Posted on June 2nd, 2009 by Barry Collins

Why BT’s not the biggest broadband choker

The BBC is getting positively hot under the collar about BT’s “iPlayer throttling”. It’s nice to see the big broadcasters finally paying attention to the hidden chokes applied to our broadband connections, although readers of the Smash Your Broadband Limits feature on the cover of this month’s PC Pro would already have been well aware that BT Option 1 customers were restricted to only 896Kbits/sec for streaming video.

BT Option 1 isn’t the worst service when it comes to strangling connections, however. Not by a long chalk. Take BT-owned PlusNet example. Its “Unlimited” account offers a maximum bandwidth of only 256Kbits/sec from download sites during peak hours (6pm-11pm) while peer-to-peer traffic is granted a paltry maximum of 128Kbits/sec from 6pm-10pm. Try downloading a 1.5GB HD show from iPlayer during peak hours on that connection and it will probably arrive a couple of hours after you’ve gone to bed.

Other ISPs pull similar ruses (you can find out what your ISP is up to in this month’s mag). Perhaps now the BBC has taken an interest, we’ll get a frank and open debate about the murky practice of traffic shaping.

Tags: BBC, broadband, BT, iPlayer, PlusNet, traffic shaping

Posted in: Newsdesk

Permalink | Trackback

Follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

Social Bookmark this article: What is this?

8 Responses to “ Why BT’s not the biggest broadband choker ”

Alan Says:
June 2nd, 2009 at 2:15 pm
Plusnet when I joined them 5 years ago were a young and prospering company who provided their customers with as much as they could not living their lives by their profit margins, then BT took them over a couple years back……….enough said I think.
Avanti Computers Northwood Says:
June 2nd, 2009 at 5:45 pm
I have been solving peoples broadband problems for years now, and advising them where to go.
There’s a very simple rule, if you stick to it, you won’t be disappointed, ignore it, and be it on signup, or when you encounter your first problem, you will regret it.

In such a cmopetitive market…YOU GET WHAT YOU PAY FOR

Pay less, be it on ’stand alone’ broadband, or ‘combination’ packages that spend less on the Bband component, and you encounter problems/’features’ like throttling.

Just take INDEPENDANT advice from people like PC Pro.
Geoff Says:
June 3rd, 2009 at 12:39 pm
@ Avanti Computers Northwood
your sound the the alter ego of BT THEY been causing people broadband problems and telling them where to go for years as well
Robert Stephen Perkins Says:
June 3rd, 2009 at 2:02 pm
Unfortunately at the time I was not able to stop my girlfriend signing up with PlusNet. The speeds we got were so bad that a BT engineer had to come out. They changed the incoming box and the connection improved but the speeds were still rubbish. We were told that it is because we are a distance from the exchange. I now read that PlusNet throttle and it explains a lot.

We just gave up on iplayer even downloading the BBC News website takes time and forget watching a quick YouTube clip! I had to download the latest Vista SP 2 to at work (with my bosses permission) because otherwise we would have had to leave the laptop at home on all night and then some at 340 odd mb. With this information I am going to see if we can leave early on the grounds that no where was this advertised and we are paying for a service we are not getting.
Dave Says:
June 3rd, 2009 at 3:55 pm
I’m in the business of network optimization, including bandwidth shaping, so I see that there certainly are times when its required to maintain the quality of service. Ultimately, if it’s clearly stated in a contract, there shouldn’t be any problem. However, this isn’t always the case.

I also don’t necessarily like the practice of automatically slowing traffic at certain times, regardless of whether or not the network really is congested. Most of our users only activate shaping when the network reaches a certain level of congestion (say, for example, at 90 percent or so heavy users will be slowed until overall use drops back down), but if that level isn’t reached, no one is affected.

The main thing is for ISPs to be upfront with their customers, but they also shouldn’t enact shaping policies just to further maximize their profit. If the bandwidth is there, customers should have access to it.
Andy Cox Says:
June 4th, 2009 at 9:41 am
@ Barry

I understand that the BBC has dumped their P2P model and shows are now downloaded directly from their own servers. Therefore the 128Kbits/sec restriction you quote does not apply. Before signing up to PLusNet’s Unlimited service last month I checked the small print which claims that Video Streaming and VOIP services are not subject to caps. So far I don’t seem to be having problems with streaming.
Dan Says:
June 4th, 2009 at 10:02 am
I’m with plusnet and they do limit your download speeds. They choke newsgroups down to 10k/s and download speeds are limited but not quite that bad (yet!). Unless the situation improves, I shall be moving my broadband account elsewhere.

I find it hard to believe that there’s no legal requirement to mention exactly what “traffic management measures” are used in the terms and conditions. All they legally have to say is that broadband speeds maybe limited at peak times.

Plusnets should read “Broadband speeds WILL be limited after 6:00pm and you can forget about the 8mb connection!”
Ron Says:
June 19th, 2009 at 12:45 am
Caps and throttles are different . Think of a cap as the bucket to collect the water. Think of a throttle as the size of tap to allow the water to flow into the bucket. You can still have a cap and a throttle. or one of each. Cap of say 50gb is monthly, whereas max video streaming bandwidth may still be set at 258kb/s AT ALL TIMES.
Download overnite if you have to .. not ideal .. except for the ISP’s.