Alternative to PlusNet

I am currently paying

TBH if you have a working connection at the moment, I would hold off for a few months to see what TT and SKY are like. I have doubts about the long term viability of their business models, and suspect they will only work if customers are packed into the pipes. Also do TT and SKY offer static IP? I haven't checked but many of these mass market providers will only offer dynamic IPs.

One ISP I would recommend avoiding is Eclipse. I moved from Plusnet to Eclipse and they didn't manage to do anything right first time. Their support was also largely awful (I did manage to speak to one very good agent once). Ticket response times was measured in weeks - typically it took 2 weeks to get a response to most problems. After 3 months I moved back to Plusnet and haven't had a major problem since. In the month before I left they also introduced a 2Mb max cap on P2P and usenet, then denyed it. My last ticket has been open 5 weeks now without response just asking for this to be confirmed.

I don't know what their service is like, but Namesco might be worth a look

http://www.adslguide.org.uk/newsarchive.asp?item=2752

And the comparison here is interesting - not least because euro1net seem(ed) pretty much pick of the bunch on those ratings out of PN, TalkTalk, Namesco. Doesn't look like you'd go too far wrong with Namesco on those figures though - better than PlusNet and TalkTalk on all of them... You might be best asking in the "Which ISP? (Residential)" forum though.

First thoughts are have a look at Newnet. I agree with the other poster about being wary of the likes of Talk Talk, tbh I'd say the same of any ISP with more than a one month contract, Newnet only have a months contract.

I should add I don't use Newnet, I just know a couple of people who do and they seem happy enough.

The only thing you should do before you join a new ISP is find out their CS and ring them to see how long it takes to get through. Read their respective forum and see what it is like and ask questions.

Only then should you consider an ISP for the included usage etc. since it seems to be priority No.1 for you. I wouldn't have a problem with Sky, I am thinking about getting it installed where I am because I have been with Sky for a number of years and never had a problem with support issues on the TV side of things and I have confidence in them. TalkTalk, not so much.

Isn't Premier

Look at Sky. I have ordered it (though I have the benefit of a backup wifi connection off a friend should anything go wrong) , and so far the experience has been excellent -- well trained staff, simple phone menu system, and no queues whatsoever on the phones. I'm due for activation the start of next week so hopefully all will go well.

Take a look at the LLU options in your area (www.samknows.com has a checker). LLU from Bulldog or Be are also good value.

I wouldn't recommend signing up to any providers who need you to pay up front -- those ISPs have been going down like flies lately (E7Even, and now Euro1Net).

http://www.ukfsn.org/adsl.html#allowance

Max adsl is provided by Entanet with support from both Entanet and UKFSN. I migrated seemlessly 2 weeks ago Been solid connection ever since.

SKY offer static IP?


nope - dynamic, i will have a list of ports they block soon - nowt special afaik

Have a look at IDNet

They also have a forum here on AG

Well having ditched PN a couple of months ago, I have 2 ADSL lines from 2 seperate suppliers.
512k from Tiscali courtesy of work - never had a problem with it at all so can't comment on their CS.

8MB from Pipex (Pipex Max)

In reply to:

---

Talk Talk deal looks good (

>>> Trust me on this one, if you think Plusnet offer poor service then you aren't going to be happy with TalkTalk.

Its very sad but this is one of the things that is wrong about this forum these days.

There are several users who may state that PN is the worst ISP ever blah blah blah....
There is so much noise in here that you would think that PN are to blame for just about everything.

Granted they have made a muck up of stuff recently... but outside of this particular forum I come into contact with people who use other ISPs such as the likes of TT, Wanadoo, Tiscali etc etc.. and by gawd PN are saints compared to some of the things Ive heard and seen.

I dont much visit /read AG these days, but when I do, I also see whats going on in some of the other ISP sections.. I see problems there too.. so for now out of the frying pan into the fire springs to mind.
A couple of months ago, I wrote to Eclipse asking them if they could explain or clarify their traffic shaping to me.. It took about 3 weeks before I got a totally useless response, and they never ever bothered replying back to my other question.

I also on occasion contact other ISPs about things.. I think over the past year or so, theres only been 2 ISPs that have impressed me with their responses to me (I know that wingco is gonna love that one is Vispa - but under the circumstances I cant praise them enough)... the other is a vISP.

