Plusnet fibre upload speeds

My partner is looking to migrate away from Plusnet, a number of reasons such as DNS issues, loss of connectivity, etc, and migrating to fibre.

Now Plusnet are trying to tempt her to stay with an "upgrade" to 76mb fibre. However, the CS will or, or perhaps cannot, confirm the upstream speed of their 76mb package.

Anyone know if it is 2mb, 10mb, 20mb, or 'random(!)'?

Many thanks

up to 20 as it is the 80/20 package

As Oldjim says up to 20

http://www.thinkbroadband.com/speedtest/results.html...

Fibre broadband speed is described as 'up to' because your actual download speeds will vary. We'll give you the best download speed available on your line, with up to 76Mb download speed and 19Mb upload speeds on Unlimited Fibre Extra, and up to 38Mb download speed and 1.9Mb upload speeds on Unlimited Fibre. This is dependent on your location, phone line, home wiring and time of day.

Plusnet webpage, (and several other pages), scroll down to "> Here's the legal bit".

For me its around 18.5mbs.

Download is disappointing, in saving £10 by leaving BT my speed dropped 7mbs (65mbs rather than 72 with BT).

I've just had a conversation with Plusnet, renewed my contract and fitted the new Hub One router this morning, went to upload some stuff to my son in Amsterdam and noticed the slow speed, ran a test and where I wsa previously getting between 12-14mb I'm now getting 1.9mb.

Plusnet not very helpful saying that's the way fibre is provided, me saying well it certainly wasn't for the last 18 months and I'd like my speed back. They're putting through a "modify order" to see if it can be put back again but didn't seem very hopeful.

As I upload stuff quite a lot is there another provider who doesn't cap fibre at 2m upload anyone can recommend?

Of the big well-known providers only TalkTalk also provide the 40/2 product. All the others have 10 or 20 upstream depending on the downstream ordered.

What TalkTalk Business Wholesale ISPs can provide I don't know, but have a feeling it is normally 10Mbps upstream on the slower downstream.

In reply to a post by jeff1106uk:

Plusnet not very helpful saying that's the way fibre is provided, me saying well it certainly wasn't for the last 18 months and I'd like my speed back. They're putting through a "modify order" to see if it can be put back again but didn't seem very hopeful.

Well there's a complicated story behind this. Historically PN have sold the following packages:

80/20, 40/20, 40/10 and 40/2

40/20 and 40/10 stopped being available to new customers some time ago (June 2015 for 40/10, not sure about 40/20 but it went first). Existing customers (like you) were unaffected. However PN appear to be going through a tidy-up session and have migrated some customers onto 40/2 who should not have been. The good news is that PN should rectify this for you.

The bad news is that they have announced just this week that all 40Mb/s customers are going to be transferred to a 55/10 package regardless of contract. Affected customers will be getting an email explaining this and telling them they are free to leave (no contract termination fee).

So the simple answer to you is: Tough. You will very soon be on 55/10 (up to... of course). If you want more than 10Mb/s upload your only option is to go to their 80/20 service. Even that may not be available to you however since PN won't accept orders for 80/20 unless the estimate for your line shows that you can comfortably get over 40Mb/s. It's possible this may change in the hope that they get a few people to upgrade.

Edited by Andrue (Wed 29-Jun-16 19:03:29)

My original contract was for 76mb, unfortunately after a few months of getting around 60mb Openreach connected my next door neighbour and mine dropped to 8mb!. Eventually after 3 engineers visits (as next doors was even worse than mine) it's now around 35mb, Openreach being unable to improve on this without some new lines being installed kindly down-graded the line estimate from 76mb to 38mb so it now appears that I'm getting the fastest connection possible so therefore no problem exists.

There have been an awful lot of estimates downgraded after the service degrades like yours. Quite appalling.

As a side issue, I don't think Andrue has it right about being upgraded to 55/10, which would have helped your upstream. As I read the changes on September 1 it is only those on 40/20 who are getting that move.

Edited by RobertoS (Thu 30-Jun-16 00:00:07)

RobertoS had pointed out that I had misunderstood the PN changes. Apparently it's only the old 40/20 package that is being converted to 55/10. To be honest that makes even less sense to end-users. At least if it was across the board some users would benefit. But I'd have thought most of those on 40/20 chose that for the upload so to take it away seems harsh. And I wonder how many 40/20 users will see andy gain in the raised downstream speed.

