Plusnet: When will it die completely?

Plusnet announced closure of their business broadband last year and now they are trying to close their mobile phone business . Customers are being encouraged to move to EE. This does not bode well for their broadband service. I wonder how much longer that will last?

In reply to a post by Michael_Chare:

This does not bode well for their broadband service. I wonder how much longer that will last?

It was assumed that BT bought Plusnet to compete with TalkTalk, which is really a home user service. The mobile phone part of Plusnet was always a bit odd as it never supported 4G voice calling, and now that 3G is being switched off they either upgrade or get out of the game. Business is probably not worth the additional costs, so passing that to the other parts of the group makes sense.

I read that Plusnet isn't going to do voice over broadband, so come 2025 they will only offer broadband over ADSL/FTTC/FTTP and at that point they may lose (or not) some customers.

I just moved across from Plusnet to EE,a little more expensive but it offers 5g,which Plusnet didn't,wifi calling, which Plusnet didn't,and slightly better coverage and speed on 4g so overall at moment I am happy with it, nowhere near as good as what we got offered when my wife service moved from virgin mobile to o2 though:double data at same price which was then doubled again along with speed increase for our virgin media service to our house!

4g was always available on Plusnet,never supported 5g though

If you like EE then look at 1p mobile, uses EE network inc 5g and wifi calling, but with 'cheap' rolling contract and no EU roaming charges up to 14gb of data.

In reply to a post by steve195527:

4g was always available on Plusnet,never supported 5g though

Friends on PN Mobile tell me it switched back to 3G when you made a call. So when BT/EE turns off 3G next year ??

That would be correct, iirc 4G only supports VoLTE which is a VOIP system.
So if you make a call and you are on 4G and you don't have access to VoLTE it will drop back to 2G or 3G

Thanks
Dan

In reply to a post by danielhyde:

That would be correct, iirc 4G only supports VoLTE which is a VOIP system. So if you make a call and you are on 4G and you don't have access to VoLTE it will drop back to 2G or 3G.

Yes, its a VoIP (as in SIP) protocol over TCP/IP, but it uses a separate APN, and it terminates on a network managed service known as the IMS. If Plusnet Mobile doesn't have IMS or hasn't set up the separate APN, then CSFB (Circuit Switched Fall Back) happens to 3G.

So either PN Mobile had to work with the rest of BT Group to be able to use the IMS, or they decided to give up and let people go elsewhere.

Since the group strategy for Consumer seems to have moved away from 3 brands (BT, EE and PN) to what looks like focusing BT on business, and EE on consumer, the PN brand selling mobile services made no sense anymore. Better to give loyal customers a discounted EE plan with full service.

In reply to a post by danielhyde:

That would be correct, iirc 4G only supports VoLTE which is a VOIP system.
So if you make a call and you are on 4G and you don't have access to VoLTE it will drop back to 2G or 3G

Thanks
Dan

the piggy backed ee https://www.4g.co.uk/plusnet-mobile-4g-coverage-and-...

In reply to a post by Michael_Chare:

Plusnet announced closure of their business broadband last year and now they are trying to close their mobile phone business . Customers are being encouraged to move to EE. This does not bode well for their broadband service. I wonder how much longer that will last?

No one really knows, Their perks are back and I would have thought if they were going to be absorbed into EE, that would not come back, but i could be wrong.
Plusnet is a budget basic service, which is what I liked about it and why I stayed for so long, people who go to Plusnet is looking for a decent priced broadband service without frills. EE will not doubt do BT prices, and they are not cheap, plus all the other stuff that BT offers, TV, phone and super-duper routers that have mesh built in if you pay extra for it.
Plusnet Fibre don't even have a phone service, which for many people will be fine.

I don't thing Plusnet consumers will be moved to EE to be honest, if they do then I am glad I moved away from Plusnet

I’ve just ordered a Lebara sim. 3Gb for £4.40 and 99p for the first six months.

