Traffic Shaping Poll: Good or Bad?

[the_eclectic]

i dont believe in traffic shaping in any sense of it. I'll rather opt for the caps which on average is sufficient for a normal user. I moved to f2s on the introduction of 50gb cap which i was happy to keep and when it became 100gb i was esctatic cos i knew i couldnt use that much in a month. On average i use 75gb every month. What i dont want is to be told how to use my 75gb. If i want to use it up in a blazing fury of p2p download thats my choice. Thats what i believe i was paying for in the first place

[John R]

Originally Posted by FruitChute

It's funny how I have never seen a thread complaining about contention ratios effecting peoples speed.

Actually I have never seen a single post complaining about contention ratios screwing people over on speed.

I'm not arguing that it ultimately doesn't of course. (and I'm sure there's a post or two that could be dug up about people complaining about it)

But it's just never been an issue.
.

To many users it has.... There is a thread about a southampton exchange at adslguide now about just such a problem that has been on going for a very long time.
Search out many a post where the local exchange has been on RED or AMBER where users have been getting slow speeds. Easy way to tell is the seperate BT login speedtest which removes isp and internet from the equation. If that gives you a slow speed then you are contended at exchange level.

[FruitChute]

Here's what I signed up for...

[JohhnyJ]

You'd better amend that thumbnail!!!

When I came to F2S i would offten see speeds of 200+K Downloads, now it rarely hits 50k..Right no its 39k and is not getting any higher.

[DavidC]

I have voted bad.
Last year I could get 1250-1500K, but now I get 300-600K (lower at peak)
I do not use p2p or anything like that.
It is not a BT issue (have tried the BT speed test)
3 doors away my neighbour (on Nildram) gets VGOOD speeds.
It is F2S and from what I have read "traffic prioritising"
I did not think that I would be penalised.

[davidmcnaught16]

I think that people who are assuming that they are noticing slower downloads due to prioritising may be wrong. From what I've heard (Which admittedly isn't much) well used prioritising will allow great access to voip & gaming even if traffic is high, at the cost of a tiny bit slower downlods (2-3%).

This is not harmful dictating how customers can use their bandwidth, but optimising the traffic to allow services (such as Voip) that would not be possible/reliable without it.

[FastShow]

Prioritizing in general? I have no real problem with it if done well. Prioritizing the way F2S have implemented it? Terrible. Web surfing is near useless, everything trundles along at anywhere from 256kbps to 600kbps, if they're prioritizing, I'd like to know what's getting priority, as none of the things I use it for seem to be!

Voted bad. If there was an option for something worse than that, I'd have voted that.

[FruitChute]

I much prefer Zen's take on things:

--
BANDWIDTH TO SPARE
We guarantee NO CONTENTION on our core network. Uncompromised service with bandwidth investment that stays well ahead of customer demand is the only sure way to deliver performance that provides full Internet enjoyment and business-critical reliability.
--

Taken from the front page of their site, very first bullet point.

I'm still holding out on going anywhere yet but I doubt Pipex are going to make me want to stay.

Also like the fact Zen have their own forum, on their own site, where staff members post. And what they post is completely inkeeping with where the company is at that moment.

That is taking nothing away from freedom2support. I think it's nothing short of amazing the effort and time volunteers have put into this site.

[John R]

Originally Posted by FruitChute

Here's what I signed up for...

Subject to the standard BT 50-1 contention.....

There is no guarantee of getting 512K 24/7/365.....

[FastShow]

Originally Posted by John R

Subject to the standard BT 50-1 contention.....

It's very clearly not BT doing the contending though, a BT speedtest yields almost perfect 2Mb speeds, yet tests when connected to F2S's network show less than a quarter of that for the very vast majority of the time.

[Bothered1]

Originally Posted by John R

Subject to the standard BT 50-1 contention.....
There is no guarantee of getting 512K 24/7/365.....

hey why not call it a 1Mb line if you can hide behind that comment
P..Lease
....we all know if this continues then average speed will be 200-300k now thats just not on....if your advertising as 512 then i guess it should be around that most of the time..

[TBL]

These problems are not contention related. If they were - F2S wouldn't be putting in place the measures they have recently 'announced'.

It is obviously down to the usual story of 1% of the customer base using up 99% of the available bandwidth.

To be honest, I agree more with 'bad boy' pipes than I do with general widespread traffic prioritisation/shaping.

[FruitChute]

I don't think very knowledgeable people are going through the trouble of migrating away from Pipex, all at the same time, just for fun.

No, all the technical crapage aside, it's because:

a) the service is not what is advertised, not what they are paying for
b) they don't see it getting better in the near future

And at the end of the day, that's all that matters.

[sergiu.panaite]

John R, I worked for an ISP for a whole year, so I'm aware of the need to prioritise some traffic (shaping, or whatever else you want to call it). For example I do agree that p2p traffic should be limited, it sometimes ends up using too much bandwidth and strangles other time-critical services, such as VoIP, browsing, email and (why not) gaming.

