Considering Fibre... is PN a wise choice ?

Hi, my first post.
Like many people on BE, we're in need of a good replacement ISP now that Sky have done the deal (well nearly done the deal anyway).

Thinking that now would be a good time to jump to fibre (yes, the local cabinet's in place).
Never wanted to leave Be as they've been excellent over the years, but heh.

My main concerns with any provider (especially one reselling BT wholesale products), is that I get little (if any) traffic shaping. Yes, I know the necessity to some degree, but don't want to have to jump ship again shortly after joining a new ISP.

I'm particularly interested in real-world speeds when using Usenet. Do PN throttle at certain times (they mention a Bronze level of priority for P2P and Usenet). Whilst I understand this may give higher priority to people streaming iPlayer... what about customers that don't ?

Also, is it possible to place whatever modem PN supply on their Unlimited Fibre product, into Bridge Mode?
I use a separate dedicated router.

Whilst I'm being pretty specific on my requirements, we don't actually DL masses each month, we just want a good balanced speed at all times.

It sounds like PN have a good reputation for Support and Customer services, but I'm nervous about the whole Openwound involvement.

Thanks all for any info.

Ps. Better still... who do people recommend for excellent Support and non-traffic management when looking at Fibre ISP's ?

Edited by deleted (Tue 09-Apr-13 18:57:24)

On FTTC from any ISP you are supplied with an Openreach modem brought and installed by the Openreach engineer who does the switch from ADSLx. This has a single (active) ethernet output which has to go into a WAN input on your router. As far as Openreach are concerned, only their modem is approved for the VDSL2 connection.

If your router has such an input option then you have no problem. Just plug in. If it doesn't have such an option then I don't know the full capabilities of the WAN-adapted 582n router that Plusnet will supply free on payment of P & P, in terms of adding a secondary router in the way that is often done on ADSLx without bridging. You don't have to have the Plusnet router.

In reply to a post by TimsterRS4:

I'm particularly interested in real-world speeds when using Usenet. Do PN throttle at certain times (they mention a Bronze level of priority for P2P and Usenet). Whilst I understand this may give higher priority to people streaming iPlayer... what about customers that don't ?

There's been lots posted about this in this forum recently, e.g. this, if all you are doing is P2P or Usenet it will run at full speed at all times on the Unlimited product and on the Essentials product it's speed-limited for two hours in the evening.

In reply to a post by TimsterRS4:

Ps. Better still... who do people recommend for excellent Support and non-traffic management when looking at Fibre ISP's ?

Well, Plusnet obviously because I'm on it and have found the support generally to be excellent, but there is traffic management - see the post I linked to, but this is A Good Thing and is not the same as throttling.

Ah excellent. Thanks for the reply Robert.
So the Openreach kit is purely a modem then. That's just what I wanted to hear.

I suppose I can find this out myself if I dig deep enough, but do PN offer static ips on their domestic products and less-than 12 month contracts ?

I'm thinking of keeping my phone line with BT as it gives me some easier migration routes "back out", if I need.
At least that used to be the case. (don't want to bundle everything with one ISP and find myself stitched-up if it all goes pear shaped)

Thanks also for your excellent website, which I was perusing earlier. A great resource.

In reply to a post by kasg:

In reply to a post by TimsterRS4:

I'm particularly interested in real-world speeds when using Usenet. Do PN throttle at certain times (they mention a Bronze level of priority for P2P and Usenet). Whilst I understand this may give higher priority to people streaming iPlayer... what about customers that don't ?

There's been lots posted about this in this forum recently, e.g. this, if all you are doing is P2P or Usenet it will run at full speed at all times on the Unlimited product and on the Essentials product it's speed-limited for two hours in the evening.

In reply to a post by TimsterRS4:

Ps. Better still... who do people recommend for excellent Support and non-traffic management when looking at Fibre ISP's ?

Well, Plusnet obviously because I'm on it and have found the support generally to be excellent, but there is traffic management - see the post I linked to, but this is A Good Thing and is not the same as throttling.

Thanks. Yes I'd read the PN policy (hence my comment about the Bronze priority). It all makes perfect sense "on paper".. was just interested to hear peoples real-world experience.

A static IP is available for a one off charge of £5.

I don't believe any ISP will do less than 12 months FTTC due to upper contracts with OpenReach.

In reply to a post by TimsterRS4:

I'm thinking of keeping my phone line with BT as it gives me some easier migration routes "back out", if I need.
At least that used to be the case. (don't want to bundle everything with one ISP and find myself stitched-up if it all goes pear shaped)

I don't think it makes any difference, Plusnet is just a reseller of the same wholesale telephone product as BT retail and I think you will save yourself around £50 on the migration by taking Plusnet's phone product. On the one occasion recently that I had to report a phone fault, the service from Plusnet could not have been better, but the BT retail product does offer some bells and whistles, e.g. free diversion to mobile during a fault, online tracking of fault status, that Plusnet does not.

Edited by kasg (Tue 09-Apr-13 19:35:47)

Right. Understood.

IIRC, from way way back (pre-fibre) there was talk of keeping one's phone and dsl separate to make migration back to another ISP's (BT's) product, that much easier.

It may have been issues with TalkTalk or similar and being difficult to get them to unbundle the services back to the constituent parts.

I would gladly pay the extra 50 quid and a higher monthly fee if able to keep my service flexible. i.e.. eay to change to another provider.
I did the same with BE. Could have left whenever I wanted as was on a rolling one month contract (I realise now I can't do this with BT/PN Fibre). In the end I stayed with BE anyway as everything worked so well.

Edited by deleted (Tue 09-Apr-13 21:03:23)

For what it's worth, I kept my phone with BT. I just don't fancy having it anywhere else.

Re the FTTC contract, that is 18 months, not 12. But if you want to leave early the cost per outstanding month is only £5.75pm, not the full £19.99. You're unlikely to want to leave early anyway. I renewed for 18 months eleven months into my eighteen.

If you take PN phone and FTTC bundle then the phone is also on an 18-month minimum term. Phone early termination is between £2.25 and £4.25 per outstanding month instead of the full charges, depending on the call plan you take.

The fibre products have an 18month contract. (because we are contracted for them ourselves)

You can get a static IP address on the Unlimited products for a £5 one off fee after you've activated.