Sign up to Plusnet?

I'm thinking of quitting Sky LLU (mainly due to increased line rental) and thinking of signing up to Plusnet Unlimited Broadband with 12 months paid in advance line rental (£10.50 pcm) / reduced broadband for 12 months (£6.99 pcm)

So what do you think? Should I go for it? As far as I understand Plusnet is not LLU it's 21CN WBC so there anything I should know? Do exchange contention issues still apply as its a return the BT equipment (ISAM or whatever) ?

Any views appreciated

The only serious difference is that you will catch the dreaded IP profile and DLM system
Exchange contention isn't usually a problem nowadays but you could check your exchange status here http://usertools.plus.net/exchanges/ and click on VP Capacity - it needs to be all green

Thanks Jim, so what does "dreaded IP profile and DLM system" mean? lol.

Edited by deleted (Sun 13-Jan-13 22:02:16)

Have a read here http://www.kitz.co.uk/adsl/index.htm
Basically the exchange sets your maximum speed to 88.2% of your download sync speed and Plusnet set their mirror of it to the next 100kbps below (when they eventually find out about the change). This is the IP profile
DLM - Dynamic Line Management - unlike an LLU supplier the default noise margin is not fixed but is set by the equipment in the exchange to a value between 3dB and 15dB in 3dB steps and if it thinks the line is unstable (too many disconnections or too many errors) it will increase the noise margin until things stabilise.
Now, if you are close to the exchange or have a very quiet line it can reduce it to 3dB which means that you will get better speeds than you have with Sky but obviously the converse is also the case - a noisy line will catch a higher default noise margin and lower speeds

So do you think I'd be better sticking with Sky as regards speed and reliabllity? Router stats state line attenuation at 19.5db (exchange is within walking distance) but syncs at only around 15meg (i've read it should be closer to 18-19) which suggests noise on the line somewhere

With that attenuation I think you should certainly get better sync speeds possibly even as high as 20Mb
You could try plugging the router into the test socket and see what it syncs at
What is the noise margin reported by the router

Edited by deleted (Sun 13-Jan-13 22:19:58)

Yes thanks thats the speed plugged into the test socket, the SNR is Sky's standard 6.9 - 7.1.

I've tried umpteen different Sky routers I'm currently on the latest Sky Hub one, speed is always the same. Well, actually it has declined over the years it's about 12.9 meg now, Its been as high as 14.9 in years gone by. No-one seems to know why it's low, however I do live in a block of flats so that may have something to do with it - crosstalk and all that.

You probably may not get much change then.

Alright, if its no worse than what I'm getting now I think I'm going to go for it...

Edited by deleted (Sun 13-Jan-13 22:48:01)

The DLM isn't as dreaded as it once was. The noise margin thing is something many of us may be able to help you with if it shows up as an issue, and the IP profile used to be a big pain but is now hardly noticeable. Much improved. The 88.2% of sync mainly covers TCP/IP and ATM overheads, which are present on Sky as well, so the effect will be little different to not having it. (We don't even know that Sky don't have something similar that just isn't publicised).

Though an occasional problem arises that the master BT version and the copy Plusnet version get out of step, with the PN one being lower. (Higher doesn't really matter). Support usually sort it quite quickly.

Very much as Oldjim said really, but a bit more info and another view.