Any capacity issues?

[#1]

Gawd what a night.  Kids reporting lag on line & high pings,  Netflix stopping due to low bandwidth & not to mention my tablet being unable to connect to the internet  all between the hours of 6 & 8pm.  Sam knows reports a drop from 69 to 44mbs at 7pm.  Everything else looks fine.

[#2]

Quote from: AndyH

Quote from: awahwah I'd like to see utilisation on all their links into BT - average, max, min across a 72hr period.  I'd also like to know the committed and burst rates of those links. There are no burst rates for host links - they are 1G or 10G physical links with VLANs of 900Mbps or 9G.

I'm not taking about Host (Access) I'm more interested in the other side of the Network. So, forget about You to DSLAM (Access Layer) - DSLAM (Access layer) to Network Node (Distribution layer) in the Exchange (you say, 1G or 10G, I'll believe you but 1G would be low if you had 50 or so Hosts connected to it - a bottleneck). 
I'm interested in the Distribution to Core PN Network to BT.  I'd like to see if there are any Bottlenecks here. If PN are buying leased lines (the only way I know of a Firm guaranteeing Data Rates from BT), then I wouldn't like to pay the monthly bill and if that is true - no wonder they are reluctant to purchase any more.
The more cost effective way for PN to manage their costs is to purchase a produce like an IPStream Circuit that has a CIR of 100mb but will allow bursts of 1G (numbers may by different here).

[#3]

@ awahwah - Host links = the physical connections Plusnet buy from BTw (and supplied by Openreach) to link their network to the WBC.
@ stoswald - Out of interest, what does the Samknows streaming data look like for you?

[#4]

I'd also like to now how they Load Balence their Gateways (Routers). GLBP or HSRP? Also, what weighting/priority are they using.  All of what I've mentioned could greatly effect the End User experience of a Network.
Eg, say they have their weighting wrong and chuck 60% of their users to a Router that only has a 1G link into BT (numbers maybe different) all users connected to that Router will see problems.
This is way I've asked a couple of times in this thread about PN Core and the links it has into BT and how the bandwidth is configured and distributed across their Network.
It is very easy, with the aid of free and purchased tools (very basic is looking at the interface stats on a Router), to see where a Network maybe struggling. I'd like to think that PN have some tooling that monitors the Network for these problems though.  I can't believe that they do not know where the problems are even if it's limiting it down to a Network Segment.
Sorry for the rant, I'll get back in my box now. Have a good evening guys.

[#5]

Quote from: AndyH

@ awahwah - Host links = the physical connections Plusnet buy from BTw (and supplied by Openreach) to link their network to the WBC. @ stoswald - Out of interest, what does the Samknows streaming data look like for you?

So they do lease lines then. Wow, mega expensive.  thanks for the info.

[#6]

Quote from: awahwah

I'd also like to now how they Load Balence their Gateways (Routers). GLBP or HSRP?

HSRP isn't a load balancing protocol. Clue's in the name 'Hot Standby Router Protocol'.
GLBP is useless as traffic arrives at Plusnet towers via L2TP from BRAS. Individual user sessions aren't seen by the routers but streams of data between BT BRAS and Plusnet LNS. The links between BT and Plusnet are almost certainly going to be point to point /30s leaving no room for GLBP to work anyway.
In any case neither of the above. They advertise their endpoints to BT via BGP and use a steering server to tell the BT BRAS which endpoint to direct an individual session to. When a user connects to BT their BRAS reads the @plus.com part and consults Plusnet's radius for details of where to send the session, IE an endpoint IP address, and to confirm authentication. Plusnet RADIUS talks to a steering server and is provided the best endpoint which it then feeds back to BT.
The other load balancing element is done via sending different BGP MEDs for tunnel endpoints so that sessions are established over different extension paths accordingly. Through these two Plusnet can control which endpoint via RADIUS and which extension path via BGP traffic engineering traffic uses in the BT -> Plusnet direction. In the other direction there are all the standard load balancing options. Just as Plusnet can influence traffic paths in one direction with MED something as simple as AS path prepending will influence traffic on the return path.

Quote from: awahwah

So they do lease lines then. Wow, mega expensive.  thanks for the info.

Well yes. I wasn't aware 40Gb links came in anything other than a leased variety. A pair of 40Gb extension paths, the bearers of the host links, come in at £456,480 + VAT list price. 10Gb £57,060 + VAT list price.
Think there may be a good reason why they haven't answered your request for information on their network.

