Severely decreased speeds after 16.00 daily

[#1]

Hi,
My connection seems to slow down at exactly 16.00 every day. Now, I'd expect a slight decrease in speed but this speed decrease is from roughly 6Mbps to 100kbps, hardly what I'd call a broadband connection. I can hardly maintain perfectly ordinary HTTP downloads at above 12kB/s after 16.00.
I appreciate that the service is up to 8Mbps and that I am in a rural area but surely near-dialup speeds are unacceptable? I have ruled out the possibility of my equipment being faulty, because whoever heard of equipment failing at exactly 16.00 every day?
Someone living in the same area as me (albeit with a different exchange and a different ISP) had this problem recently, and eventually discovered it was a "loop further down the line" after several BT callouts, if that's any help.

[#2]

Hi aorkwa
What product are you on?  Are you on any peak time restrictions?  What's your usage on here?
Phil

[#3]

Quote from: pjmarsh

Hi aorkwa What product are you on?  Are you on any peak time restrictions?  What's your usage on here? Phil

I'm on 'Broadband Plus up to 8Mb', with no peak time restrictions.
Usage is 5.84GB peak, and 13.02GB off-peak.

[#4]

Broadband Plus has a 4GB peak usage, so you will be limited during peak hours (4pm - 12am) until your next billing.  Information on that can be found here, I think!
Phil

[#5]

Hiya,
As others have touched on, Broadband Plus is designed for upto 4GB usage.  Once you hit 4GB, speeds are restricted to 128Kbps during peak times until your next billing period.
We also sent you this email:

Quote

Dear Mr Customer, As a Broadband Plus customer, you receive a monthly peak-time usage allowance of 4GB. This allowance ensures that everyone gets a fair share of our network resources during peak hours (4pm - Midnight). You have now gone over your peak-time allowance. This means that you’ll get speeds of 128kbps between 4pm and midnight until you are next billed, when your speeds will then return to normal. You could get a bigger usage allowance by moving to Broadband Your Way Option 2. This would give you an 15GB usage allowance for the same price that you’re paying at the moment (£14.99 per month). The usage allowance on Option 2 applies between 8am and midnight, giving you free usage overnight. Although this is longer than the peak time on Broadband Plus we do not rate limit certain protocols like P2P and Usenet during the overnight free hours. This means that if you are a user of this type of traffic you should be able to download more on Broadband Your Way Option 2 during the overnight free hours than you could during the Broadband Plus off peak hours. You can also buy extra usage on Broadband Your Way if you are getting close to your allowance. You can see a comparison of the expected speeds for the two account types - Broadband Plus: http://portal.plus.net/support/broadband/products/archive/bb_plus.shtml for Broadband Your Way Option 2: http://portal.plus.net/support/broadband/quality_broadband/speed.shtml#Option2speeds See a breakdown of your usage so far this month - http://portal.plus.net/view_my_broadband_usage/index.php Please visit the following page if you wish to upgrade your account - https://portal.plus.net/upgrade_process.html Thank you for your continued custom and understanding. Kind regards, link:rules Customer Support http://portal.plus.net

[Moderator's note by Barry Zubel): CS Agent removed :mand: ]

[#6]

Thanks for the help, someone else manages the Plusnet email account around here so I hadn't a clue about it. I'll check with them later.
Anyway, I've switched to BBYW Option 2 now as it seems like a better option what with our internet usage.
Once again, thanks.