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 our 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
• Provides a 'quality of service' effect, meaning multiple applications running on the same line interact with each other effectively, and use of high demand protocols like Peer-to-Peer doesn't swamp time-sensitive traffic such as online gaming or a VoIP call.
   

Use of traffic prioritisation will have an overall effect on the speeds you can expect to receive at different times of the day. You can see the effects of traffic prioritisation in real-time and what would happen if a data-intensive application like Peer-to-Peer was allowed to saturate our network

We believe the Fair Usage Policy is the best approach. Rather than cutting people off or charging per gigabyte of access, it protects the quality of service for the vast majority of our customers when they most use the service, while at the same time allowing the extremely heavy users to continue to send and receive large files without restriction outside of peak hours.

This Fair Usage Policy automatically identifies the very small number of extremely heavy users and manages their bandwidth predominately during peak hours ( 12pm to 12.00am Monday to Sunday, inc Bank Holidays) , to protect the service for all our other customers. Outside peak hours, the use of the Internet by these heavy users should be unaffected.

A very small number of customers use Peer-to-Peer or file-sharing software, which constantly sends and receives video and other very large files throughout the day. This type of activity uses a lot of bandwidth and can significantly reduce the speed at which other customers can access the Internet during peak hours. Approximately 1% of customers use more than 30% of the available bandwidth during peak hours. We don't believe this is fair to the vast majority of our customers.

How do I know if I am likely to be affected by the Fair Usage Policy?
If you don't use Peer-to-Peer or file-sharing software it is unlikely you will ever be affected by this Fair Usage Policy. If you would like to know how much bandwidth you are using contact technical support today.

What happens if you are affected by the Fair Usage Policy?
Customers affected by the Fair Usage Policy will share bandwidth with each other and will be separated from other customers, priority will be given to web browsing and other time critical applications such as voice over ip. The total amount of bandwidth available for affected customers to share will be at least as much as for those customers unaffected by the policy. The affects of this separation are most likely to be felt during peak hours ( 12pm to 12am Monday to Sunday, inc Bank Holidays).

The speed that affected customers experience when downloading at peak hours will therefore depend on what other affected customers are doing and how much that user has downloaded in that billing period. If they are all web-browsing and reading emails, then all affected customers experience normal broadband speed. If, on the other hand, they are using Peer-to-Peer or file-sharing software, they will experience slow broadband speed.

Outside of peak hours, no traffic management will apply, so we recommend that data intensive applications are used between 12am and 12pm. Business users are unaffected by traffic management.

Residential users that require all day heavy usage may contact sales to discuss their options for different tariffs to suite their usage needs.

Broadband Option 1 expected maximum downstream speeds customers after October 2007

Broadband Option 1 is ideal for all general Internet activities and occasional gaming and VPN. Designed to cater for some, although light, binary USENET, Peer-to-Peer, VPN or music/video downloads.