Warning to Plusnet Unlimited users

It's becoming apparent that some Plusnet Unlimited users are being caught unaware of the £5 increase in the price of this account. They were notified at the beginning of December in an email, but the price increase was buried in the small print.

A copy of the email can be seen here

It's easy to see how people missed the important information about the price increase (some read the first part and dismissed it as marketing bumf).

We have now had confirmation from Plusnet that the email was written by their marketing department:

In reference to community.plus.net/forum/index.php/topic,91211.msg780535.html#msg78...:

however I can also see why our Marketing department elected to write the email as they did

Typical for a marketing person - concentrate on the marketing aspects and not the important contractual notification of changes affecting the users account!

Edited by jelv (Fri 04-Feb-11 10:58:53)

What the hell were marketing doing writing an email informing existing customers about changes to their accounts?

Quite.

Would the accountants be expected to inform us of great new offers? Of course not. The marketing departments should not be informing customers of billing changes.

This is most likely due to past contractural changes where package prices dropped or speeds increased. From a company perspective it made sense to 'market' the change as a feature/bonus, but rest assured the 'good news' would be in big colourful wording. Why on earth was such an important change buried in small print? Simple. Marketing departments can't sell bad news, so they hide it. Financial departments don't see it as bad news. It's 'just fact', so they print it as such.

Here's the meat of one I got in December:

we're freezing your broadband price until 2012

Your Talk Anytime service will stay at £5 a month too

From January our charge for line rental will change to £11.99 a month.

We'll no longer offer a 25% discount on our call rates to mobiles

off-peak hours are changing to 7pm - 7am.

Call prices are changing too

If you pay your bill by credit or debit card, we're introducing a £1.50 processing fee from 1st February.

Now considering I signed up in October, that one had me blinking a few times.


"Hey...use our products, they're cheaper.

Now that you use our products we're changing things."




Message for Plusnet HR Dept.

Reassign marketing staff to ticket answering (Eleven days unanswered and counting).


Message for Plusnet Marketing Dept. (Mr Rawlins)

Keep churn rates down by satisfying existing customers; not by raising their prices, ignoring their queries, and spamming their e-mail accounts with "Get up to a year of free broadband when you recommend friends."

I'll have precious few friends, given the concerns I raise.

I don't know what people are complaining about!

Compared to the cost to the ISP what you pay is peanuts! I pay as much and only get 60GB a month you can do whatever you want within reason!

Wanna swap!?

Margins are so small for ISPs right now, your free to migrate, although at your peril.

Edited by deleted (Fri 04-Feb-11 15:06:56)

I meant swap unlimited for extra not migrate. I love Plusnet I would never migrate unless the choice was not mine!

Post deleted by billford

No idea. I can only comment on Plusnet sorry

Edited by deleted (Fri 04-Feb-11 17:51:31)

What has this got to do with VM?

Everybody is used to you slagging off Plusnet and they don't take much notice any more, but lay off making insinuations against individuals.

The unlmited product was really good in it's tiime and it is a shame it was made legacy a long time ago BUT the new products do seem better. People used to really download TB's and it was not suprising Plusnet canned. it. The Extra and value prices even at market 1 level are more reasonable.

I joined up Plusnet in 2003 and I started off on £99 a month always on dialup and then 2MB ADSL at £65 a month. Plusnet have never hidden anything from me and even with the unlimited they made the traffic management crystal clear.

It was a question which always came up in briefings. (Traffic management and fair usage policy) and credit to the Comms team they really did iron it all out

I don't make insinuations. I asked if PN were a better employer than Virgin Media. He said,

No idea. I can only comment on Plusnet sorry

link Yet he says

I work in the retentions department at VM so I know this to be the latest information.

. Why would someone deny working for another ISP?

I am not denying anything. I did but not for long as I moved. However my time at plusnet spanned 3 years. I can give you a sum up of VM based on a weeks experience but it would not be very fair on them.

My PN one would be much better and relevant to the current thread

Thanks for that, it was a tad confusing.

If i knew when Bt Infinity was going to be available I'd be off like a shot. For £5 extra i can get up to a 37.5 Mb connection.

In reply to a post by ConorMK:

If i knew when Bt Infinity was going to be available I'd be off like a shot. For £5 extra i can get up to a 37.5 Mb connection.

Yes however when that happens Plusnet will also be given access and you can bet they will come up with a rather good offering.

In reply to a post by docki:

In reply to a post by ConorMK:

If i knew when Bt Infinity was going to be available I'd be off like a shot. For £5 extra i can get up to a 37.5 Mb connection.

Yes however when that happens Plusnet will also be given access and you can bet they will come up with a rather good offering.

It's currently £12 a month extra on Plusnet.

