Pipex has given its broadband punters just two weeks to rein back their net usage or face having their connection "traffic managed" during peak times.

The ISP - which has more than 215,000 broadband users - sent out emails last week telling users of its plans to "manage our network during the busiest periods and to provide a fair service".

While this will not affect the vast majority of its users, the ISP acknowledges that fewer than one per cent (around 1,500 people) could have their service "managed".

It's given the worst bandwidth hogs a fortnight to clean up their act. If they fail to make the necessary changes then Pipex plans to introduce "traffic managing for the tiny minority of customers who have the greatest detrimental effect on other users of the network".

In practical terms, Pipex wants these users to "simply schedule prolonged, large scale downloading activity to off-peak hours, when other customers are less likely to be using the network".

In a statement Pipex told us that the changes were "absolutely necessary to help us meet the challenge of managing our network during peak periods".

"The reason that we've had to implement traffic management is that a very small percentage of heavy users were having an extremely detrimental effect on other customers' connections.

"We have notified these heavy users and given them the opportunity to adjust their usage pattern to the shared nature of ADSL broadband. If they do not adapt their usage, their connections are subsequently traffic managed," it said. ®