Broadband

This page explains how we manage Broadband Plus to ensure you get the right experience for your product. For more detailed information about how we manage our network read:

• Managing our Network Under Abnormal Load

Product Design

Broadband Plus is designed for surfing, email, chatting and shopping.

It is NOT suitable for file sharing and large downloads.

Broadband Plus was designed for a maximum usage of 4GB peak times (4pm-Midnight) and 50GB offpeak (midnight-4pm) in any given month. On 6th September 2010, the peak time usage limit was raised to 10GB and the offpeak limit was removed completely.

If your usage goes over the peak time allowance, your service will be heavily restricted until the start of your next billing month when your usage is reset. If you are downloading large files you should do this outside of the busy periods.

What does 1GB actually give me?

Not sure how much a GB is? See what you can do with a GB.

Broadband Plus Experience

Because all our broadband products are provided over a shared network we cannot guarantee exact speeds. This industry-wide method is proven to provide a fast and reliable service at an affordable price. The table below shows the expected experience assuming the network is not under abnormal load.

Very fast - Excellent experience for real-time applications. This traffic has the highest priority on our network.
Fast - Good experience for interactive applications. Customers shouldn't notice any slowdown unless the network is very busy.
Moderate - Non-interactive experience. Customers will see restricted speeds whenever the network is busy.
Restricted - Non interactive experience with speeds heavily restricted or blocked completely.

Broadband Plus expected maximum downstream speeds

The information shown below represents what speeds customers can expect to receive under normal network conditions. Please note that speeds are shown on an individual protocol basis and that interactive protocols (e.g. web browsing, streaming and gaming) will run at your line speed.

For more details about how these speeds are delivered and what we would do if this information is changed please see our Expected Speeds page.

Key

*Even though there are no individual restrictions, the speeds you receive are still affected by traffic prioritisation and the activities of every other customer who is sharing the network.

Why do we have to manage traffic on our network?

Like other ISPs we deliver our broadband service over a network which is shared amongst our customers. This means we have to manage our network to ensure we provide a sustainable quality broadband service to all our customers. 

The principles of Plusnet's network management policies:

• To make sure that time-critical applications like VoIP and gaming are always prioritised
• To protect interactive applications like web-browsing and VPN from non-time sensitive download traffic
• To flex the network under demand to cope with normal peaks and troughs from day to day and month to month
• To flex the network more gracefully than other ISPs in the event of unusual demands in traffic or disaster situations such as a network failure
• To provide a service relative to the amount each customer pays in terms of usage and experience