Well Done PlusNet

Well done PlusNet for their top award at the ISPA awards.

All the winners here:
http://www.thinkbroadband.com/news/5319-ispa-awards-...
And one villain.

It seems far enough from reality to have been compiled by Labour.
Edited links.
http://www.zen.co.uk/latest-news.aspx?page=11219
http://www.zen.co.uk/latest-news.aspx?page=11319

Edited by professor973 (Wed 04-Jul-12 15:54:13)

In reply to a post by professor973:

It seems far enough from reality to have been compiled by Labour.
https://portal.zen.co.uk/PageLoader.aspx?x=ZinqT%252...

https://portal.zen.co.uk/PageLoader.aspx?x=ZinqT%252...

What's the point of such a strange post, containing two links to Zen logins?

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

What's the point of such a strange post, containing two links to Zen logins?

He'll need to give us his Zen login if we are to view them!

Sorry Your Highness � Forgot I was logged in.
http://www.zen.co.uk/latest-news.aspx?page=11219
http://www.zen.co.uk/latest-news.aspx?page=11319

Here we go again..sigh!.

It is far more appropriate to post your links in the Zen forum, just as it was for the OP to post in this one. This is just stirring....... and up with it I will not put.

You have made your point that you do not like Plusnet...now go and enjoy your internet of choice....and let others do so as well.

Here we go again �Sigh My post is nothing to do with Plusnet OR Zen Broadband. Please do not imply Zen are my choice of Broadband when they are not � Up with that I will not put either. Zen are my line provider. The point of my post, was that I felt it a ridiculous result considering Zen came out top with Which? for a full 13 years, and now with PCadvisor. These results are on a par with every user comment I have read. I have nothing at all against Plusnet Broadband. That does not mean the same applies to their customer services, which is what counts when things go wrong.
Anyway nuff said.

Edited by professor973 (Wed 04-Jul-12 16:42:18)

Over reaction again Don.

I would say well done Plusnet too, we where with AAISP before, we are now paying half as much as we where before, and we are now allowed to use the internet between 9-6.

I for one am glad we made the move

Lisa

In reply to a post by professor973:

Here we go again �Sigh My post is nothing to do with Plusnet........

My point exactly...............you were stirring the pot.

You may note I suggested that you "use your ISP of choice"...whatever that is....but you are the one who posted about Zen, so any implication was provided by yourself.

In reply to a post by professor973:

Anyway nuff said.

Yep!

Well....hello....nice to see you contributing the the debate as usual

Well I notice both of your contributions were over the top. You even managed to make the posts you complained of into something that obviously wasn't intended.

Not to worry, old habits die hard.

I would like to add my congratulations to Plusnet. The customers I recommended are very happy with their service.

In reply to a post by lisaj:

I would say well done Plusnet too, we where with AAISP before, we are now paying half as much as we where before, and we are now allowed to use the internet between 9-6.

I for one am glad we made the move

Actually, I think you chose AAISP without reading what they are actually offering, so you can't really blame them! At the end of the day, you read the contract, the small print, etc yourself so you got yourself to blame, really.

I signed up to AAISP, knowing fully what they are offering. I went with them becuse I use the Internet mostly in the evening & weekend and rarely during the daytime (I use around 1GB a month during daytime), so they worked out much cheaper than others. 50GB between 6pm - 12am during the week, 50GB during the weekends and 1TB between 2am - 6am which works out that I have access to 2TB a month. Wonderful!

So are you holding up two other awards that disagree to say the ISPAs are wrong?
Who is not to say the others are wrong?

Did Zen even enter the ISPAs? Which include a technical testing phase, rather than just a judge of panels as many others do, which can result in an entry with the best written entry winning.

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

So are you holding up two other awards that disagree to say the ISPAs are wrong?
Who is not to say the others are wrong?

Did Zen even enter the ISPAs? Which include a technical testing phase, rather than just a judge of panels as many others do, which can result in an entry with the best written entry winning.

I am just saying that I don't see how PN can be best ISP compared to a top ISP like ZEN that have been top rated by Which? for thirteen years on the trot, and based on actual user opinion.
When it comes to ISP performance ratings, I find ones that reflect what I come across to be more believable. A look here:- http://www.dslzoneuk.net/isp_ratings.php (28,985 actual ratings) will show a Freeola customer rating of 8.88, Zen at 8.80 and Plusnet 6.95 � Just about right in my book. Of course others will disagree, but I am as entitled to my opinion, even if not allowed to express it everywhere.

