In reply to a post by camieabz:

Another 'unique' product gone. Slowly they transmogrify into BT.

Plusnet used to be a low-cost, with frills ISP. They seem to be turning into a cheap-rate, no frills also-ran. Obviously some heavy uploaders flocked to Plusnet with these cheap-rate, high upload packages, and Plusnet have been feeling the bandwidth costs. Otherwise, why change?

Tried logging into their site these days? Slow...always has been. Guess it always will be while they focus on cutting services.

Depends if they are billed for IN + OUT or just the greater of the 2 which on a residential ISP will be the Inbound.

I can't see it being capacity since backhaul links tend to be synchronous which means most provider using Asynchronous access circuits usually have an excess of unused upstream capacity on their cores.

Where do you get the bit about Plusnet TV only being on the more expensive fibre package as that isn't what is stated here https://www.plus.net/tv/

What you'll need

Plusnet Unlimited Fibre or Plusnet Unlimited Fibre Extra, with a minimum estimated line speed of 15Mb.

I'm on 40/20 and have plusnet TV.

The advantage of having it on the 40/20 is that I connect at 70/20, the plusnet TV can use capacity above the 40Mbps that plusnet cap my line at. So I can watch TV and still download at 40Mbps.

Now that's interesting, I didn't know that!

Also, my assumption about TV being only available to unlimited extra peeps was mainly down to the the criteria for the trial.

But I guess what I'm trying to say (badly!) was they "bought" additional revenue/subscribers with 40/20, and now they have TV to get revenue (just like TT) they don't need that carrot - they have feature parity/compete on the same features.

I dislike the inference that plusnet is the low-rent version of BT - in many respects it is superior to BT Retail and TalkTalk (and Sky for that matter).

The price they pay in rental is far less for the 40/2 product than the 80/20 one. The 40/20 was made using throttling at their end, but they were still paying Openreach for their 80/20 product.

Saving a few quid per month per subscriber on that rental alone must add up across the board - even if they weren't noticing the 20mbit uploads on their network links.

In reply to a post by blueacid:

The price they pay in rental is far less for the 40/2 product than the 80/20 one. The 40/20 was made using throttling at their end, but they were still paying Openreach for their 80/20 product.

Saving a few quid per month per subscriber on that rental alone must add up across the board - even if they weren't noticing the 20mbit uploads on their network links.

You'd have thought the 40/10 was a more sensible middle ground.

In reply to a post by dragon2611:

You'd have thought the 40/10 was a more sensible middle ground.

Agree. Guess they must really want to push as many people as possible onto 80/20, in my case it will probably work. 40/20 or 40/10 would do me fine but not sure I'd go for only 2 upload.

I think 40/2 is ideal for people who just want to stream movies, watch TV, browse the web and send/receive emails. What good would 10 Mbps be to them?

I expect the majority of broadband users don't even know (a) what their product upstream speed is, (b) what their upstream sync is, especially on FTTC, and (c) what their upstream throughput speed is.

They won't even know what Mbps and MBps mean, and don't care. It either streams their videos and catchup TV, or it doesn't.

What has surprised me, and may be part of possible UK capacity problems, is the number of silver surfers who traditionally use just browsing and emails and have adopted catchup TV. I know a few within half a mile of me. Even more use Skype, no doubt initially to talk to their children and even more likely their grandchildren, then expand their usage to include friends.

All will work fine for them on 40/2. They haven't got a house full of kids saturating the connection.

Edited by RobertoS (Sun 21-Jun-15 10:58:14)

Some of the 'silver surfers' (as well as all ages) are using webcams for long-distance family or friend contact. A decent quality might require more than 2 Meg. A 5 Meg upload should cover it though.