I'm hoping someone from Telecom may be reading this who can help me, but I'm also interested to find out if anyone else is experiencing what I am.

I have the Telecom Business 60GB account. I work from home, and part of my work includes Internet broadcasting to a US server, using Shoutcast technology. I have been doing this for some months without incident. The stream is a 128 KBPS stream, which consumes about 15 KB per second, something readily achievable on my connection.

I was absent for a couple of weeks at the beginning of July, during which time new technology was introduced by Telecom to accommodate the Big Time plan.

The port I send on is port 7876.  Last Monday 20 July, I broadcast my usual stream, which is scheduled to run from 8 AM until 11 AM. The first hour streamed perfectly. However, at exactly 9 AM, my connection to the server deteriorated suddenly, to the point that I was unable to achieve the throughput necessary to maintain the stream.

At the time, I attributed this to a temporary international outage and thought nothing of it. However, on Sunday 26 July, I sent a test stream to the server, only to find that the problem was persisting.

At this point, I contacted Telecom who had me do a traceroute. Ping times back from the server were about 216 ms, which seemed acceptable to me.

I must emphasise here that all other international traffic has been perfectly acceptable given my ADSL sync rate. I have had no problems with numerous FTP and HTTP transfers of fairly large files.

Because revenue would be affected for my company if I were not to deliver the show I am contracted to do, I pulled an all-nighter to pre-record the stream, since sending via FTP is no problem. When I checked at 11 PM on Sunday night, the problem was persisting. However, when I checked again at 3 AM after completing the show, I was surprised to find that I once again could maintain the stream perfectly.

Testing yesterday however demonstrated that after 9 AM, the connection was so bad that I once again could not maintain the stream.

This morning, Tuesday 28 July, I found, yet again, that the stream was fine until 9 AM. That is to say that at exactly 9 AM, the connection deteriorated once again.

I have tried with a different router, and even a different PC, and Telecom has already performed a port reset.

When it comes to technology, I don't believe in coincidences. I find it curious that Big Time, which shapes traffic from 9 AM to 2 AM, has been introduced, and I am now experiencing issues sending data to this server on port 7876, when other international traffic is working at expected levels. I can appreciate that my 60GB account should not be impacted by Big Time, other than perhaps with high downloaders moving to another pool, the impact should be positive. But the data is very consistent.

Somehow, my connection to this port is being managed between specific hours.

I conducted a Traceroute on the server when the connection to port 7876 was adequate, and when it was not. There was no appreciable difference.

I've been extremely impressed with the service I've received since somewhat sceptically coming back to Telecom last year, but in this case I am finding it hard to get past the front line, who are confused by what I am telling them.

Would appreciate any suggestions, especially from Telecom folks here.