Plusnet used to do the tech stuff for John Lewis BB ie greenbee / Waitrose etc and they have just stopped hosting e mail for those services. So it looks like they are shedding unprofitable arms of the business

In reply to a post by threelegs:

Plusnet used to do the tech stuff for John Lewis BB ie greenbee / Waitrose etc and they have just stopped hosting e mail for those services. So it looks like they are shedding unprofitable arms of the business

Rebranding or "white label" offerings are becoming less interesting. Its probably not remotely of interest to John Lewis / Waitrose to be seen to have a broadband offering when they are working out how to survive on the high street.

Email has been a nightmare for ISPs for years, even Virgin Media has dropped email for new customers. Sky used to outsource to Google, but that became too costly. Cheaper to get your own mailbox from one of the big providers, Google (Gmail), Microsoft (outlook.com) or Yahoo with adverts - OR - pay for a professional service with no ads if you have a domain (MS 365 Exchange Online is £3+tax per month per user).

I don't understand BT group's consumer broadband strategy.

One might think that Plusnet is being deliberately run down - they have higher FTTP prices than the main BT brand (I recently got 500/75 FTTP at £31/month from BT when Plusnet would have been £35/month) and they have no option to add digital voice services.

On the other hand I recently noticed a brand new TV advertising campaign for Plusnet which looks fairly high budget.

Going just on those experiences you'd think that Plusnet is their "premium" brand and BT is their "discount" brand. EE is even dearer (£38.50/month) but without offering any additional benefits so who knows what that brand is meant to represent in the broadband market (I am a mobile customer of theirs though).

In reply to a post by Chardonbleu:

One might think that Plusnet is being deliberately run down - they have higher FTTP prices than the main BT brand (I recently got 500/75 FTTP at £31/month from BT when Plusnet would have been £35/month)

I would disagree, you clearly got that on a very special deal, what are Plusnet and BT's usual prices for that service?

In reply to a post by spile:

I’ve just ordered a Lebara sim. 3Gb for £4.40 and 99p for the first six months.

I would note gf uses Lebara and it's hit or miss as to if wifi calling works, aside from that very good.

I used Plusnet mobile for ages, always 4g from when 4g became available on it with no reverting to 3g when making a call, maybe it was due to area/poorish reception for your friends?If it wasn't closing I would still be on it

In reply to a post by dect:

]I would disagree, you clearly got that on a very special deal, what are Plusnet and BT's usual prices for that service?

I have just had a peek to be nosy and they are correct, plusnet 500Mb/s is £39.99, Bt is £32.99, even the lower speed ones on BT are a couple of quid cheaper than the equivalent on Plusnet. Very strange

In reply to a post by zyborg47:

I have just had a peek to be nosy and they are correct, plusnet 500Mb/s is £39.99, Bt is £32.99, even the lower speed ones on BT are a couple of quid cheaper than the equivalent on Plusnet. Very strange

Thats not what I'm seeing, they are

BT 500Mbps - £43.99
Plusnet 500Mbps - £39.99

I suspect in your areas BT are doing a special deal so not BT's regular pricing as BT 500Mbps is never normally £32.99


Edit1: I just put the post code in for 'White Lodge Hotel' in your area and I can see BT are charging £32.99 for BT 500Mbps but its got a big bright label above it that say 'Special Deal' which proves my point.

Edit2: Added clarity that this post is about BT and Plusnet

Edited by deleted (Fri 14-Jul-23 22:21:30)

In reply to a post by steve195527:

I used Plusnet mobile for ages, always 4g from when 4g became available on it with no reverting to 3g when making a call, maybe it was due to area/poorish reception for your friends?If it wasn't closing I would still be on it

Its possible VoLTE was introduced as I've neve rused PN mobile myself, but the PN forum posts were unclear, many reporting calls over 3G but data was 4G.

In reply to a post by dect:

I suspect in your areas they are doing a special deal so not their regular pricing as 500Mbps is never normally £32.99

Altnets can do 500 for lower... where available.

In reply to a post by jchamier:

In reply to a post by dect:

I suspect in your areas they are doing a special deal so not their regular pricing as 500Mbps is never normally £32.99

Altnets can do 500 for lower... where available.

