Traffic management

We want all our customers to enjoy the best possible broadband experience and have made a commitment to make traffic management easier to understand.

Below is information about KCOM traffic management policies across both current and legacy consumer broadband products.

Section 1: Traffic management in relation to your broadband product*

(not including during busy times and places to manage network congestion see Section 2)

USE AND AVAILABILITY OF SERVICES, CONTENT, APPLICATION AND PROTOCOLS ON THIS PRODUCT

DATA CAPS AND DOWNLOAD LIMITS

Section 2: Traffic management to optimise network utilisation

(what happens during busy times and places in addition to traffic management as described in section 1)

Is traffic management used during peak hours? No***
When are typical peak hours? Monday - Friday 6pm until Midnight; Weekends - no set peak hours

What type of traffic is managed during these periods?****

Is traffic management used to manage congestion in particular locations? No
If so how? n/a

*note Gaming updates and software downloads may be allocated a pre-determined level of bandwidth, network wide, to ensure that high demand for this type of traffic does not impact other traffic types.

The information set out in Sections 1 and 2 of this policy also applies to our other legacy broadband products. Please contact us for details of speeds and any applicable download limits if your product is not listed above.

Glossary

Traffic management:

Traffic management is the term used to describe a range of technical practices undertaken to manage traffic across networks.

The different outcomes achieved by the use of technical practices can include:

• The prioritisation of certain types of traffic in busy times or busy areas to ensure that it is of an adequate quality
• The slowing down of certain traffic types that are not time-critical at busy times or busy places
• Ensuring compliance with a consumer’s contract, for example slowing down of traffic for the heaviest users
• Supporting the delivery of managed services, for example to ensure a guaranteed quality of service for a specific piece of content

Managed services: The majority of internet traffic is delivered on a “best efforts” basis. A managed service, on the other hand is one whereby an ISP offers “quality of service” that can guarantee a certain level of performance, so that the content, service or application can be delivered without risk of degradation from network congestion. Such a quality of service arrangement can be made between an ISP and a content or service provider or directly between an ISP and the consumer.

Best Efforts: This phrase relates to the delivery of internet traffic where traffic management is applied without distinctions based on the source of that traffic.

Slowed down: This outcome is achieved by the deployment of technologies that can decrease the priority of traffic types deemed to be non-time critical on the network e.g. slowing down traffic such as downloads during busy times and busy periods.

Prioritised: This outcome is achieved by the deployment of technologies that increase the priority given to certain traffic types, e.g. time-critical traffic such as video. This outcome can also be achieved as a consequence of slowing down other selected traffic which reduces the overall data flow on the network.

Heavy users: Heavy users can cause peak traffic volumes to exceed the engineered maximum load. In practice this refers to a very small proportion of users of a network whose use is excessive to the extent that it impacts on other users.

For information from Ofcom on Traffic Management, visit https://www.ofcom.org.uk/phones-telecoms-and-internet/advice-for-consumers/advice/internet-traffic-management

* This KFI gives an overview of typical traffic management practices undertaken on this product; it does not cover circumstances where exceptional external events may impact on network congestion levels.
**This excludes any service, content, application or protocol that an ISP is required to block by UK law and child abuse images as informed by the list provided by the Internet Watch Foundation.
***KCOM does traffic manage during extremely busy periods. This is on a network level.
****If no entry is shown against a particular traffic type, no traffic management is typically applied to it, though overall network management rules shall apply.