Dare I switch from PlusNet to BT?

Have been a happy PN customer for years. FTTC has finally arrived in our village so considering upgrading. PlusNet are offering me an Unlimited 40/20 package for £25/month, equivalent offering from BT seems to be £20/month.

Dare I switch for the sake of saving a fiver a month?

Fronty

Plusnet don't sell a 40/20 product any longer its 40/2 (they dropped the higher upload a few months ago.

That's a bit worrying, when I log into member centre this is the spec of the unlimited fibre package they quote::

Unlimited Usage Allowance
40Mb download speed (estimated)
20Mb upload speed (estimated)
18-month contract
Designed for demanding users
Broadband activation £25.00 - choose a broadband and phone package and you'll get free activation

Maybe I need to post this query in the PN forum.

Just checked their home page, looks like new customers only get 2Mb, maybe 20Mb is only available to existing customers.

In reply to a post by fronty:

Just checked their home page, looks like new customers only get 2Mb, maybe 20Mb is only available to existing customers.

The 40/20 is no longer sold, those who already have it, will keep it, unless they agree differently by taking out a new contract,you maybe able to renew the contract, though what benefits this would offer, if any i don't know, you maybe better off sticking with what you have got on a rolling monthly contract , no tie ins
This i gotta get the best deal /cheapest bb mentality i don't really understand, Save money on line rental and calls that i can understand, I also hate this bundling of voice and data,

Edited by tommy45 (Mon 14-Sep-15 21:58:13)

Also BT is only a 12 month contract to Plusnet's 18

I'm more interested in quality of service and features, currently I have a static IP, various servers running including http/https/ftp/FTPS/SSH and a permanent VPN into our office, so if I switch to BT and lose any of this it will cause me issues, I am assuming I can still do all this if I upgrade to a PN fibre product. I may also need to do IPv6 soon.

Estimated speeds are different from the package speeds the key giveaway will be the monthly fee

In reply to a post by fronty:

I'm more interested in quality of service and features, currently I have a static IP, various servers running including http/https/ftp/FTPS/SSH and a permanent VPN into our office, so if I switch to BT and lose any of this it will cause me issues, I am assuming I can still do all this if I upgrade to a PN fibre product. I may also need to do IPv6 soon.

And Plusnet provides a good level of quality of service?

Ironically I was in the exact opposite position to you about a month ago!

I was really happy with my BT FTTC 80/20 service and got rock solid 75 down and 19 up on the various speedtesters (inc. TBBx1 and HTTPx6 tests), and good pings (15ms). However I was less happy with BT's price increases and, after working out how much I was spending a year (about £650 after the increase), decided to look for something cheaper and after much contemplation switched to PN.

The PN 80/20 service has so far been really good off-peak, however during main peak hours speed tests show significant reductions in bandwidth (sometimes down to about 20-ish down) and I've suffered occasional buffering whilst streaming netflix & amazon prime video, which NEVER happened when I was with BT. Then of course there was last weeks PN outage, but let's not dwell on that. Bottom line is I'm saving about £185 on what I would be splashing out if I'd stuck with BT and, as I work shifts so use the broadband mainly offpeak, I'm happy to live with occasional slowness.

I guess the old adage is true... you do get what you pay for - and I'd happily tart myself back to BT after the PN 18 months contract is up..... imho BTs service is clearly superior to PNs in terms of bandwidth / pings and absence of congestion / traffic shaping.

Edited by deleted (Mon 14-Sep-15 22:56:56)

Should add all that information to your first post

I don't think you can get a static ip with normal bt fiber I may be wrong

No, you can with BT Business. Or Sky fibre pro

Thanks for the tip about the static IP with BT Business, looks like BT Infinity Unlimited could be the one, but even that limits upload speed to "upto" 9.5MB and of course the price is higher because it's a business tariff and you have to pay to add on the static IP.

Sounds like if I go for a residential BT package I could come unstuck if there's no static IP. I'm not unhappy with Plusnet, just wanted to see if there were other options. Most of my usage is during the day as I work from home. I'd probably stick with PN if I can get the 20mbps upload rate, if it's only 2mbps then they can forget it. Blimey this is a bit of a minefield isn't it?

I've not really considered Sky after hearing some bad stories, I am a Sky satellite customer but not sure I want to bundle everything up, I just feel like it would be too much hassle to unbundle it all in the future if I wanted to switch.

BT Business does provide 19Mbps upload and you can get a static IP.

As you work from home you really should be looking at a business grade service with NBD fix targets and full UK based 24/7 support. Even if your company does not pay the cost you should be able to claim the cost against tax - not as easy with a residential class of service.

In reply to a post by tommy45:

In reply to a post by fronty:

This i gotta get the best deal /cheapest bb mentality i don't really understand, Save money on line rental and calls that i can understand, I also hate this bundling of voice and data,

If you can get a comparable service for less then why pay hundreds of pounds more? The major difference people will notice when going for mass market products(apart from the price) is diminishing quality of customer support - but if you have a reliable line and don't have to contact them for anything problematic is that really an issue?

It's a shame decent ISPs are being hammered by large ISPs with massive cut price offers but it works out good value for the average person and if someone really needs great customer service that's available too but you'll have to pay extra.

In reply to a post by fronty:

Sounds like if I go for a residential BT package I could come unstuck if there's no static IP.

If it helps, BT's residential service does support services like no-ip.com - not quite the same as a static IP address but good enough for my purposes anyway..