We are talking specifically BT and Plusnet

In reply to a post by dect:

Thats not what I'm seeing, they are

BT 500Mbps - £43.99
Plusnet 500Mbps - £39.99

I suspect in your areas BT are doing a special deal so not BT's regular pricing as BT 500Mbps is never normally £32.99


Edit1: I just put the post code in for 'White Lodge Hotel' in your area and I can see BT are charging £32.99 for BT 500Mbps but its got a big bright label above it that say 'Special Deal' which proves my point.

Edit2: Added clarity that this post is about BT and Plusnet

Oh yeah it is a special deal, but still cheaper.
I think BT is trying harder around here at the moment because of Zzoomm, I have noticed a increase in leaflets from different providers around here, including Talk Talk, not seen one from them for a few years

In reply to a post by jchamier:

In reply to a post by dect:

I suspect in your areas they are doing a special deal so not their regular pricing as 500Mbps is never normally £32.99

Altnets can do 500 for lower... where available.

£24.99 here at the moment for a 12 month contract. I thought it was a special offer for me only . It did not say it was, but I just thought it was.
150Mb/s is £20, if I had known that when I went for mine I would have gone for that instead of the 500Mb/s. Still never mind.
12 months contract, so that is good.

In reply to a post by dect:

We are talking specifically BT and Plusnet

That is true. I liked Plusnet, they were pretty good, considering they belong to BT, I hope they do keep going, If I was still with them and they pushed me onto EE, I would have moved.

Earlier today agreed a new 2 year contract with them, moving from FTTC to FTTP ... so their management are still planning to be around for a while.

In reply to a post by MHC:

Earlier today agreed a new 2 year contract with them, moving from FTTC to FTTP ... so their management are still planning to be around for a while.

The proposition cannot be discounted that Plusnet are continuing to sign up customers with the view that those customers could be asked transfer to another part of the BT empire at some date in the future. That date could be already part of the internal plans with the expectation that most of the customer base will fall for the inertia marketing and just tick the box.

Maybe ...

Someone referred to PN offering 12 month contracts
Can that be confirmed

12 & 18 month available on FTTC, but not from what I saw and heard on FTTP.

In reply to a post by MHC:

Earlier today agreed a new 2 year contract with them, moving from FTTC to FTTP ... so their management are still planning to be around for a while.

Means very little to be honest, they offered me a 2 year contract, if they vanished then they would have transferred me to EE. I presume they would give people a choice to transfer or move to a different ISP. i would have been gone. People I know that are on EE say their customer service is as bad as BT, so I presume they use the same call centres.

In reply to a post by bure:

Someone referred to PN offering 12 month contracts
Can that be confirmed

They do to existing customers, but the prices are not good, but only on FTTC, not FTTP. !8 months and 12 months are the same price, 24 is cheaper

Plusnet are going to continue to be the "value brand" for home internet, while EE branding will replace BT.
Can't reveal source but they are 100% in the know.

I read that Plusnet isn't going to do voice over broadband, so come 2025 they will only offer broadband over ADSL/FTTC/FTTP and at that point they may lose (or not) some customers.

By the end of 2025 there will be no PSTN - but from September 2023 (!) you won't be able to get a new PSTN line or transfer one. So in 2 months Plusnet won't be able to offer any new customer a phone line at all (PSTN, VoiP, or mobile).

In reply to a post by sheephouse:

By the end of 2025 there will be no PSTN - but from September 2023 (!) you won't be able to get a new PSTN line or transfer one. So in 2 months Plusnet won't be able to offer any new customer a phone line at all (PSTN, VoiP, or mobile).

They'll offer a broadband service, and may suggest those than need "landline equivalent" go to EE or BT for "Digital Voice". A third party VoIP service will work of course.

In reply to a post by jchamier:

Email has been a nightmare for ISPs for years, even Virgin Media has dropped email for new customers. Sky used to outsource to Google, but that became too costly. Cheaper to get your own mailbox from one of the big providers, Google (Gmail), Microsoft (outlook.com) or Yahoo with adverts - OR - pay for a professional service with no ads if you have a domain (MS 365 Exchange Online is £3+tax per month per user).

But why? I know years ago there was a free mailbox goldrush, I presume that failed because there wasn't a practical way to make an API pay so they resorted to making customers use webmail and Gmail pretty much cleaned out that market.