[#7]

Quote from: AndyH

@ stoswald - Out of interest, what does the Samknows streaming data look like for you?

@Andy
I don't monitor the streaming side of things.

[#8]

When you say you don't monitor it - do you mean you've not selected it or you don't look at it? The streaming data is pretty good as it looks at Netflix/YouTube and iPlayer 4x a day.

[#9]

Quote from: awahwah

The more cost effective way for PN to manage their costs is to purchase a produce like an IPStream Circuit that has a CIR of 100mb but will allow bursts of 1G (numbers may by different here).

IPStream is the old 20CN ATM-based ADSL product. The customers on this product that connect to Plusnet connect via the IPSC gateways.
It has never had committed rate and burst options. It came in capacity based charging, where you purchased a set amount of capacity and loaded it up as you see fit, and usage based, where you purchased an interconnect and paid per kilobit per second.
There is an option on the WBC product to allow bursts over purchased bandwidth. It's really not a good idea to do so as bursting over this assured bandwidth is chargeable per Mbit/s at a higher rate, which becomes punitive going 5% over aggregation point bandwidth.
I'm not aware of such an option on the WBMC product Plusnet use.
Plusnet use IPSC to take the 20CN IPStream traffic on the same network as the 21CN WBMC traffic so pay for the IPSC capacity as they do the 21CN rather than using IPStream CBC/UBC.
Incidentally the product you describe above, were it to exist, is a leased line of sorts, just one that has a burst option available. These are actually pretty common and can be purchased all over the place. A leased line is commonly considered now as anything delivered over a dedicated access path that has dedicated bandwidth.
http://www.aaisp.co.uk/ethernet.html

Quote

A 2M-10Mb/s burstable internet service starts from as little as £650/month (+VAT) and is typically around £1000/month (+VAT).

However these would be considered more accurately as backhaul / interconnect links given they connect Wholesale provider to service provider. Leased lines tend to conjure up images of access links. These will be delivered over dedicated fibre in a POP somewhere so really are no more leased lines than the rest of the patch cables in the datacentre.

[#10]

Quote from: AndyH

When you say you don't monitor it - do you mean you've not selected it or you don't look at it? The streaming data is pretty good as it looks at Netflix/YouTube and iPlayer 4x a day.

I deselected it.  I can't say more than that as I wasn't using Netflix then.

[#11]

BT visited to day to investigate my peak time slowdown.
After a couple of hours testing the conclusion was:
Yes the throughput slowed dramatically at around 4pm
There is no fault between me and the local exchange.
Therefore the fault is not a BT Openreach problem, it's either a BT Wholesale or a Plusnet problem.
So after 3 weeks, I'm not much further forward with this annoying fault. BTO say it's not their problem so I'm now back with Plusnets annoyingly slow ticket system.
Tonights speed test:

[#12]

@ npr Probably not what you want to hear, but i'm not surprised that the BTOR engineer couldn't find a fault within their part of the ship,I hope that they won't be passing on charges for the engineers visit as no doubt BTOR will raise a charge for a right when tested result to plusnet ,They offered me an engineer visit some time ago, but i refused to except any charges as the was a high likely hood that they wouldn't of found a fault in my case, I think it obvious that there is a capacity problem either somewhere within BTW's network or something within plusnet's control
I would be seeking a refund looking at that ping and f8lure graph alone never mind the near none existent throughput level

[#13]

so if its plusnets fault could you get out of your contract because it isn't BTO fault or your exchange. id be highly peed off if i were getting shocking speeds like that and id want to leave.

[#14]

@deathtrap
All that's in hand thanks. 
There's no risk of a charge for the visit, the fault was clearly seen and accepted not to be with my equipment but to be somewhere the other side of the local exchange. In fact the BT guy said in the past week there has been 4 other confirmed faults of low throughput at peak times on this exchange. That's encouraging, the more people reporting this issue the better chance BTW will get their finger out.
@bustermissy1961,
The BT guy said the fault is BTW or PN, I strongly believe the fault is with BTW.
Don't see the point of leaving PN, the fault is more than likely on BT's network. IF I move to a different provider there's a good chance I'd still have the same issue. Unfortunately cable is not available in this area.
Don't see the point in getting "peed off" --- it's only broadband, there's much more important thing's in life.

[#15]

thing is mate if your paying for a service and your not getting it you have a right to be peed off.