BT v Plusnet on unbundled exchange

Hi all,

I am on an unbundled exchange and am considering either plusnet or BT as my broadband provider.

I've heard stories that BT throttle the Plusnet service on unbundled exchanges resulting in a slower speed than if I'd have gone with BT Broadband.

Is this still true? I've not found much information online about this specific question.

Kind regards

Daniel

What you suggest is not true and has never been true, hence why no information available on it, other than those peddling the myth.

Line speed the two should be the same

Hi again MrSaffron. How do these myths start? The reason I ask is that I was told this may be the case (about slower speeds for non BT providers on unbundled) by somebody who is an IT consultant and so I am inclined to take their word for it?

IT Consultant can mean someone who has done a 2 week excel course

PlusNet is actually owned by BT so makes no sense doubly.

BT Wholesale sells its products to over 100 providers and the performance in terms of line speed is the same across all of them, apart from where the provider requests changes e.g. EE can often be slower but that is down to what they ask for rather than a conspiracy.

I think what may be happening is that the performance issues that Sky, TalkTalk have on exchanges where they do not have their unbundled hardware has morphed into what you posted and this is not because of what BT do, but because Sky and TalkTalk simply do not buy the capacity from BT Wholesale to let the 5 to 10% of customers on that product to go at decent speeds all the time.

Thank you MrSaffron.

I was erring to go with Plusnet so your info has helped me make up my mind. Just need to get the phone line connected up now!

Thanks again for your help on this and my previous posts.

Kind regards
Dan

PlusNet do have a traffic management system, but the only people worried about it are non-PlusNet users. I have yet to see anyone on Plusnet with any opinion on it other than approval.

They used to have a "slow-down" system just like many ISPs including BT Retail used to, and some still do, but on the unlimited packages this is no longer the case.

You can see the speed management figures for the allowance packages here, and their explanation of why their traffic management/prioritisation system, (applicable to all packages), is an advantage over ISPs without it here.

Edited by RobertoS (Mon 23-Sep-13 12:43:12)

In reply to a post by digitaldanuk:

Hi again MrSaffron. How do these myths start? The reason I ask is that I was told this may be the case (about slower speeds for non BT providers on unbundled) by somebody who is an IT consultant and so I am inclined to take their word for it?

Generally this sort of myth starts because IT people can be conspiracy nuts (I feel I can say this as I am an IT person). The belief is that no private company like BT would provide the same service to its "competitors". My own belief is that BT wholesale are trying to make money for a service and if they were found to be doing this sort of underhanded dealing there would be massive backlash - they just wouldn't do it.

Whilst BT probably performs better than plusnet at busier times this isnt due to BTw throttling plusnet but rather plusnet's own internal policies.

The IT consultant may have also encountered the ongoing issue at Plusnet where their record of some IP Profiles are not promptly updated to match the BTw IP Profiles. This would indicate slow throughput when compared to BT Retail throughput speeds if he didn't check the Plusnet site for a user's profile and relied only on the information given when doing a BTw line test.

Thank you everybody for this very insightful info. I have learned a lot from this forum! Great help and really appreciate it.