Plusnet speedtouch router

A mate of mine had plusnet fibre installed just before Christmas, the fibre itself is okish, I would nto say it is great consideirng he is suppose to get the highest speed and the fastest speed test is about 34Mb/s, even using a computer on a ethernet connection.


Anyway, the point of this thread, Plusnet supplied him with their Speedtouch, or tecnicolor as they are called now 582n. the router seems to be really sensitive and you only have to touch it and it resets, may be a fault I suppose, but the one big problem with it is wi-fi, it is flipping useless.

It is in the living room and even going into the dining room, which is the next room the signal goes to half and in the kitchen, forget about it. upstairs the signal is really weak.

I know my mates house is a old Victorian house and the walls are thicker than modern houses, but his old Netgear, which was not wireless N offered a better signal.

Anyway to try and get a better signal for his laptop, we got a TP-link TL-WN821N USB dongle. It made little difference at all.

I did have a problem getting the dongle to work on his laptop, I mainly because his laptop uses the same manufacturer for the inbuilt wi-fi and lan, but went back yesterday after trying it on my own computers at home and got it working.

Long post i know, but is the plusnet router really that bad?

I got a Tp-link TL-WR1043ND router and I get at least a 95% signal where ever I go in my house.

Later on, i am going to take my router up and connect it to his fibre modem and see if that makes a difference.

There's a number of new 80/20 signups have been put on 40/nn due to a bug in the ordering system Adrian. (The bug has recently been fixed).

34Mbps sounds perfect for a 40Mbps connection, so worth getting PN to check. Takes a few hours for it to be fixed once they agree that's the problem.

Why not connect his old Netgear to the 582? Or disable "n" (with b/g enabled) and see if that fixes it?

Edited by RobertoS (Sat 19-Jan-13 13:27:07)

Don't worry they did the same to me, put me on 40/10 and put me on value fibre, when I ordered plusnet Extra fibre, at the time.

I was going to say, why does plusnet keep putting people on the wrong profile? That sort of basic thing, should not happen, unless PN are trying to cut corners. Seems they do that in the hope that, you won't notice being on slower speeds.

That's the sort of school boy error I would expect from BT but then I have just read what roberto said. They never told me it was a bug in the system but they did notice as soon as I called about it.

Edited by deleted (Sat 19-Jan-13 19:20:38)

Thanks peoples, but I really don't think that is the problem with his speed as he was at some point getting about 55Mb/s. I did a speed tests today when I was there, using different testers and locations and it was down to 20Mb/s.

a link to one of his speedtests i sent the link to my email address.

He only lives across the road from the cabinets.

Anyway, I have proved that the router that plusnet forces people to pay for is rubbish. i put my Tp-link on, after working out why it would not connect at first, but finding out it was something to do with a secondary connection had to be set to dynamic. My broadband don't use PPPoE, so this PPPoE connection using a separate modem is new to me.

Once we got that sorted, we streamed a HD video clip from his laptop, Wi-fi to his Tv which is connected via Ehternet and it played with no problem using my router, with the Plusnet one it struggles. Also the signal to the laptop from my TP-link was almost full on, the Plusnet, lucky to get halfway on the scale.


Plusnet, if you want to force people to take a router, would it not be a good idea to make sure it is a decent one and not a hacked ADLS one with Wi-fi thhat is as good as a bucket with a hole in it.

if i ever went for fibre, I think i would give plusnet a miss.

To make any assessment of what is going on, Adrian, we need the results from the follow-up diagnostics test of a BT Performance Test. A copy and paste of the contents of the two results text boxes would be easiest to give us I expect.

Plusnet don't force anyone to use the router they supply for free, (except for P & P). I don't use either of my PN ones, mainly because of the wireless, but glad to have them as spares.

In reply to a post by zyborg47:

... would it not be a good idea to make sure it is a decent one and not a hacked ADLS one with Wi-fi thhat is as good as a bucket with a hole in it.

You mean like the similarly hacked BT Home Hub 3?

Post deleted by seb

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

To make any assessment of what is going on, Adrian, we need the results from the follow-up diagnostics test of a BT Performance Test. A copy and paste of the contents of the two results text boxes would be easiest to give us I expect.

I won't be going down there for a week now, going back to work tomorrow and he is going to be busy in the studio now. i did not think of that to be honest, used to not being able to do that myself due to not being on a Bt based service.

Plusnet don't force anyone to use the router they supply for free, (except for P & P). I don't use either of my PN ones, mainly because of the wireless, but glad to have them as spares.

Not they don't force you to use it, but they force you to spend money to get it, but then it seems like the other larger providers do as well. It is not free if you have to pay for postage and packing.

He have two of them, the first one did not come with a adaptor for the power adaptor, you know the little thing that slides on to convert it to a British plug. So they sent him a new router.

We should try it really to see if the router he is using have a fault or if the wi-fi really is that bad.

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

In reply to a post by zyborg47:

... would it not be a good idea to make sure it is a decent one and not a hacked ADLS one with Wi-fi thhat is as good as a bucket with a hole in it.

You mean like the similarly hacked BT Home Hub 3?

The homehub 3 is a strange one, but at least it got a socket marked infinity and not a bit of tape next to a Ethernet port as a afterthought. also the BT homehub seems t have a ok Wi-fi, i can get my next-door neighbours on my laptop going through two walls at a good signal.

Not sure who manufactures the BTHH 3, it don't look like a Thomson interface.
speedtouch used to be good routers, my 585 lasted for years, but the one plusnet provides is no where near the quality of my 585, in build or stability.

Post deleted by seb