Which fibre ISPs do not throttle or data manage?

[Funk]

tankplanker said:

With Plusnet you can pay to upgrade the priority of your traffic, see the Pro and Business offerings here: https://www.plus.net/help/broadband/about-traffic-...

I tried the Pro option when I first switched to Plusnet fibre, turned it off after a couple of months as it seemed to make no difference to our performance, which has always been excellent. I'd consider us heavy users as well, around 1Tb of usage per month.

Good to hear, I'm probably around 1Tb/mo plus as well these days. I saw the Pro option but I also don't think I'll need it.

Craikeybaby said:

I'm being dicked around by Virgin, after being happy with their service for a nember for years. So this thread has been helpful. I think I'm also going to switch to Plusnet.

What is their router like? Does it do both 2.4 and 5 GHz?

The Plusnet router is a re-badged BT HomeHub 5 (which yes, does 2.4 and 5Ghz) - I was never impressed by the HH5 but you can always swap it out for something else of your choice. According to the Plusnet forum it's possible to use the new BT Smarthub 6 (which I have) on the Plusnet network so that's what I'll do.

Andehh said:

Just to add, we have been with BT fibre for the last few years and have been very impressed with it.

I am a heavy user at 300-400gb a month, every month, mostly streaming occasional torrents & fair gaming usage and never had any issues.

I signed up with Plusnet, found out about their prioritisation bks, cancelled & re-signed with BT. I dont want anyone to fiddle with whatever it is I am doing online!! :


edit: BT renewal were adamant the best they could offer me was a £29/month for their mid package. After 3 weeks & being signed to plusnet they dropped that down to £20/odd.

I'm expecting BT to try and retain me when they get the cancellation notice from Plusnet but it's too late - they've have their chance and the very fact I have to even do all this is enough to make me adamant I'm going. They should've just recognised they fked up and done a deal. I said, politely, to the guy I spoke to, "You need to choose whether you put me on the same pricing as my brother and lose £250 a year or I leave and you lose £625 a year because those are the only two options." I've never had an issue with BT's Infinity product (or customer service to be fair to them), I just won't pay £300 a year more than my brother is for the exact same thing.

Regarding 'fiddling with what you do online' it isn't about Plusnet restricting overall bandwidth from what I've understood. All they do is prioritise so that you aren't sat there wondering why your Skype video chat is st because someone's PS4 is downloading a 40Gb game update and hogging all the bandwidth.

I may move to Plusnet, find it's awful and I hate it. So be it. I'll dry my tears for a year with wad of cash I've saved and then look again in 12 months' time. All the comments I've seen so far though seem to suggest it won't be an issue at all as your overall bandwidth is NEVER reduced - only how it's sliced and diced for your traffic.

Edited by Funk on Thursday 23 February 14:47

[loudlashadjuster]

Funk said:

FWIW, BT's service is genuinely unlimited with no traffic management (which was one of the reasons I went with them in the first place and why I'm being diligent about understanding what other ISPs might do before I sign up).

I was going to chime in to say that while BT don't make a big play of their service being unfiltered/unmanaged I can't say I've noticed any issues in what is nearly six years on Infinity 2.

We're heavy streaming users, up to 4K and multiple devices at a time, and I know I've gone over 1TB/month many times. I guess when you have sufficient bandwidth shaping becomes less of an issue.

As long as you turn off the parental controls and don't use their DNS it's great.

Of course, BT own Plusnet so I would be staggered if the provision was markedly different.

[bing]

SystemParanoia said:

Dont go with Virgin

How comes? I've just signed up to their 100MB thingy!!!

[Funk]

loudlashadjuster said:

Funk said:

FWIW, BT's service is genuinely unlimited with no traffic management (which was one of the reasons I went with them in the first place and why I'm being diligent about understanding what other ISPs might do before I sign up).

I was going to chime in to say that while BT don't make a big play of their service being unfiltered/unmanaged I can't say I've noticed any issues in what is nearly six years on Infinity 2.

We're heavy streaming users, up to 4K and multiple devices at a time, and I know I've gone over 1TB/month many times. I guess when you have sufficient bandwidth shaping becomes less of an issue.

As long as you turn off the parental controls and don't use their DNS it's great.

Of course, BT own Plusnet so I would be staggered if the provision was markedly different.

Yes, i highlighted that irony to the BT person I spoke to!

Fully agree about the parental controls and DNS (which was useless). The annoying thing about the SmartHub 6 is that you can't alter the DNS for all traffic, only on a per-device basis (I set Google's DNS in my network card settings on the laptop and PC). Actually that raises a good point - I need to check that the DNS settings on the SH6 change when I move to Plusnet, I'm assuming it'll pick up that info from them when it connects for the first time...

[PH XKR]

Off topic but I recommend OpenDNS over google as if you can get your hub to assign to all clients it gives you great filtering options and is a good preliminary step against botnets and ransimware (not a cure)

[kowalski655]

Inspired by this thread I had a look at Plusnet as Sky are taking the P by increasing my 1.6mb/s service by £3/m!
But the website keeps taking me round in circles.
is there anyway of finding out who does broadband at my exchange as it isnt properly fibre enabled yet(has been "coming within 6 months" on the Openreach site for 2 years or more!)