Edited by professor973 (Thu 05-Jul-12 11:12:25)

Zen did not say they wanted to be technical tested or considered for the award, so thus cannot win. Simplez

Entry process for ISPAs is well publicised on the site.

If you feel an ISP that should have won did not, then take it up with the provider and ask why they did not enter? In Zen's case while they sell consumer services, it is more of a SME/home worker service.

BTW how are the Which awards decided?

BTW how are the Which awards decided?

The survey was based on results of an online survey of nearly 12,000 Which? online panels members about their broadband experiences to find the best providers. The customer satisfaction score (as a percentage) is based on overall satisfaction and their likelihood to recommend the ISP to a friend.

In reply to a post by professor973:

I am just saying that I don't see how PN can be best ISP compared to a top ISP like ZEN that have been top rated by Which? for thirteen years on the trot, and based on actual user opinion.
When it comes to ISP performance ratings, I find ones that reflect what I come across to be more believable. A look here:- http://www.dslzoneuk.net/isp_ratings.php (28,985 actual ratings) will show a Freeola customer rating of 8.88, Zen at 8.80 and Plusnet 6.95 � Just about right in my book. Of course others will disagree, but I am as entitled to my opinion, even if not allowed to express it everywhere.

If costs vs product delivered are included in reviews/opinions, Zen don't come close to many other providers. Their monthly charges are ex-VAT, indicating that they aim for business contracts, rather than residential ones, and as such will have a different ratio of customers which don't use the network in the evenings, and the residential customers they do have will be paying more than double for the same service.

Zen are a good provider, but what can Zen give me that Plusnet cannot?

More uptime? No.
More GB? (100 vs 60, and I use less than 30GB in a month).
Less cost? No.

It is each to their own when it comes to choosing an ISP. Your experiences may have been less than you would have liked, but comparing Zen to Plusnet and trying to equate those comparisons to justify validity for awards is rather pointless.

My personal method? Make a list of your requirements. Make a list of ISPs within the requirements and your budget. Check recent reviews for issues or not. Read the small print of the shortlisted candidates. Post around asking for IPS vs ISP in places such as this forum.

BTW how is the technical testing carried out? And what conclusions can be drawn from such tests?

So a totally different judging system, so to get a different result does not seem surprising.

It is carried out by software that I write.

Looks at areas like download and upload speeds, latency, dns lookup times. This creates the short list that the judging panel then select the winner from.

Those who entered and got through the testing are listed at
http://www.thinkbroadband.com/news/4661-ispa-awards-...

There was a customer choice where consumers could vote, i.e. same as the Which category. Providers had to say they wanted to be in that category. Suprisingly called the Customer Choice Award

Zen are a good provider, but what can Zen give me that Plusnet cannot?

More uptime? No.
More GB? (100 vs 60, and I use less than 30GB in a month).
Less cost? No.

What can Zen give me that Plusnet Cannot?

No connection charge? Yes
Per Second billing? Yes
Cheaper £13.50 line rental? Yes
Daytime calls 1.5p including VAT? Yes
Evening & Weekend Calls 1p Including VAT? Yes
Good Customer Service? Yes

Judging by your answer, I assume didn't even register that I only have line & calls with them. Ideal if you don't make many outgoing calls

Interesting, thanks for that.

In reply to a post by GeorgeLloyd:

Well done PlusNet for their top award at the ISPA awards.

Thanks

Rgds,

In reply to a post by camieabz:

If costs vs product delivered are included in reviews/opinions, Zen don't come close to many other providers. Their monthly charges are ex-VAT, indicating that they aim for business contracts, rather than residential ones ....

Try the Home & Home Office page .

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

It is carried out by software that I write.

So, does that mean this is basically a TBB award? If so, it would match the heavy bias toward PN I encounter here compared with other sites.

Looks at areas like download and upload speeds, latency, dns lookup times. This creates the short list that the judging panel then select the winner from.

Ah, latency. Now that is an area in which Plusnet really excel.
http://speedtest.net/result/2040908705.png

And PN Business.