Anyway thanks to RobertoS for pointing that out.

In reply to a post by jeff1106uk:

Openreach being unable to improve on this without some new lines being installed kindly down-graded the line estimate from 76mb to 38mb so it now appears that I'm getting the fastest connection possible so therefore no problem exists.

Very annoying but if they are being honest about it needing new lines I don't see what else they could do. Installing new lines is very expensive. They'd probably struggle to justify it in situations where properties had no FTTC at all whereas you do at least have a reasonable(*) service. That means they can't even expect to get much more money from you if they do fix the lines. That being the case lowering the estimate to reflect reality will at least avoid disappointing potential customers in the future.

(*)In the sense that a lot of people only order an up to 40Mb/s service so as far as the market is concerned 35Mb/s is deemed acceptable by a lot of people at the moment.

Edited by Andrue (Thu 30-Jun-16 09:49:55)

Yes. I've always thought the drop from 40/10 to 40/2 was ridiculous. It must be costing them more in loss of new customers than the small amount more it would cost them in Openreach prices. Though probably most of their customers are completely unaware of the question and just assume that's how it is.

Unless they migrate from a 40/10 service and notice the difference.

I wonder if they will be offering 55/10 after Sept 1, either as well as or instead of 40/2. Probably not instead of.

What really [censored] me off is that to maintain the 20Mbps upload I have to agree to another 18month minimum term. I strongly feel that PlusNet should allow people effected by this to migrate to the 80/20 package without the requirement to extend the contract. I also feel that they should have given much more notice of the change. Three months would have been a much more reasonable notice period.

Not sure what's going on, after waiting the 24hrs I ran Speedtest.net again and got a higher DL speed than usual, about 37mb, UL is 1.8mb so slightly down.

Real world on Usenet I'm now getting just on 45mb instead of 36mb.

Previous results here http://www.speedtest.net/my-result/5419916467

I think you may have been conned, look at issuing a formal complaint based on this post No Extension of Contract

Online with them now, they've admitted I've been switched to 40/2

Been offered a "special discounted price" of an extra £5 a month to get Broadband Extra (which is what I originally signed up for 18 months ago), didn't say what the speed profile would be so I told them I considered the contract invalid as they'd changed my connection speeds to my detriment without informing me and would be looking at changing providers.

Does anyone know what SKYs offering are? 80/20 40/20 or something else?

Thanks.

Edited by jeff1106uk (Thu 30-Jun-16 17:31:59)

In reply to a post by jeff1106uk:

Does anyone know what SKYs offering are? 80/20 40/20 or something else?

Sky is 40/10 and 80/20.

There is no such thing as 40/20 in fact. Up until recently there has been 40/2, 40/10 and 80/20. 55/10 has just been introduced.

40/20 was purely an idiotic marketing folly by Plusnet. They supplied 80/20 and capped the speed at 40Mbps within their own system. Presumably they had to pay Openreach for the full 80/20.

For obvious reasons no other ISP has been so daft.

Well I have not actually changed yet, because I baulked at this. However it might be relevant that I am currently outside my original 18 month contract which was taken out in September 2014.

On a different line I was forced into taking a new 18 month contract when switching from a 40/10 contract with the quota to a 40/20 without quota just before they went to 40/2. However I was about to ring them up because it looks like that line has been moved at some point to 40/2. Presumably no point now because it will go to 55/10 in a month regardless.

A nasty customer unfriendly move.

In reply to a post by jabuzzard:

Presumably no point now because it will go to 55/10 in a month regardless.

A nasty customer unfriendly move.

Only if on your customer record it is showing as 40/20. Valid 40/2s are not being upgraded.

If it is showing 40/20 I suggest you take a screen shot PDQ. If it isn't, you need to get it fixed.

Edited by RobertoS (Fri 01-Jul-16 15:57:48)

Well I am presuming that it is 40/20 on the basis that they sent me an email that I was going to be "upgraded". I am going to be ringing up anyway about that line as I want to fold the phone service in which I was holding off on due to the fear of loosing the 20Mbps upload and being relegated to 2Mbps. As I am going to 10Mbps anyway no harm in folding in the phone service now.