[Funk]

PH XKR said:

Off topic but I recommend OpenDNS over google as if you can get your hub to assign to all clients it gives you great filtering options and is a good preliminary step against botnets and ransimware (not a cure)

That would be good if the option to alter it at hub level were possible.

I've been toying with setting up a Pi-hole (I even have one knocking about somewhere) and using that to handle DNS and network-wide ad-blocking.

[tankplanker]

Funk said:

That would be good if the option to alter it at hub level were possible.

I've been toying with setting up a Pi-hole (I even have one knocking about somewhere) and using that to handle DNS and network-wide ad-blocking.

Get a decent router and you can do it direct on the router, or even on your wireless access point if it'll run something like DD-WRT.

[QuartzDad]

kowalski655 said:

is there anyway of finding out who does broadband at my exchange as it isnt properly fibre enabled yet(has been "coming within 6 months" on the Openreach site for 2 years or more!)

https://www.samknows.com/broadband/exchange_search

Example output showing which ISPs have LLU equipment in the exchange:

[Funk]

tankplanker said:

Funk said:

That would be good if the option to alter it at hub level were possible.

I've been toying with setting up a Pi-hole (I even have one knocking about somewhere) and using that to handle DNS and network-wide ad-blocking.

Get a decent router and you can do it direct on the router, or even on your wireless access point if it'll run something like DD-WRT.

I know I should, I almost bought a Billion a while back but never did. It's one of those things you don't really think about until something irks you and it's never irked me enough to want to spend £100 to sort it...

I use uBlock Origin on PC and laptop and they have various anti-malware/virus stuff on. I don't normally use wireless for anything other than my Nexus 7 and I rarely use that since I got my Nexus 6P. The 6P has oodles of 4G allowance and is about twice as fast as my fibre connection (in both directions!) so I never stick it on wifi.

[kowalski655]

Thanks Quartzdad,seems I have ADSL & no one has an LLU
Plusnet can do me normal BB for £27/m, not too bad, and BT dont seems to have a fking clue as to what they are doing re;an upgrade

[Craikeybaby]

bing said:

SystemParanoia said:

Dont go with Virgin

How comes? I've just signed up to their 100MB thingy!!!

Because it will probably be 100Mbps during the day, but when you get home in the evening it will be more like 5Mbps. Or at least that is what mine is at the moment and will be "reviewed" in June.

[mattyn1]

popeyewhite said:

I'm with SKY now, was with BEE. I only have broadband, no tv or phone. Unlimited downloads, no throttling whatsoever. £15 PM.

Another vote here for SKY - it is top notch. As above.

[PH XKR]

Craikeybaby said:

Because it will probably be 100Mbps during the day, but when you get home in the evening it will be more like 5Mbps. Or at least that is what mine is at the moment and will be "reviewed" in June.

This! They used to be faultless but after engineering work, we started to notice huge drops during peak times.

[Craikeybaby]

I have now sacked off Virgin and gone to Plusnet. Advertised speed is the same, so hopefully Plusnet get nearer that speed than Virgin. It's £20p/m cheaper too.

[Funk]

I move over to Plusnet on the 10th.

I didn't do the cashback in the end, I'm reluctant to share too much information online unnecessarily - the £300/yr saving will have to suffice!

[Bikerjon]

Another Plusnet benefit is the slightly better deal you get on cheap sim cards for mobiles. Uses the EE network.

Regarding their fibre broadband, I thought that they did throttle the upload speeds for their 38 product. No restrictions on 76 though.

[maccas99]

I'm another Plusnet advocate. I've had the service for two years now and it's been rock solid. I would say I'm a medium user (500GB+ per month) and I've never noticed any slow down in service. When I have needed to call them, they have been excellent (it was a local issue BTW). I'm on the business package but doubt that makes a difference. Live in the sticks and get 80mb connection which translates to 7/8mbps download speed.

[FiF]

kowalski655 said:

Thanks Quartzdad,seems I have ADSL & no one has an LLU
Plusnet can do me normal BB for £27/m, not too bad, and BT dont seems to have a fking clue as to what they are doing re;an upgrade

As above, at least we do have LLU, but no fibre etc. Echo the clueless BT about any upgrades, yet we are on one of the exchanges specifically named years ago about roll out of improved services. Can understand why we specifically don't have it, but nobody in the town ffs.

As for LLU, Sky or Talk talk, and I wouldn't touch TalkTalk with Russell Brand's.

[SystemParanoia]

Craikeybaby said:

bing said:

SystemParanoia said:

Dont go with Virgin

How comes? I've just signed up to their 100MB thingy!!!

Because it will probably be 100Mbps during the day, but when you get home in the evening it will be more like 5Mbps. Or at least that is what mine is at the moment and will be "reviewed" in June.

5Mbps if you're lucky!!

If your speed falls below 5 it leaves you unable to watch Iplayer in HD.
Guess what i'm unable to watch without planning ahead and pre-downloading

and don't even think about streaming content from multiple sources unless you enjoy minutes worth of buffering on each device.

Also, if you do any moderate uploading ( multiple consoles playing online for example ) they will throttle your upload to almost nothing, less than the nothing it already is!

If you can "get out" ... do it!

Or start predownloading things you want to catch up on using ( https://github.com/get-iplayer/get_iplayer )