Ah, latency. Now that is an area in which Plusnet really excel.
http://speedtest.net/result/2040908705.png

I'm not sure what a single, out of context, speedtest result shows? The user could have had a fault, the latency could be on their side of the connection, the speedtest server could be struggling, it might have been after an MSO or outage when we were out of balance etc?

BTW we're also recommended by Which? Albeit not 13 times over 8 years like Zen have.

In reply to a post by professor973:

What can Zen give me that Plusnet Cannot?

No connection charge? Yes
Per Second billing? Yes
Cheaper £13.50 line rental? Yes
Daytime calls 1.5p including VAT? Yes
Evening & Weekend Calls 1p Including VAT? Yes
Good Customer Service? Yes

Judging by your answer, I assume didn't even register that I only have line & calls with them. Ideal if you don't make many outgoing calls

No connection charge when I signed up.

Not sure what "Per second billing" means.

Daytime calls - Free
Evening calls - Free
£12.99 line rental / £3.50 call plan / £0.99 call features
Good customer service? If you speak to the right people, and in the right way, yes. Some of the front line folk are way behind in techie jargon compared to the faults team.

I thought we were discussing broadband only, hence why I refered to just broadband. Like I said already, each to their own, but Zen's broadband prices do not compete with most residential broadband providers' prices.

By connection charge, I was referring to the rip off B.T. style connection charge made for each chargeable call made. As for broadband connection charge, I had to pay £30 odd pounds if I remember correctly and provide my own router, along with taking phone services as well to avoid a Plusnet tie-in.
By per-second billing, I mean that a 5 second call with Zen is charged as 5 seconds of 1p per minute. A 5 second chargeable call with Plusnet would be billed at a full minute along with the connection charge. End result � calls around 80% cheaper.
The £3.50 PN anytime calls charge would buy 230 odd daytime and 350 evening & weekend Zen minutes with no connection charge. A no-brainer for those that don't make many calls.
Nearly forgot, PN line rental on Market 1 is £17.99, another big saving here.

Edited by professor973 (Thu 05-Jul-12 13:51:38)

You are entitled to that opinion, but as I will point out again

The technical testing just creates a shortlist, the judging panel decides the winner, and it is equal voting rights amongst the judges http://www.ispa.org.uk/ispa-awards/judges/

So in your opinion who should have won out of the shortlisted five
BE Broadband
KC Home
O2 Home
Plusnet
Virgin Media

In reply to a post by professor973:

Nearly forgot, PN line rental on Market 1 is £17.99, another big saving here.

Market area differentiation only affects Broadband costs, we charge the same (£12.99) for line rental no matter what your market area is.

In reply to a post by orbrey:

In reply to a post by professor973:

Nearly forgot, PN line rental on Market 1 is £17.99, another big saving here.

Market area differentiation only affects Broadband costs, we charge the same (£12.99) for line rental no matter what your market area is.

Sorry, My mistake � Self flagellation underway. Though to be fair, detailing line rental as 'Talk Anytime Charge' with Talk Anytime then labelled as 'Calling Plan' on the PN bill is rather chaotic.

Edited by professor973 (Thu 05-Jul-12 14:44:02)

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

You are entitled to that opinion, but as I will point out again

The technical testing just creates a shortlist, the judging panel decides the winner, and it is equal voting rights amongst the judges http://www.ispa.org.uk/ispa-awards/judges/

So in your opinion who should have won out of the shortlisted five
BE Broadband
KC Home
O2 Home
Plusnet
Virgin Media

The best opinion I can come to is probably none of them. I should state I have experience of no more than PN from that selection, but like most, I have read the groans of many that state 'This one is going downhill' or 'That one is not what it was'. So we are treading a minefield really, with all of us at the mercy of B.T in one form or another. Despite all the B.T, knockers, they are falling over themselves to sign up to Infinity of a ridiculous speed that is not needed. Personally, so long as they have a silly 18 month tie-in and call connection charges they can whistle. All that matters in my book is customer service, as even the cheap and cheerful can deliver reasonably reliable Broadband, which brings us full circle to the likes of Zen & Freeola that seem to have many happy customers.

Am I missing something?

The cheapest Freeola broadband seems to be ADSL2+ at £19.99pm for 40GB peak allowance. I've been on Plusnet FTTC 40GB peak allowance for £16.49pm since mid-February. Admittedly with an 18-month minimum term, which (after signing up) Sales told me has a getout at £4 per outstanding month.