Well I left and moved to Pipex.

I've heard a few complaints about them. But I can safely say that the treatment I have had so far is a lot better than with PlusNet.

Same product and then some, plus a little cheaper. I don't mind paying though aslong as the service is good.

I was migrated and maxed within 7 days with no problems, unlike waiting for over 6 months to hear that max is on hold with PlusNet, even after 4 opt ins and that if they did max me, I would probably have speed issues. So they didn't even try.

Go figure.

I know Pipex aint the best, but until I move house in a year they will do for me.

While I agree with you, plusnet's throttling does affect all users -- not just those that break the rules.

I don't think anyone is on the LLU network which I would guess would be much much better than the current IPstream mess.

But yes, I do agree, talktalk are pretty terrible by the sounds of it.

I know of no other ISP that has such poor customer support as plusnet. Sorry, but I don't. Even with talktalk you can get through on the phones within 15 minutes.

I know of no other ISP which adveritises a 'converged IP strategy' to customers yet left me waiting an entire fortnight with only one useless reply to a ticket about the utterly broken VoIP platform they have.

Furthermore, I know of no other ISP which starts advertising 8Mbit service 12 months before it is ready, and then runs away crying when it turns out this service isn't good enough for commercial use.

Thinking about it, I really haven't had as bad customer service as I have had over the last 3-6 months from plusnet as I have had with *any* company.

Shareholders have been screwed, customers have been screwed, staff have been screwed -- it's obvious that the spin machine at plusnet has fallen apart.

You have incredibly specific needs kitz -- I know of very few people who need a static IP address (presumably for servers) yet requires very esoteric domain/email/hosting services. For the vast majority of customers with plusnet, they are simply not a good company to be with.

That may all be true, Kits but you have to remember that saying someone out there is worse or equal to PN in terms of support is hardly a valid reason to claim PN are OK or even a valid reason to downplay the problems or be given the excuse that others are as bad if not worse. That is the ultimate problem here. In fact there might very well be thousands of users who have had no problem, don't know about the current issues and aren't bothered by it but what if one day this week they have a disconnection and do need support? What will they do? How long will they have to wait for someone to resolve the problem?

We also have the other issues such as refunds for overcharging and LLU moves without allowing people to opt-out and promises retracted. The other issues are with the network problems and in a way PN seem jinxed at the moment because it isn't going right for them. I see them as a losing F1 driver - when things are tough then everything has to be fought for but when things start looking a little better a lot of things fall into place and good luck also seems to follow.

I genuinely hope for the benefit of existing PN customers that PN get to that stage quickly but they have to become honest first and that is my biggest gripe about the company ethos, the rest is little less difficult.

In reply to:

---

I know of no other ISP that has such poor customer support as plusnet. Sorry, but I don't. Even with talktalk you can get through on the phones within 15 minutes.

---

Now I can't comment on your experiences with TalkTalk..but in my experience this is rare. I've lost count of the times I got the "sorry all our representatives are busy..please call back later" message. If you read my reply then you would also realise that when you do finally speak to someone, the levels of service are very poor. I never once received a satisfactory outcome to a call with TalkTalk customer service. In the short time I have been with plusnet, I have only had to contact customer service once and on that occasion my problem was fixed in the given time frame. The person I spoke to at Plusnet also appeared to possess a degree of technical knowlege I never experienced with TalkTalk. With TalkTalk you get put throught to a person reading from a script. If your particular problem goes beyond the remit of that script, then you have the choice of calling a premium rate number or sorting out the problem yourself. They do give you the option of emailng them and although they promise to answer all emails within 7 days, in the 14 months I was with them they never answered one email.

I forgot to mention in my previous post that although I was with them for 14 months, I tried to leave after 12 but they took an astonishing 5 weeks to produce a MAC. They only provided that after I went on a campaign of emailing Charles Dunstone in person.

I'm also considering a move from PN but I'm sitting tight for now because nothing has actually gone wrong for me. Yet!

Going from PN to TalkTalk makes the metaphor "out of the frying pan into the fire" sound totally inadequate.