Speaking of which, until the shaping was introduced I could play CS with no problems at all (even while the first signs of it appeared more than a month ago, with p2p speeds being reduced). For the past few evenings, I haven't been able to play CS almost at all: at the best times I get 5 loss, usually I get about 10 loss and 1-2 choke as well. As anyone who plays CS could tell you, this leads to a very stressful gaming experience. Should my gaming traffic be shaped out because it's not what Pipex consider critical? Personally I don't think so, mainly because it's not a high-bandwidth application and I don't do it 24/7.

There is also the issue of http downloads, which are currently not going above 45KB/s for me (unless I download from Zen's fuller, which jumps up to about 250KB/s max, still nowhere near what I used to get around Jan 11th).

I guess my main point is this: when I signed up, I signed up with f2s for a reason: the service they were providing. I don't remember agreeing to a service which would include various tests which would obviously affect me, and which would change every few days. Unfortunately, I was stupid enough to not notice that I'm signing up for a 12-month contract, therefore my struggle to move away from f2s might be quite difficult - and the only reason I would want to move away is because I very much doubt that they will restore the previous service.

(note: I'm sync'd at 6Mbps/768Kbps)

edit: I've raised a ticket with f2s about, well, pretty much all of this, and while realistically I'm not expecting an honest, serious answer, I still have a few drops of hope.

I have not read every detail of my T&Cs but I am damn sure, that I am not getting the service I have paid for.

It is not some fault on my line or equipment, it is not because my BT line or exchange is faulty. It is because Freedoom2surf are physical slowing my connection down.

I could normaly take an item back as either faulty or not fit for the purpose it was sold.

I want my money back for every day that traffic shapping is in use.

Thank goodness I'm only on a one month contract, at less I can jump ship right away

[Karl Prince]

Originally Posted by TBL

To be honest, I agree more with 'bad boy' pipes than I do with general widespread traffic prioritisation/shaping.

I Second that

I would also settle for management when cap exceeded

[welshone]

This i have just taken of F2s main page: Usage caps do not apply between the hours of 1.00am and 6.00am but as i think we will all agree this is not the case!!..the usage caps now seem to be in place all the time,yes i use p2p, yes i download some things i shouldnt, but i also use p2p to download legit software that is available.I also download updates from Microsoft and i am lucky if i get a decent speed!!! I would be quite happy if p2p cap was in place between 6am and 1am so that normal users could have the benifit of what they paid for during the day, i paid for an unlimited service so why cant i have that during the early hours of the morning??

[kmount]

Wow, impressive, 13 months since the last post.

Updates from microsoft are not p2p, they should come down as fast as your line and other limiting factors can take.

The p2p cap should be lifted overnight 1-6 but it doesn't seem to be the case.

It would be unfair to have unrestricted p2p 24/7 is capacity was to be used 'fairly'.

[welshone]

Was the 13 months meant at me Chaz?...if it was i think u will find i have posted over the past day or so when the service from F2s has got bad, yes i know ms downloads are not p2p, was just stating that the speeds from there site are now just as bad, considering i get a 6.4mb connection i think speeds of more that 50kbs should be achievable, had my line tested and no faults found.

[dragontrainer]

Well I don`t see the point of voting, after reading this thread so far it`s pretty obvious that the majority don`t agree to it.

I remember joining f2s when I got my first PC, was an Amiga person untill I found emulation was even better. The thing that got me was the ethos of the company back then - that all profits went back into the business to make f2s what it was and could be. Does anyone think since the Pipex takeover that this still happens?

I use the internet for many things shopping, gaming, browsing, p2p etc. etc. and before getting on your high horse about p2p you must realise that not all p2p activity is illegal in fact some people build thier business model around it, http://www.purepwnage.com being my favourite.

But what really gets me is the fact they brought this measure in without any announcement and it does affect my gaming, my ping rates shoot up and down at what seem to be random intervals leaving me, well lets say very upset.

I requested my MAC on Monday afternoon and do not regret my actions.

f2s RIP.

[kmount]

Originally Posted by welshone

Was the 13 months meant at me Chaz?...if it was i think u will find i have posted over the past day or so when the service from F2s has got bad, yes i know ms downloads are not p2p, was just stating that the speeds from there site are now just as bad, considering i get a 6.4mb connection i think speeds of more that 50kbs should be achievable, had my line tested and no faults found.

Yes it was aimed at you. The last post in this thread was 13 months ago before you last night

[monkey_boy]

Not happy with the traffic shaping. I would understand it if I were going close or exceeding my quota but I'm not even getting close and now with this traffic shaping I have no chance of ever getting close! LOL

[RND]

Why punish the vast majority of good customers for the few who abuse? Its unfair. There must be better ways of raining in the abusers.

[Justin]

Working for an ISP myself, I can see why traffic shaping is useful, as you would not believe some of the usage figures we see!

[stephen_ex-f2s]

I think it's a good thing in principle because it's a good stop-gap to allow certain technologies to run over what's basically an antiquated wholesale provider with prohibitavely expensive bandwidth.

OTOH I think it's bad if it's implemented in a way that allows ISPs to oversell their products, and then provide wooly and poorly-defined FUPs which they change on a whim to suit their over-sold products and crammed networks.

That's not a dig at any ISP in particular, but more aimed at an inudstry where it's become common practice rather than the exception.