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Traffic Prioritisation

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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
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 priortisation in real-time and what would happen if a data-intensive application like Peer-to-Peer was allowed to saturate our network, by checking our broadband usage graph.

For more detailed information about how manage our network please read these articles:

Read the PlusNet Broadband 'Blueprint'
See PlusNet's Future of Traffic Management
Managing our Network Under Abnormal Load

How do we manage traffic on our network?

Different types of traffic have a different priority at all times on our network, with time-sensitive applications such as gaming and VoIP having the highest priority. This table below shows you how we manage our network in general.

Network Traffic Priority Level	Activities and Traffic
Platinum	Paid for priority services, e.g. video-on-demand content
Titanium	Time critical traffic: e.g. VoIP and gaming
Gold	Priority non-time critical traffic: e.g. surfing, email and streaming media
Silver	Non-time critical traffic: e.g. file downloads, P2P, Binary USENET and FTP traffic for Broadband Your Way customers
Bronze	Non-time critical traffic: e.g. file downloads, P2P, Binary USENET and FTP traffic for Broadband Your Way options and other accounts when restrictions apply.

Think of it this way, the broadband network is like a motorway. When the traffic is light, all vehicles can move at the national speed-limit. Some lanes of the motorway have been reserved for important traffic, such as buses or emergency vehicles. During rush hour, most vehicles are forced to slow down. However, the traffic on the reserved lanes can continue to travel at their full speed.

How Broadband Your Way traffic is prioritised

Activity	Broadband Your Way Option 1	Broadband Your Way Option 2	Broadband Your Way Option 3	Broadband Your Way Option 4	Broadband Your Way Pro
Browsing	Gold	Gold	Gold	Gold	Gold
Email	Gold	Gold	Gold	Gold	Gold
VoIP	Titanium	Titanium	Titanium	Titanium	Titanium
Gaming	Gold	Titanium	Titanium	Titanium	Titanium
Streaming	Gold	Gold	Gold	Gold	Gold
VPN	Bronze	Gold	Gold	Gold	Gold
PlusNet FTP	Gold	Gold	Gold	Gold	Gold
External FTP	Gold	Gold	Gold	Gold	Gold
Download sites	Gold	Gold	Gold	Gold	Gold
Download servers	Gold	Gold	Gold	Gold	Gold
Peer-to-Peer	Bronze	Bronze	Silver	Silver	Gold
Binary USENET	Bronze	Bronze	Silver	Silver	Gold
Other	Silver	Silver	Silver	Silver	Gold

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