Recently 2 friends have asked me to recommend ISPs. I want them to stay friends! Clearly I can't recommend PN at the moment so I did a little reearch. For The person who needed a basic browsing and email service I suggested Eclipse. Absolutely 100% OK so far. Had to phone customer service with a question about the sign up process (our lack of understanding rather than their fault) and a helpful guy answered the phone in seconds. The other friend wanted a top class service with good ping times for gaming but without much p2p requirement.. Already has Sky TV so the Sky service looked very good value. Would not be available for a few months so needed an interim provider. She was thinking of virgin but I talked her out of that pretty easily and eventually settled on Zen. Activation is next week so we'll see. I honestly don't expect problems. I think she may well stay with them, especially if Sky starts giving poor performance. AFAIK the Sky service is being done by Easynet which they bought up precisely to get a toe in the ADSL market.

In reply to:

---

(I know that wingco is gonna love that one is Vispa - but under the circumstances I cant praise them enough)...

---

Not at all. I had no problems with the service. It just annoyed me that new packages were introduced which put existing customers

I dont understand how you can say that you get through to talktalk after 15 minutes. Every time I have called them I get a message saying " all our operatives are busy, please try again later".

Sorry, I think I've been drinking too much of Dunstone's koolaid. Who says waiting times are less than 15 minutes 99% of the time. So you're probably right .

In reply to:

---

I dont much visit /read AG these days, but when I do, I

---

<snip>

When you do, Kitz, you tend to spend half of every post moaning about what a terrible place ADSLguide is. That's hardly contributing towards improving the forums, is it?

As for Talk Talk, my mother has had Talk Talk installed and you're right... they are impossible to speak with on the phone. That's no different to PN, of course. She did manage to get all her issues resolved via an email correspondence with CS, however: that's someting that PN don't offer at all (being the chance to deal with a human being, outside a ticket system, who can take ownership of the problem from end to end.)

What's more, the Talk Talk connection is absolutely rock solid, reliable, unflakey... compare that to my dodgy PN service and it's surprising which one of them is "free" and which one of them costs 20 sovs a month.

It's easy to see why (based on anecdotal experience) many people don't consider that PN are any better than Talk Talk at all.

I migrated from Plusnet to Newnet a couple of months ago and can report that I'm very happy with them.

It's not just that waiting times are longer than 15 minutes. I once spent 2 hours and 15 minutes demanding to speak to a line supervisor. I was in a very determined mood that particular day and even though the CD reps put the phone down on me twice, I persevered and finally got to speak to a line supervisor..for what good it did.

Ineptitude is a key skill for any employee of TalkTalk..no matter how senior.

A brief catalogue of my problems with them follows:

They took 3 months to migrate me in! They kept insisting that my MAC was declined by BTW. I finally got in touch with BTW (not an easy thing to achieve) who stated that none of the MACs I'd supplied to TalkTalk had EVER been submitted. At this point I emailed Charles Dunstone and someone from his escalations team manually submitted the MAC and it was accepted immediately.

I then waited 6 weeks for my line to be upgraded to 1Mb. I once again contacted CS who told me that the most I could achieve was 512kb and because of that I would have to pay

I was a +Net customer for 2 and a half year before I moved to talktalk. Reason I left +Net was I got so fed up with their 'Free usage during off peak hours'. I got overcharged every month and it took a very long time before their CS replied to my ticket. I had given up phoning them as they put me on hold for an hour.
The process to move to talktalk can only be described as ok. They connected my line long before the welcome pack arrived but I managed to phone them and received my userid and pwd over the phone! Something that I never dream of from +Net. Service level from talktalk is acceptable so far. I had one whole day when I didn't have any connection at all. (+Net also suffered disconnection from time to time).
I do not do massive amount of download nor play online gaming so talktalk meets my requirement.

In reply to:

---

Granted they have made a muck up of stuff recently... but outside of this particular forum I come into contact with people who use other ISPs such as the likes of TT, Wanadoo, Tiscali etc etc.. and by gawd PN are saints compared to some of the things Ive heard and seen.

---

What utter rubbish!

I was a customer of Plusnet for 5 years and was disgusted by the performance and service with them, especially the way they turned in the last 18 months.

I'm now with TT, and I can assure you TT are a magnitude better than Plusnet are just now. I'm talking from actual experience here.

Sure TT are not the best, but they are much better than Plusnet are just now, the product is stable, works out of the box, and so far I haven