Plusnet Fibre

Hello,

I'm hoping that some kind person can advise me, please.

I currently have 5MB ADSL broadband with Plusnet, and line rental elsewhere.

I'm at the end of my rope with the line provider, and considering moving the line to Plusnet. Yes, I know they're BT owned, but the customer service is said to be much better and that has been my experience with the broadband.

The gap between what I pay for plain unlimited broadband and the Plusnet price for fibre is not so great, so I'm thinking about it, as FTTC is in this area.

The problem is, - I would only consider self-install. I already have ADSLNation faceplate installed where the line comes in (in the attic), and a dedicated CAT5e solid cable to where the computer is.

My attic and house are currently very congested, as I'm storing stuff for someone else, and I don't want any engineers clambering around.

The curious thing is that although people on the internet seem to have arranged self install with Plusnet, I just phoned them and they told me that they don't do it.

I'd be glad if someone could clarify, please. Thanks.

Maybe with a self install you can simply ask the engineer for the Openreach modem and not even invite him/her inside. Ideally they would wait outside while you plugged it all up so that you can report any issues if it doesn't sync. Maybe you could tell them you have a vicious new dog

Starting with the easy one at the end . Plusnet don't do self-install so far as I know - I've never seen it mentioned here or on the Community forums. Is it possible you've seen references to no engineer needed as it's an FTTC to FTTC migration?

Two possibilities arise then. First, the customer already has an Openreach modem, or second, they have a VDSL2 router from a previous ISP that did self-install.

Given the wiring you describe, I'd be almost certain the engineer when they arrived would accept it as satisfactory and just test the line then plug the modem in and see if it sync'ed. But you might get one who fell out of bed on the wrong side that day.

Re the line question, who is it with? I recently moved mine from BT to Pulse8broadband at £14pm including caller display and free 1571. At that time I was on Plusnet 80/20.

Aquiss and vivaciti are two well-known providers doing line only at about the same price. All three are monthly contract.

A combo like that is likely to work out cheaper than putting it with Plusnet. Bear in mind standard calls start at 1ppm with all of them, with no setup fee and per-second charging.

If we ignore PN 12-month Line Rental Saver which doesn't save much now and gets in a tangle with an 18-month FTTC minimum term the calculation is worth doing.

If you don't need Anytime then the calls using any of the three are way cheaper. But you would pay £2.50 surcharge on the FTTC. If you do need Anytime, that is £6pm. A bit of reverse calculation then gives a saving of £6 minus £2.50 = £3.50. That's over 350 minutes per month. Would you do that much on Anytime?

I'll let you factor in the PN full line rental v Line Rental Saver v low-cost rental.

Edit: But what is wrong with the line that makes you so fed up? That needs fixing anyway somehow.

Edited by RobertoS (Thu 20-Aug-15 12:38:35)

I wouldn't recommend Plusnet for Fibre Broadband and especially not for customer service...

Many issues with support currently... mainly the shortage of it and the time it takes to get some support to begin with!

Also prices have increased on the phone service, so might be worth looking elsewhere!

Many thanks to Oliver341, RobertoS, and mlmclaren for your comments and advice.

I've sent an email to Bob.

Despite having just migrated to BT, I'd still recommend plusnet, I never really had much of a problem with the service itself. Customer service is often raised as an issue, but it's better than a lot of ISPs. I've used BTs support since migrating and it is truly terrible.

I only left as I could get £180 cashback and be released from my plusnet contract due to the small price rise.

If you say so .

CLS, or account not updated, or what? What is supposed to "settle", seeing as a new FTTC connection is set by Openreach to run at full line speed.

If I were the OP I would go incendiary at the agent's flippancy.

Just a further thought.

Given a self-install, make sure they will be sending you an Openreach modem as well as the Plusnet router.