It seems as if modern ISPs just resell wholesale services and running their own servers for their customers' benefit is too much like work requiring in-house IT that they'd rather dispense with.

In reply to a post by obroad:

But why?

Spam. The volume, and the cost of the computing power required to remove it before it hits your mailbox. The larger the scale (Google, Microsoft) they can see the spam coming into their domains and other domains and see it is the same and delete it from all incoming at the same time.

I know years ago there was a free mailbox goldrush, I presume that failed because there wasn't a practical way to make an API pay so they resorted to making customers use webmail and Gmail pretty much cleaned out that market.

Most ISPs used free software, which then didn't scale. They then outsourced to Gmail for a while, then Yahoo for a while, but many are back in house.

It seems as if modern ISPs just resell wholesale services and running their own servers for their customers' benefit is too much like work requiring in-house IT that they'd rather dispense with.

They run their own networks at tens of gigabits which is complex enough. Running terabytes of data storage and the multi-site backups and looking after it, is not remotely the same business as providing a routable IP address to the internet.

Running email is a costly business, and getting it wrong and losing customers email is worse than not supplying the service. Especially when the likes of Google or Microsoft will sell you business grade email for £3+tax a month, or you can have advertising supported for free.

Most US providers provided only 1 mailbox even years ago, perhaps it was a UK oddity that every ISP gave you 10 or more mailboxes. Started with Demon internet giving you SMTP direct to your dial up host - wouldn't work today, your dial up link would be full of junk mail

Edited by jchamier (Mon 17-Jul-23 13:22:15)

In reply to a post by PhilipSmith72:

Plusnet are going to continue to be the "value brand" for home internet, while EE branding will replace BT.
Can't reveal source but they are 100% in the know.

I heard similar a few years ago. The plan then was EE for the tech savvy people, BT for the traditional people and Plusnet for the value customers. They seem to have decided they don't need to keep the BT part now.

In terms of people apart from the call centres everything is BT Consumer now, over the last few years the EE & Plusnet people have been moved onto BT contracts. I think Plusnet HQ in Sheffield is just a contact centre these days, the networks etc. are run as part of the wider BT.

They'll offer a broadband service, and may suggest those than need "landline equivalent" go to EE or BT for "Digital Voice". A third party VoIP service will work of course.

Yes, but I'm thinking that selling Plusnet to anybody who wants a phone isn't going to be easy - if you have to go elsewhere for a phone why not go there for broadband too?

In reply to a post by jchamier:

They'll offer a broadband service, and may suggest those than need "landline equivalent" go to EE or BT for "Digital Voice".

IIRC only BT are offering Digital Voice so any Plusnet or EE customers wishing to keep a voice service will have to migrate BT if they wish to stay with a BT Group company.

Depends on what BT see as the core market for PN.

How many people looking for a service at the bargain basement end of the market will actually need a voice service when all the members of the household are already welded to their mobile phones? If this is marketed around an economic price because you are not paying for things you don't need it will probably not dent their market penetration too much.

In reply to a post by GonePostal:

If this is marketed around an economic price because you are not paying for things you don't need it will probably not dent their market penetration too much.

and I suspect they know exactly how many minutes of calls are made on most lines each month.

The problem I have with seeing Plusnet as a broadband only provider for "the cheap end of the market" is that in many areas there are other cheaper ISPs (some OpenReach based, others Altnet based) - some of which do provide extras - so I don't see Plusnet as particularly cheap, especially with the long contract lengths and annual 3.9%+CPI price increases. I no longer see Plusnet as having any USP.

In reply to a post by sheephouse:

I no longer see Plusnet as having any USP.

Did they ever since TalkTalk launched?

In reply to a post by jchamier:

In reply to a post by sheephouse:

I no longer see Plusnet as having any USP.

Did they ever since TalkTalk launched?

UK-based call centre - this is a *huge* benefit if you ever need to call them.

Static IP for a one-time charge.

Their referrals scheme.

In reply to a post by candlerb:

UK-based call centre - this is a *huge* benefit if you ever need to call them.

Don't EE ?

Static IP for a one-time charge.

Yes, a useful one. Some alt-nets now do this.

Their referrals scheme.

I think one other ISP does this, but agree its fairly unique.