Throttling on Unlimited Plan

[anjali21]

I have been doing a backup of all my old photos and videos. This is a one off massive upload that has been happening over a few days. I have been told that my NBN connection has been throttled, on an unlimited plan, due the 100% utilisation of the upload speed that I have paid for.

This is acceptable use, it is not commercial use or illegal torrenting, and I don't appreciate being questioned about the validity of my internet usage. 

I called TPG and the connection had to be reset manually on the NBN box in my home, and the connection is no longer being throttled. I would like a guarantee that I can continue my uploads at 1Mbps, which is the upload speed of my unlimited plan. Also, I would like to know what the built-in limit is on uploads if you plan on defending this artificial limitation.

These are the solutions I am not interested in:

- Paying for a higher upload speed. I do not want a better speed, the speed of 1Mbps is fine.

- Limiting the upload speed on my end. I have paid for unlimited at 1Mbps, and I am not interested in limiting it.

- Discontinuing my use of cloud storage services.

Fault Ticket #7774294

[MarN]

Hi anjali21,

Your NBN service was not throttled. The internet sessions dropped out because the upstream speed already exceeded the 1 Mbps limit of your plan.

Since you are using your own router, you can set the QOS to less than 1 Mbps (your downstream speed will significantly slow down if you utilize 100% of the upstream speed for uploading files) to ensure the upstream rate is not exceeded.

You may also limit the number of files that will be uploaded simultaneously to better manage the upstream rate, or create a compressed container (i.e ZIP file) for a set number of files so that it will be uploaded as just one file.

[anjali21]

My download speed was at 0.09Mbps, and upload speed at 0.11Mbps, with ping of 241ms. The connection was not using the closest tower, but instead intentionally used a tower farther away to reduce internet speeds. Bandwidth throttling is the intentional slowing of Internet service by an Internet service provider, and that is what I was told happened over the phone. 

I see no evidence that I exceeded the speed of 1Mbps, and you have said that using 100% of the upload speed of my plan is still a problem. I don't see why that is the case if that is the speed that is in the contract. I hav limited my uploads to 125KB/s, and I would like assurance that my connection will not be intentionally altered because of this.

I would like an answer to the question of what is the criteria of the built-in program to detect usage and reduce download and upload speeds.

[MarN · Accepted solution]

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using 100% of the upload speed of my plan is still a problem. I don't see why that is the case

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This article explains why it is not adviseable to use 100% of the upstream rate for uploads.

http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r24572530-ADSL-why-does-uploading-kill-my-downloading-speed

NBN sets a user upload limit to 1Mbps (for your plan) and resets the session if the line is over-utilizing the upload (PIR).

Peak Information Rate (PIR) is defined as the maximum data throughput that may be delivered by the NBN Network. Traffic that exceeds the PIR will be discarded by NBN Co Network. PIR is fixed and cannot be modified unless we upgrade the plan to a higher one depending on your internet needs.

[theexecutioner]

Refering first to your link regarding bandwidth saturation and consequently slower apparent downstream speeds - yep, I agree that this is a fair point, and a concept people need to understand before complaining about download speeds during times that they are saturating their upload bandwidth.

What interested me more in the explaination is that NBN Co is resetting "... the session if the line is over-utilizing the upload (PIR)..." and that "... Traffic that exceeds the PIR will be discarded by NBN Co Network...".

If true - I'm at a loss here to understand why NBN Co is using what (frankly) is a Darwinian method of traffic shaping. I can understand why they would need to do this for certain types of packets (UDP for example, where traffic cannot be fully managed between the endpoints). For TCP packets though - why would they not implement a decent strategy combining TCP/IP flow control with limited queuing - using built in capability within the protocol to slow things down without dropping packets?

Could you provide an explaination of what you mean by 'session reset' too please - are you saying they actually drop the connection - do a full reset on the connection? Or do they just begin to drop packets in excess of PIR limits? The latter is a university solution to a problem, and to be condemned ... the former is completely unacceptable and should be brought to the attention of the ombudsman IMO.

Thx.

For anyone curious - this article does a decent job at a laymans explaination.

[youcantry]

Did you ever get a satisfactory response to this? Two years on and I'm in your boat. First month of NBN and quite frankly our ADSL before this was no slower and never throttled.

[Ahra_G]

Hi @youcantry, 

Welcome to the Community! 

I've managed to locate your account using your Community details and it appears that the issue has now been raised to our Engineering team for further investigation. 

An update should be provided within the next 24hrs. 

Should you have further queries, please don't hesitate to let us know.

Thanks!