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What IS going on with the network

penfold
Aspiring Pro
Posts: 2,280
Thanks: 25
Fixes: 5
Registered: ‎01-08-2007

What IS going on with the network

guys
What is going on with peak time connections. Every night for the last couple of weeks, there are lots of gold drops, speedtests are terrible and browsing laggy for me anyway. Tonight just capped it off, even after a number of gateway hops, speeds under 1000k, on a 5meg profile. As a check, and as I am PAYG, switched to the RIN network, and everything absolutely fine (4777k). Is there a capacity issue or something.  The only gateway dropping no gold traffic is PCL-AG02, but I have never been able to get onto this. This appears to be a recent thing, but it needs resolving, or is ot only me. There is no issue with my line, as a BT engineer has been out today, for another issue, and replace the section of cable from where the line entered my house, to the NTE5, and I am still connected into the Master test socket. I would like some form of explanation.
11 REPLIES 11
James
Grafter
Posts: 21,036
Thanks: 5
Registered: ‎04-04-2007

Re: What IS going on with the network

Hi Penfold,
I wasn't aware that we were dropping significant amounts of Gold traffic but I'll check in the morning.
I believe that we're due to add further capacity before too long, but again, I'll need to review our various graphs before making any further comment.
Bear in mind though that we did some Gateway maintenance work last night, so there are likely to be some side affects, so I wouldn't necessarily point at capacity issues.
bobpullen
Community Gaffer
Community Gaffer
Posts: 16,869
Thanks: 4,950
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Registered: ‎04-04-2007

Re: What IS going on with the network

@penfold, see my response here. We've been having some problems with one of our gateways.

Bob Pullen
Plusnet Product Team
If I've been helpful then please give thanks ⤵

techguy
Grafter
Posts: 2,540
Registered: ‎12-09-2008

Re: What IS going on with the network

PN newbie dumb question alert!!
What the heck is a 'gold drop'?
James
Grafter
Posts: 21,036
Thanks: 5
Registered: ‎04-04-2007

Re: What IS going on with the network

It's basically when there more gold traffic hitting our network than we have capacity for.  In those cases, the packet is dropped.  You'd normally only see a noticeable amount of this when our network is under considerable load, such as if someone decides to run 100m in 8.2s and the BBC show it again and again and again on iPlayer.
penfold
Aspiring Pro
Posts: 2,280
Thanks: 25
Fixes: 5
Registered: ‎01-08-2007

Re: What IS going on with the network

It would explain a great many things, particularly normal throughput on RIN at the min. It does seem the network is considerable out of balance that only appears prevelant at peak times. Whats the current situation, and also why is PCL-AG02 appear to be fine, and all other gateways dropping significant amounts of Gold traffic?  Think I will stay on RIN till this is sorted out anyway, would this be a problem?Huh
Not applicable

Re: What IS going on with the network

It can seem a little confusing, and there are various blogs on the subject explaining in more detail if you want, but basically as you use the internet, the data is sent as IP packets.
Some types of use need these packets to get where they are going as quickly as possible - other types of use are less time-sensitive. (Voip =sensitive, P2P = not sensitive, HTTP = somewhere between)
So, the packets get classified into different groups - Bronze, Silver, Gold
Gold packets get a higher priority, whereas Bronze get the lowest.
As the network approaches its busiest time, packets can collide/get lost (for various reasons, and again, trying to keep it simple)
Bronze packets would be the first to experience problems, then Silver, then when the network is at its very busiest, Gold packets start to have some issues.
So, Gold packets dropping is an indication that the network was very busy at that time.
(Incidentally, don't worry about the packets being dropped - the nature of IP traffic allows for this, and the packets are asked to be re-transmitted, but its this re-transmission and subsequent queuing of packets that makes things seem slower at times.)
James
Grafter
Posts: 21,036
Thanks: 5
Registered: ‎04-04-2007

Re: What IS going on with the network

Hi Penfold,
That would suggest that PCL-AG02 is the quietest of all of our Gateways and hence not dropping traffic.
techguy
Grafter
Posts: 2,540
Registered: ‎12-09-2008

Re: What IS going on with the network

gold traffic?
Sorry James dont follow.
Am building up my networking lexicon but not a technical term I've come across.
Not applicable

Re: What IS going on with the network

Which James?
Are you referring to his post, before mine, or mine?
Look at Reply#6
I'll also have a look for that blog post.
Not applicable

Re: What IS going on with the network

Aha - its not a blog I was thinking of, its this page in Help and Support:
http://www.plus.net/support/broadband/quality_broadband/traffic_prioritisation.shtml
The page also contains useful linky's for additional reading if you have the time (and interest)
techguy
Grafter
Posts: 2,540
Registered: ‎12-09-2008

Re: What IS going on with the network

Sorry James G
Must get out of the habit of skim reading or just reading first two sentences.
Apologies.
Thank you.