The shocking PN CS you describe also includes an unrequested offer of the 80/20 trial at no extra cost, with no extension of my original term, and with the option to revert to my contractual 40/2 service if I don't wish to pay more when 80/20 becomes a standard PN product, if that is at a higher price. I of course accepted.

There was a bit of a mix-up between my original sign-up to 40/2 and going live, to do with engineer visit requirements on an FTTC >> FTTC migration. This was clearly caused by dodgy Openreach systems sending duff messages to PN, which commendably triggered automatic messages to me. This caused me stress at a time I really didn't need it.

My several agitated phone calls to CS were handled faultlessly. After the migration I received a free month as compensation, without asking for that either. The CS on that were and probably still are completely unaware of my involvement here. The 80/20 offer was as a result of this post - note the "tongued" mutter about the 2Mbps upload.

All seems very rosy and hunky-dory to me .

Edited by RobertoS (Thu 05-Jul-12 15:42:04)

In reply to a post by professor973:

All that matters in my book is customer service, as even the cheap and cheerful can deliver reasonably reliable Broadband, which brings us full circle to the likes of Zen & Freeola that seem to have many happy customers.

So by that statement I assume that as this is the Plusnet forum you are inferring that they have many unhappy customers, can you point this out as it appears to conflict with the survey this thread is about.

All ISP's will have the occasional customer that is unhappy for whatever reason with their service even Zen and Freelola but they will have many thousands that support them and are quite happy with the package they supply and with their customer support and service.

You could well be missing the un-metered running from 7.00pm weekdays and covering ALL weekend, along with free hosting amongst many freebies. No need to sit up till midnight download, watch a movie or iPlayer. very user friendly and well worth the money in my book. Of course others may choose by rock bottom price and put up with restrictions, but it is up to them, while we have some choice left in this mad world, best we use it or lose it!

So by that statement I assume that as this is the Plusnet forum you are inferring that they have many unhappy customers, can you point this out as it appears to conflict with the survey this thread is about.

http://www.dslzoneuk.net/isp_ratings_comments.php?isp=1
More bad than good here � Enough to call many.
http://www.broadbandgenie.co.uk/broadband/review/plu...

All ISP's will have the occasional customer that is unhappy for whatever reason with their service even Zen and Freelola but they will have many thousands that support them and are quite happy with the package they supply and with their customer support and service.

I realise all of the above and have stated so many times, but what I find hard to fathom, is the almost fanatical support for Plusnet on TBB compared to other sites. The seem like many, no more than a mediocre setup to me. Cheap, but with some poor customer service. That is as I have stated previously with the notable exception of the few PN staff that drop in here who actually seem up to speed.

Edited by professor973 (Thu 05-Jul-12 16:25:04)

In reply to a post by hypertony:

In reply to a post by lisaj:

I would say well done Plusnet too, we where with AAISP before, we are now paying half as much as we where before, and we are now allowed to use the internet between 9-6.

I for one am glad we made the move

Actually, I think you chose AAISP without reading what they are actually offering, so you can't really blame them! At the end of the day, you read the contract, the small print, etc yourself so you got yourself to blame, really.

I signed up to AAISP, knowing fully what they are offering. I went with them becuse I use the Internet mostly in the evening & weekend and rarely during the daytime (I use around 1GB a month during daytime), so they worked out much cheaper than others. 50GB between 6pm - 12am during the week, 50GB during the weekends and 1TB between 2am - 6am which works out that I have access to 2TB a month. Wonderful!

Ahem, bit of a judgement there! I knew exactly what we where signing up to, it's just that as we worked more and more from home the daytime issue became a problem.

I stayed with them purely because there service was so good, but then they started reducing the unit values, from 100GB offpeak to 50GB offpeak, and I wanted to pay less money per month. I looked for ages at Plusnet before making the move, and eventually did, my monthly bill was halved and I have no worries about working from home now, I could have done with AAISP but my monthly charge would have been horrific.

Just looked at AAISP for old times sake and what I currently have on Plusnet 120GB peak and unlimited off peak £21.49, using 25GB over a month during the day would cost me over £51, and between 12-8am I could download as much as my line could handle.

Never make assumptions about other people.