Increase plusnet pro usage allowance to 80gb too!

[#1]

I'm paying 60% more for a service with 25% of the usage allowance!
Granted Plusnet Pro should have priority throughput on some types of traffic but the massive extra 60GB difference in usage allowance is eye watering!
jim:orange All caps removed from the title as per forum rules mod:end

[#2]

Hi there,
The difference in usage on Pro is purely down to the fact that *all* traffic is prioritised, regardless of protocol or time of day.
On Premium you'll get a lot more bandwidth, but that bandwidth will be managed for non-time sensitive traffic for most of the afternoon/evening period.
It's swings and roundabouts tbh, depending on what's more important to you.

[#3]

Quote from: Mand

The difference in usage on Pro is purely down to the fact that *all* traffic is prioritised, regardless of protocol or time of day. On Premium you'll get a lot more bandwidth, but that bandwidth will be managed for non-time sensitive traffic for most of the afternoon/evening period.

But that's not entirely accurate - you're really talking capped and uncapped line speeds, not traffic prioritisation over other products. Someone on premium and someone else on pro can, at certain times of day, have exactly the same priority despite paying extra on Pro. The stats on this page say that everyone can run at "line speed": http://www.plus.net/support/broadband/speed_guide/download_speeds.shtml
Now I don't know if this is correct but as far as I can see those people on premium with a full line speed of 20Mbps  will still have greater traffic priority than say someone on Pro with only 5Mbps by virtue of the quantity of network traffic because both run "at line speed".
E.g. simple example assume 10Mbps spare capacity at Plusnet and two aforementioned connections - that's 20+5 = 25Mbps traffic over 10Mbps of line.
With equal priority (because we're a gamer say) we're talking the guy with 20Mbps getting 8Mbps compared to the sap with 5Mbps getting only 2 Mbps of that 10Mbit line.
True prioritising would take a larger percentage of the pro product 5Mb traffic compared to the premium 20Mb traffic.
With this in mind, I'd like to reaffirm that the usage cap is raised (perhaps to 60GB) on the Pro product to make it fairer, more competitive and equally good value for money.
Benjamin
[EDIT]
Cross posted with Thinkbroadband with some (probably not coincidental) stats illustrating this supposition showing low bandwidth after 12am when all packages have "line speed" for downloads.
http://forums.thinkbroadband.com/plusnet/t/3803349-plusnet-profile-v-bts.html
http://forums.thinkbroadband.com/plusnet/t/3808456-plusnet-profile-v-bts.html
[/EDIT]

[#4]

Quote from: brownb2

With this in mind, I'd like to reaffirm that the usage cap is raised (perhaps to 60GB) on the Pro product to make it fairer, more competitive and equally good value for money.

Your logic is flawed, but if you think you are paying too much then move to the cheaper product.
If you think the cheaper product with the larger allowance is suited to your needs, then change to it, but if you are a PC or console gamer, I'd not change.
SW.
[Moderator's note by Jim (Oldjim)  tag fixed mod:end

[#5]

Quote from: godsell4

Your logic is flawed,

If we're quoting provable logic then please state how it is flawed - you can't just dismiss it without evidence to suggest the contrary. I'd happily accept an explanation from a Plusnet employee as to how it really  works (i.e. publish some traffic rules based on product, any round robin IP management being used etc), because as far as I can see from the above the product has no actual priority above other products at certain times of day.
I see no reason why the Pro product should not be more balanced, and as I won't be changing product I would simply like to see the caps lifting on a product that has a seemingly higher profit margin.
From comparing the products what I actually understand is:
- Premium - the usage total is high but the throughput is low at some times of day.
- Pro - the usage total is low but the throughput is high at some times of day.
From where I'm sitting they look like two very similar products, one of which some customers pay significantly more for yet do not in real terms receive the same value for money. To correct the value for money issue, increasing the total quota for the Pro product (say to 60GB as discussed) would offset the higher price.

[#6]

Let us take a step back. On this page http://www.plus.net/support/network_performance/broadband_bandwidth_usage.shtml#usage it shows the usage by usage type.

As you can see the total usage varies quite a bit during the day but the proportion which is P2P varies significantly but is rate limited
If Pro had a usage limit approaching that of Premier it would mean that users would move from Premier to Pro and then would get all their usage classed a gold or better including P2P (hence effectively unthrottled) but then the system would just run out of capacity and all the protocols including gold would either be rate limited or have massive packet drops. This would kill the streaming applications for example.
Before you ask - bandwidth costs money and it would mean that the product cost would need to increase dramatically

[#7]

I can see where you're coming from brownb2, I'm currently waiting for my migration to PN Pro package to complete and I've spent a lot of the morning trying to gather some clarification on exactly how they prioritise our traffic, it seems it's just by not restricting us at peak times but I had also wondered and hoped that they'd give us a lower contention ratio, I'm guessing we're on a 50 to 1 still but a 20 to 1 would have been more preferable.
Anyway back on topic, I see where you're coming from 20gb bandwidth does seem a little tight when the neighbouring package gets a whopping 80 and if I were a bigger user like I used to be I probably wouldn't have come to PN instead I'm enjoying the prospect of moving to an ISP where I can watch videos on youtube without having to watch it stutter its way through.
Perhaps one aspect of this that PN will probably admit too is that if you made this package too accomodating to the hard core Peer 2 Peer downloaders out there bandwidth and traffic would grow through the roof, PN would become a mecca for P2P users and their network would start to suffer and in the current and hostile climate surrounding P2P PN would soon find themselves under a lot of government pressure to do something.
Perhaps a good way to think of it is PN have given us our very own bus lane to use during rush hour. I agree and think 20GB is a bit on the slim side and would rather see this near the 25-30 mark but really that limit doesnt effect me so I'm not going to get my knickers in a twist about it.

[#8]

It's fair to say that the Pro product is prioritised over pretty much every other package - so your P2P will have a higher priority that other people's P2P. Your FTP downloads will also have a higher priority over other people's FTP downloads, etc. etc.  What most people also fail to realise is that the Pro product also affords you the same priority levels in the 'free' overnight usage period.
The 20GB limit on Pro is of course only the included bandwidth limit.  There is no limit on the amount of bandwidth that you can use - you just have to pay for it.  IMO, that's perfectly reasonable.  (There is also rumour of a price cap at £99 for additional bandwidth, so there is a 'Pro Unlimited' package - it just costs you £99/month)
B.

[#9]

I was also wanting to switch to the Pro package, but it'd be impossible for me to do so without going over the usage amount.
At the moment I'm using between 1-2GB paid for usage per day, and that's essentially just browsing/youtube (only up to about 10 videos per day); By the end of the month I'd be at around 60GB, adding give or take £40 to my bill.
I can understand your arguments to keep it low, but when you advertise it as "The pro choice for downloads, gaming, music and more" it just doesn't make sense.
The music part is especially noteworthy actually. I've actually stopped using Spotify completely for a while as last month I used about 20GB+ streaming music alone.

[#10]

@Josephish
You probably should have signed up for PN Unlimited while it was available based on your usage patterns.
Pro does not sound like the right package for you.

[#11]

and if you want the 80 G premium, do that before 11th April, after that it will be the cheaper extra with 60 G