easynews+plusnet=slowwww!!!

jonph · 2 Feb 2007 at 22:42

Hi folks,
I'm presently with free-online.co.uk(plusnet) for my isp, and I have an easynews account.
Yes I know what your going to say

I've just about got my head round the bandwidth throttling(I mean shaping),but I still have a few nagging questions.
1:The option I'm on with my isp tells me that I will only get bandwidth reduction if I use more than 13gb(this is peak time usage),and this will reduce to about half normal bandwidth, but at present I've only used 1.1gb and my peak time connection to easynews(using http) is down to dial up speeds :mad:

2:If plusnet are trying to ease net traffic congestion,why are they restricting my ability to browse easynews(http) but I can still download large amounts of data at my normal bandwidth?
eg. If I want a new desktop wallpaper but I'm not sure what I want, I browse the wallpaper images and it takes forever.If however I just select everything in the wallpapers section and download the lot(could be many gb),I can download at my normal bandwidth.
would it not make sense to let you browse the indexes at normal bandwidth, and then schedule any large downloads for later?
sorry if this does'nt make sense, I'm a bit of a noob to usenet and news servers.
I use reget download manager to download files
If anyone can point me to a decent easy to follow guide to usenet I would be gratefull.
I've been in touch with my isp, but so far not getting any real help from them

sven256 · 3 Feb 2007 at 16:50

I'm sure easynews has a encrypted data (ssl) section just have a look through their site

just found it secure.news.easynews.com on port 563 also try going via a difference route

jonph · 3 Feb 2007 at 18:27

sven256 said:
I'm sure easynews has a encrypted data (ssl) section just have a look through their site

just found it secure.news.easynews.com on port 563 also try going via a difference route

I don't really understand much about ports or usenet so please excuse my ignorance.
would using the encrypted data section allow me to browse indexes any quicker,or would this only make a difference to downloading files?
Do I just type secure.news.easynews.com into my adress bar,or how do I access?
whats the difference between http and nntp? As I say I'm a noob to usenet.
I normally just go to easynews homepage via http browse the indexes, and schedule downloads using reget manager.
a pointer to a morons guide to usenet would be a great help

Clarkey · 4 Feb 2007 at 03:22

sven256 said:
I'm sure easynews has a encrypted data (ssl) section just have a look through their site

just found it secure.news.easynews.com on port 563 also try going via a difference route

plusnet apply traffic shaping to everything, particularly harshly on encrypted packets.

iMacMart · 4 Feb 2007 at 07:19

My brothers on plusnet and will be leaving them shortly, has a lot of down time?

Anyone else see that?

hybrid · 4 Feb 2007 at 13:11

tweakinfreak said:
My brothers on plusnet and will be leaving them shortly, has a lot of down time?

Anyone else see that?

I've never really seen downtime, other than last year when their whole datacentre lost power.

Other than that, torrents and anything else they class below 'silver traffic' is unbelievably slow during peak hours. But at night it flies!!

They are also bringing on another BT central pipe and i believe thats going to increase the overall capacity by 12%. So im gonna hang around a little longer and see what happens.

jonph · 4 Feb 2007 at 18:52

not had any issues with down time or line sync(not recently anyway),just really annoyed with the fact they say unlimited usage but don't make clear about traffic shaping.
I can browse,download,upload etc to my hearts content,but the speed I can do this is the problem.I mean whats the point of unlimited "up to 8mb" broadband if they restrict you to dial up speeds even if you are still within your "fair usage" limit?
I can understand the problems caused by a few people constantly downloading and hogging bandwidth,but I rareley use even half of my fair usage limit.
When free-online first introduced their "fair usage" policy, they said it was to restrict about 1 or 2% of there customers who were constantly downloading and hogging recorces.
I have never gone over my fair usage and normally scedule downloadig for off peak times,so I feel I'm being penalised very unfairly.Fair enough If I was over my limit,but why should I be restricted if I am well within my limits?
surely even when using usenet or p2p they can set bandwidth throttling to kick in when you are close to your limits,I mean they can let you know when you are near your limit on their capped products.