Not impressed ...

Switched to plusnet just a few days ago, having seen so many excellent reports on forums and Which. BB with phone, the unlimited version, but not on fibre. We have a desktop on ethernet (using vista) , a laptop on wireless (using Win8), and an ipad.

Have to say that I'm disappointed. Occasional drop outs, mainly on the wireless devices. Didn't have this prob before. Have been spending too much time talking with plusnet (or waiting to do so) - five calls so far. After carrying out the various plusnet suggestions, we are currently awaiting a replacement tg582n.

Flagged it up here for you.

IME, the TG582n is useless. I've binned it - the ADSL sync was good, but no devices could connect wirelessly (4 laptops, 2 iPads, 2 iPhones) and wired devices that had fixed IP addresses could not be accessed within the LAN side of the network.

Does everything run OK on your ethernet-connected desktop? You get reasonable speeds on that machine?

If so, then presumably your problems are with the wireless capabilities of the TG582n. If you look through this board and Plusnet's own forum you will find a lot of customers complaining about the wireless performance of this router. It seems to perform OK for some users (including in Plusnet's recent testing of a number of boxes, some of which had been returned by unhappy customers), and not at all well for a lot of other users (including me).

My own theory is that this product does not perform well under difficult radio conditions (multi-path, co-channel and adjacent channel interference).

My own solution was to replace the TG582n with an Asus router, which has the best wifi performance I've yet seen on a domestic product. I'm using the RT-N66U, but I'm on FTTC. The DSL-N55U is the closest equivalent with a built-in ADSL modem. Not cheap though. Reviewed on TBB here.

So if your problems can be narrowed down to wifi performance, it's worth considering replacing the TG582n with your own router.

If you have a router that you used with your previous supplier why not use your PlusNet ID / PW with that and switch to it rather than the plusNet supplied router?

Really sorry to hear about this ArthurDent. I'm happy to take the reins for you. Can you give me a ticket ID/username or another means of identifying your account?

Adam

would have been handy to have had a more specific subject line - not impressed with wireless on TG...

Because, brightd, plusnet informed me that our homehub (the curvy one) wasn't compatible.

Sadly, I can't say the ethernet has been totally trouble free.

But I'm grateful for thoughts here on the plusnet forum re Asus and Billion. Had hardly expected to cough up £100 for a router. More than any saving against the old bt contract!

Watch this space ...

In reply to a post by ArthurDent:

our homehub (the curvy one) wasn't compatible.

If that's a 2.0 then it will work OK with PlusNet.

Hmmm. Thank you. Being an innocent in such matters I enquired of plusnet, and I was specifically told that it was locked to bt.

Have you given Adam (PN) the details so he can have a look for you?

It's definitely not locked to BT as I've used one in the past with Plusnet (and the newer v3 Hub for that matter) and my parents are currently using one.

No modifications needed to get the v2 Hub working - simply entered my Plusnet Username/Password.

In reply to a post by ArthurDent:

Hmmm. Thank you. Being an innocent in such matters I enquired of plusnet, and I was specifically told that it was locked to bt.

I suppose it's difficult for every Plusnet person to be familiar with every model of home hub. Some of the earlier home hubs required a bit of faffing around to get to work work on another ISP, doable, but you couldn't just change the user name.

It does appear, does it not, from posts on the plusnet forum, that an excellent company is badly let down by its choice of router?

Yup, have sent a long PN (in fact two) but appreciate that Adam will prob want to wait to hear results from replacement router.

I'm sure he get it sorted eventually

I got a TG582n router when I moved from Value to Unlimited and am not overly impressed with it!

Perhaps the guy I spoke with had sussed (not too difficult) that I'm not, and have no wish to be, a techie. Therefore thought that I would run into niggly probs which plusnet would prefer not to inherit - so considered it prudent to say that bt homehub 3 wasn't compatible.
Foolishly, I've already sent it to landfill anyway.

In reply to a post by ArthurDent:

Foolishly, I've already sent it to landfill anyway.

You surprise me - I've always kept old routers as spares or to give away. It's not even legal to send them to landfill, they have to go to an electrical recycling point!

Edited by kasg (Thu 21-Feb-13 16:40:56)

'... they have to go to an electrical recycling point ...'

You mean to landfill in Africa?

Edited by deleted (Thu 21-Feb-13 17:25:39)

Yup, I've got drawers full of cables, adapters and numerous other assorted obsolescent large and small odds and sods - to the extent that something's got to give, e.g. a power supply, disk drive, you name it.

But doubtless you have more space than I have.

In reply to a post by ArthurDent:

But doubtless you have more space than I have.

I doubt my wife would agree

No need to wait, we all know what the result will be! The wireless 'capability' (a most inappropriate term) of the TG582 is well known. The only way I've ever seen a satisfactory resolution is by people using their own (e.g. a HH3).

I was optimistic, for once, but should have known better!

Received and installed the replacement router sent to me by the good guys at pn about ten days ago. No probs whatsoever until just now. Ethernet desktop running fine but wifi laptop and ipad suddenly deceased. Hit the black button on the back of the router, waited, then resuscitated it ok. I trust this is a one off. Otherwise it looks as if this tg582n router will also be going in the skip.

Any thoughts from you experienced folks, please, about using a TP-Link TD-W8968 for non-fibre (annoyingly that would mean spending an unbudgeted £32 at Amazon) ?

Why on earth does pn persist in supplying the tg582n router which, from numerous posts here and on plusnet's own forum, is clearly substandard? Perhaps they've got a warehouse full of the damn things?

They ain't doing themselves any favours.

I expect they use a company to do this for them, The main UK importer of TG, formerly Thompson Speedtouch provides a service that handles sending out routers for ISPs that many of them use. They have been doing it since the days of the speedtouch USB modems and it means that they don't have to deal with the hardware.

We tried to convince many ISPs to send out our filters to their customers so that they would get fewer technical issues with sub standard filters but very few took up the idea preferring instead to leave it all to the hardware fulfilment company.

Yes GD, that figures.

When I returned the previous one, using the bag that came with the replacement, the address didn't mention pn. I had a feeling it was going back to bt, which wouldn't have been surprising.