Edited by kasg (Sat 05-Feb-11 21:26:16)

In reply to a post by kasg:

In reply to a post by docki:

In reply to a post by ConorMK:

If i knew when Bt Infinity was going to be available I'd be off like a shot. For £5 extra i can get up to a 37.5 Mb connection.

Yes however when that happens Plusnet will also be given access and you can bet they will come up with a rather good offering.

It's currently £12 a month extra on Plusnet.

Are you on the FTTC trial with Plusnet? That would explain it but you don't get a allowance or shaping.

When it's released properly there will be a wholesale model to base it on

In reply to a post by docki:

When it's released properly there will be a wholesale model to base it on

There is a wholesale model to base it on. That's what the ones in this list use.

Ah I see. Plusnet must be working theirs out then. fair play Roberto!

I think it highly unlikely anyone will be able to compete with the Infinity pricing, though I'm very possibly going to IDNet Fibre Lite or Fibre Plus. That isn't far out once you have paid the setup and got your own (VDSL2/cable )router.

And 12-month contract rather than 18 months.

In reply to a post by docki:

In reply to a post by kasg:

In reply to a post by docki:

... nested quotes trimmed ...

Yes however when that happens Plusnet will also be given access and you can bet they will come up with a rather good offering.

It's currently £12 a month extra on Plusnet.

Are you on the FTTC trial with Plusnet? That would explain it but you don't get a allowance or shaping.

When it's released properly there will be a wholesale model to base it on

No I'm not, scheduled availability here is 31 March but I've seen no activity yet. It's just that Plusnet has already announced that anyone with FTTC available can get it through Plusnet for an extra £12 a month.

Until PlusNet release full details of their FTTC packages in April (there are likely to be specific packages for FTTC, some with higher allowances and all with higher costs), the £12 figure is an interim cost on existing packages until it is all announced. After that you will have to change to a FTTC package to get FTTC.

Also you will need to be on one of Plusnets current products (Value, Extra or Pro) to get FTTC at the moment, tral or otherwise.

The last date to apply for the trial was 25th Jan so if you have not already applied, you can still do so but you will have to pay the additional £12/month cost and also move to Value, Extra or Pro. Those on the trial or already applied will get FTTC on their existing package with no additional cost.

More details on the following 2 plusnet Blog posts

Fibre to the cabinet trial ends soon

Plusnet fibre trials update

I've been on the FTTC trial since June and it's been very reliable and VERY FAST!... and not a DLM in sight

In reply to a post by docki:

I don't know what people are complaining about!

Re-read my post then. It's quite straight forward. The rest of your post makes little sense to me, and has no bearing on my points regarding the market department's handling of billing issues.

When it's released properly there will be a wholesale model to base it on

Are you aware that FTTC is not a trial product from BT Wholesale, it is a live product. Simply that Plusnet are trialling it themselves.

In short the wholesale model already exists, hence why more people than BT Infinity can and have been supplying it for months.

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

Are you aware that FTTC is not a trial product from BT Wholesale, it is a live product. Simply that Plusnet are trialling it themselves.

In short the wholesale model already exists, hence why more people than BT Infinity can and have been supplying it for months.

What interests me is what on earth are they trialling that is taking so long. The only thing I can think of is traffic management!!

I think it's probably to work out what the usage allowances should be and hence how the service should be priced as well as tuning the traffic management.

They got badly burnt on the Max rollout and the 21CN saw a lot higher fault rate as well. I think that also explains their caution this time.

Edited by jelv (Mon 07-Feb-11 14:17:02)

Given that people generally take the same to time to watch/listen/use something regardless of how long it took to get to them, the usage allowances should not change imo. The quality of streams will be the one change I suppose.

All this speed is making me thirsty. There was a time I could start a download and brew up a cuppa. Now I have to sit at the PC cos it's there before I get to the kitchen.

There will be people who currently can't stream YouTube or iPlayer, or can currently only use a low resolution who will now be able to enjoy HD - their usage will obviously rise. But for downloading files I agree with you, when the monthly cost is related to how much you can download there is no logic whatsoever in expecting to be able to download more just because it is faster.

It would be like upgrading from a Fiat 500 to a Porche and expecting to pay less for the fuel it takes to get from London to Manchester just because you can do it quicker - it doesn't work like that!

So your seriously telling me that you object the extra £12 a month but will have a 350GB Limit?
tightfisted ain't the word!

You get what you pay for - you want more pay more simple!

Edited by deleted (Tue 08-Feb-11 13:18:10)

I want less.

I have 60GB usage allowance. Based on PN's pricing, I want to sell 30GB of it for traffic prioritisation and faster upload speeds.

Cool?

In reply to a post by camieabz:

I want less.

I have 60GB usage allowance. Based on PN's pricing, I want to sell 30GB of it for traffic prioritisation and faster upload speeds.

Cool?

If that was possible then yes it would be