Newbie to Plusnet, advice please?

[#1]

Hi, just joined yesterday (Pro package)
Can anyone give me an idea of what usage playing COD on the PS3 or Xbox 360 (I have both) will be?
Obviously I have a limit of 15GB per month and I am a little worried that this may not be enough
90% of usage will be gaming, I don't download movies etc or use peer to peer, just general surfing - ebay, facebook etc.
Also any advice on settings - router etc to get the best gaming experience would be appreciated
I am using a Netgear DG835GT which is hard wired to both the Xbox and PS3.
Speed test shows 3.8MB down 0.38 up
Thanks

[#2]

hmmm  what is interleaving?  should I ask for it to be turned off?

[#3]

IIRC I think XBOX live uses around 20MB an hour, I'd assume that the PS3 would use about the same.
I used to have 2 xbox 360s connected up and used for around 3/4 hours a night and still never got near 10GB usage on them. Just remember that if you are downloading game trailers or demos they will significantly add to your usage.
Interleaving is a form of error correction which introduces a slight delay, if your line is stable then I'd suggest requesting us to turn interleaving off. I did and my pings went from around 45-50 to 20-25ms.
Let me know if you've got any more questions?

[#4]

yeah looking at 20-50mb an hour depending on the game. i belive cod's are pretty light on the usage
if you do find your getting close to you limit every month you might want to scehdule some of your pc downloads to after midnight when it dosent count towards your usage
when i was on a usage package the only thing i did that didnt have me checking my usage hourly was gaming, every thing else on the pc i would check to see how much i had used

[#5]

Thanks guys,
So all I really need to do is try switching interleaving off  - how do I do it?
I reckon my son and I use around 30hrs per week on the Xbox/PS3 so hopefully we will be ok
If it all goes pear shaped would switching to the unlimited package show a drop in performance?

[#6]

not on the console gaming front no.
i run xbox on unlimted fine.
the only diffrence you would notice is speeds of p2p, and download sites ec during peak times, the 2mb speed cap on gaming on unlimited does worrie a few people but its fine and gaming is still prioitized the same
you can comapre the rate limits on the packages side by side here (all tho not much to compare on the pro package ) http://www.kitz.co.uk/isp/plusnet_shaping2.htm
this is the link to raise a ticket to request interleaving turned off (you need to be loged into the member centre to do this)https://portal.plus.net/wizard/index.html?Ea82ChdSAqqwtYJcjZV%2Fjl8BeHfnW7ogQYILXVCBFsnFyRVJeEpVZrrGHDFWsmvQCsvo6bTYqNo%3D
to get to it through the menus its under help assistant, broadband connection, maxdsl interleaving

[#7]

Thanks Asbo, done
I have a concern:
just checked my usage ad its showing 498.28MB  for yesterday,  337.34MB for today.  I only got connected at about 7pm last night and was in bed at midnight!  and I have been to work all day!  all I can account for is 4 hours gaming (max) and a 23MB download - what's going on?

[#8]

you got automatic updates switched on or somthing simlar?, is your wireless secure?

[#9]

hold on - plus 53.8MB free - I was asleep during midnight and 7:20am  omg

[#10]

no automatic updates, I'm on a mac which asks for permission.
I thought it was secure - how do I double check?

[#11]

Did you get the router from PlusNet?

[#12]

Hi,
no, I'm using a Netgear  DG834GT

[#13]

looking in my router i found this:

Service Table
# Service Type Ports
1 uTorrent 26874
2 Xbox1 80
3 Xbox2 88
4 Xbox3 3074

is this correct? whats the utorrent bit?

[#14]

Somebody using uTorrent?
Under wireless what security features do you have enabled?

[#15]

i'm not using torrent - well not knowingly!
do you mean at router ? :
WPA-PSK (Wi-Fi Protected Access Pre-Shared Key)
sorry but as you prolly guessed networking aint my strong point!