**This update should be read in context with the post here that explains why some customers may be seeing drastically reduced broadband speeds this evening - http://usertools.plus.net/status/archive/1259093450.htm **

This is an update to last week's post about the ongoing speed and performance problems some of our customers are experiencing when the network is busy, a copy of the last announcement can be seen here - http://usertools.plus.net/status/archive/1258744391.htm

A summary of the recent problems can also be seen on our website here - http://www.plus.net/support/network_update.shtml

After switching back to 'Plan A' operation on Friday, the performance of the network has in most cases been notably better - http://www.plus.net/support/broadband/quality_broadband/load.shtml

We will remain under normal 'Plan A' operation until further notice.

The network was well balanced over the weekend, however a problem following some maintenance on pcl-ag02 yesterday afternoon spoilt this and took the network back out of balance. This will have caused slow speeds last night for some customers however the network has been brought back into balance today.

This morning we made some changes to our traffic management platform aimed at improving the responsiveness of web browsing where images on the site are hosted by the popular Content Distribution Networks, Akamai and Limelight Networks - http://www.plus.net/support/broadband/quality_broadband/download_servers.shtml
This change has been applied to the following account types and if successful will be introduced across all accounts.

Broadband Unlimited
Broadband Premier
Broadband Premium
Broadband Your Way Option 3
Broadband Your Way Option 4

We are continuing to investigate reports from customers who are experiencing what appear to be DNS lookup failures. The symptoms of this will be 'Page can't be displayed' or DNS errors trying to browse to certain websites or servers, which then seem to work fine seconds/minutes later.

Whilst things are definitely better now when compared to recent weeks, there is still the potential for your connection to become slower than normal when things get busy. There is further maintenance work and fixes due to be rolled out over the coming weeks:

- Upgrade the software used by our 'gateways' to increase stability and minimise the potential for 'pipe drops' - we expect the software to be delivered ready for deployment later this week.
- Replace some of the line cards used by our core routers with more modern versions. This will remove some of the low level packet loss that we've been seeing when the network is at its busiest.
- Upgrade the load balancers at our London data centres to reduce the risk of DNS timeouts when the network is busy. We haven't had the parts delivered for this yet however we're planning to have the work complete within the next fortnight.
- We're scheduled to increase the central bandwidth available on both the 20CN and 21CN networks at some point next week.

We appreciate your patience and apologise for the problems over recent weeks.

Kind Regards,

Bob Pullen
Customer Support