Line prioritisation

[#1]

Hi all,

I've been on the phone twice today and been told two entirely different things so I'm hoping to get a definitive answer. I was previously with BT and moved to Plusnet around 2 months ago as I heard their customer service was superb. I;m not convinced at this point.

So when i was with BT I always had a perfect ping while playing online games no matter what anyone else did in the house. Since moving to plusnet if anyone else streams video in the house my ping rockets up. When I called today the girl I spoke to to begin with said plusnet do not do profiles and that gaming is always prioritized over everything else. She also asked how I connected to the router on my PC. I said it was with homeplugs and she had no idea what they were. Tech support for an internet provider had never heard of home plugs???? Everything she said was also followed with "as far as I'm aware."

I wasn't convinced so called back and spoke to a nice gentleman who checke the line and said everything was fine. He also said they do not have profiles on lines but that plusnet prioritize video streams over gaming. If this is true it must be madness. If a video stream pauses it is frustrating sure, but if your ping spikes in a game then you lose (most likely). He did know what home plugs were so I'm inclined to believe him. If that is the case I have 2 other points.

1) Shouldn't Plusnet advertise that their service is primarily for streaming video content and that gaming comes secondary, because if that is the case this service is now officially useless to me because I won't be able to game until my wife goes to bed and that is unacceptable. 

2) If that is true, can I replace the router with a 3rd party one that I can configure to handle bandwidth allocation?

Many thanks in advance for any help. I'm just trying to establish some hard facts so I can move forward with this problem.

Jonny

[#2]

This makes interesting reading https://community.plus.net/t5/Plusnet-Blogs/It-s-Unlimited-Why-is-it-still-traffic-managed/ba-p/1320...

[#3]

Which package are you on? 40/2 or 80/20?

[#4]

"Gaming is a Priority"- get a life

[#5]

40/2 - also gaming isn't necessarily my priority, but it is my primary use of the internet. I'm a geek

[#6]

Hey strat that was interesting reading and suggests that gaming has the highest priority but that doesn't seem to be happening on my line. Is that because I am 40/2, do I need to go to 80? My line only supports 39 download so thats why I took the 40 package but if the 80 would fix my problem I'm happy to upgrade

[#7]

@jonnywatts

Plusnet will not sell the upto 80Mbps download service to anyone whose estimated download speed is less than 40Mbps. You would be better off elsewhere on a 40/10 service or on BT's 55/10

[#8]

Is their profile better for gaming on the 80mbps service? I don't get why they would run different priorities on each of them. I mean surely there are people on the 80 who want video over games. I used to have infinity 2 with BT despite only getting 36Mbps with them. Maybe that is why I never had any problems with them. I never even realised different speeds would have different profiles with the same provider. Certainly not when you get over a certain threshold anyway. I'm tied into a contract with Plusnet for another 16 months though, so I guess its just tough...

[#9]

The 2 Plusnet products are the same except for the ceiling on the upload and download speeds.

Plusnet choose not to sell the higher upto speeds to those who cannot get in excess of the lower speed ceiling. This maybe down to the fact that under advertising rules a certain percentage of customers must be able to get the highest limit on a package (10% if I recall correctly). So if they let you on the high speed product,  it would lower the average and might make the adverts "illegal"

[#10]

Ah ok that makes sense! Doesnt seem like there is a solution to my problem then, thanks anyway to everyone who chimed in

[#11]

it has been suggested that PN should consider selling the 55/10 like BT for people like yourself

[#12]

Unlucky jonny lol.. cant game till the wifey goes to bed lol..

Setup a pfsense box linked to your bt modem and traffic setup the pfsense box to give gaming traffic priority..

Even with skype running youll not notice any difference.

I had exactly the same problem till i stuck a pfsense box in the way.