on 2 out of 2 evenings that I've used it) but then it's only a few days since I switched over. I'll just see how it goes for now.
I could always have a look at my firewall software and see if I can ensure traffic from other sites can't interfere, but I'm not sure that would give these symptoms anyway. I'll have a look for other local software interfering - maybe something that polls once an hour or whatever is screwing it up ... but I try to run a fairly clean system (windows xp) without too many progs running at once, so I'm not sure what it could be. And it's odd that restarts don't seem to work either.
Guess I could update the software, it must be a while since I installed it so maybe that could cure it, I'll see if there are newer versions out ...
Cheers, buylow.
adie:quote

[#4]

I'm still on Metronet-Plusnet (considering changing to Value) but have had problems with remote desktop applications, including VNC and Remote Desktop.  Same symptoms - starts OK then slows right down.  It certainly looks like throttling.
I'd suggest moving to one of the browser-based remote desktop applications.  Logmein works fine but the server has to be left running.  Teamviewer needs the served end-user to start the session so may be safer.  HTH