In reply to a post by mlmclaren:

In reply to a post by Nervous:

I'm on Sky fibre so am not suffering these problems.
What I find strange is everytime I compare SKY with Plusnet on this site Plusnet comes out on top for all categories including customer service.
Having been with Sky for a long time I have had one outage that lasted a few hours and Sky CS immediately offered to send an engineer which turned out not to be necessary as the problem was resolved by someone else somewhere else.
The reall strange thing to the comparison results is how "active" the PN forum is "usually complaints" and how "active" Sky forum is. In general the higher the activity the worse the ISP.

Apart from Sky's representatives being (SELL MAD) I've always found there service to be very good and stable, and since they launched their Pro services I've considered them many times as a service provider... my only hag up on Sky's BB is the thrown upon using 3rd party equipment...

But then the Sky Hubs seam very reasonable for the service that is intended and many forget that Sky isn't exactly designed with advanced usage in mind.

You can use third party routers with SKY Fibre but because they use MER authentification there are few that will work out of the box. Netgear D70000 is one that will and is an excellent router. For more information

I know that mate, but as I mentioned, "It's frowned upon" by Sky...

In reply to a post by mlmclaren:

I know that mate, but as I mentioned, "It's frowned upon" by Sky...

Well, I know it's in their T&C's but I have never heard of anyones service being discontinued for using another router, there are lots of people doing so and quite honestly it's a stupid rule anyway plus one to ignore. You just need to reconnect their router if you are having problems and want them to help.

I know its a stupid rule, but as you said it's part of the Term's and Condition's.... I'm a strong believer in the provider holding up there side of the agreement so I must hold up mine too...

Also if I have an issue I don't want to be switching between hardware which will more than likely solve any issue anyway, the point that has been missed here is Sky is not designed for those with any sort of professional requirement's from a service...

That's why I'm not just moving provider but have also paid the extra premiums for a higher priority of care and had the service regraded to Business use.

I appreciate what your saying, but at the end of the day I've highlighted the issue with using "workarounds"

In reply to a post by mlmclaren:

Sky is not designed for those with any sort of professional requirement's from a service...

I think this is one of those "agree to disagree" moments. I respect your views.

I had a power cut this week!

Understood, the occasional line fault due to digging, road accidents, storms etc affects power and phone lines alike. Being in a rural area, some farmer's prize bull charged a pole carrying a 6600V transformer a few years back, blacking out some 50 square miles and rendering himself into well done steak

My point was that this week's was a national outage, not local grid or exchange. I read that it was a DNS server fault, whatever that is. We seem to agree that BB is now an essential service and should be maintained/regulated accordingly. Granted that complainers will predominate on most forums, I wonder how long PN will flaunt its 'customer service' awards?

Would TBB consider running a BB Clanger category based on its survey results?

If BB was maintained/regulated as an "essential service" then I can guarantee it would be quite a bit more expensive than it currently is. The reason it is so cheap is because it is a consumer service that doesn't carry much in the way of SLAs/guarantees. Start adding those on and the costs increase significantly and given the choice the majority of people will pay cheap rather than pay for SLAs.

If you want a better service you can buy business broadband solutions. The fact you don't suggests it isn't quite as important to you as you suggest. If it is essential then either get multiple service for backup or get a lease line. Again, most won't because it costs more.

In reply to a post by Malwaremike:

Granted that complainers will predominate on most forums, I wonder how long PN will flaunt its 'customer service' awards?

Would TBB consider running a BB Clanger category based on its survey results?

Just filled out a survey from Plusnet on recent events. I imagine the general opinion will be less than wonderful.

If you want a better service you can buy business broadband solutions. The fact you don't suggests it isn't quite as important to you as you suggest.

Fair point, Ian. I'm long retired but I still consider it important to check my bank statements, receive my household bills, arrange my cruises etc, not to mention those Government services which that same Government is so keen to service online.

What concerns me is that this is not the first time Plusnet has failed us this year, nor the second ...During each breakdown I can rely on my neighbour's TalkTalk connection or drive 11 miles for banking transactions etc on my brother's Virgin cable. There isn't much between them on cost, so how can these ISPs work reliably when PN doesn't?

My point was that this week's was a national outage, not local grid or exchange.

National it may well have been but not an outage that effected all Plusnet users. Here in central London on an ADSL line I had connectivity throughout the entire outage.