Considering leaving PlusNet - (Mainly cost)

I have been with Plusnet for nearly 5 years, and generally been very satisfied.

However I am now considering changing, mainly for cost reasons. I live about 4.5km from exchange and the absolute best speeds I can get are about 1.8mbps so fantastic speeds are not an issue for me. However I am currently paying about £22/mo for this and I know that many other ISPs will do a cheaper deal than this.

All I want is a stable connection that will match the current speed I get and maybe reasonable customer support would be good (I have always been impressed with Plusnets web pages, transparency and customer support). However I consider myself fairly tech literate and I hope not to have to resort to customer helplines very often

Anyway my main questions are whether anyone knows if Plusnet do a "retention" service like many other providers do. If they could give me my current service at about £14 I woudl defiitely stay.

The other question would be since I am likely to go to either Be or O2 (I know, the same company etc,) can I expect a reasonable stable service?


thanks

What kind of usage allowance do you need ?

You could go with PlusNet's Option 2 package which gives you 15GB/month between 8am and midnight for £14.65/month.

What exchange are you on?

Option 2 is on a monthly contract so it would be worth giving it
a try. I have just moved to it myself as it seem s to give me more than
enough headroom for BBC iPlayer downloads!

Meldrew

I don't understand why you are paying so much for your service unless you are a very heavy user.

You should look at a product which more closely matches you usage and speed profile needs and change to that product BEFORE applying for the £3/ month reduction for staying for 12 months. See https://www.plus.net/save/

Thanks for the suggestions.

I am on a legacy Premier Option 1 package, and have been a bit lazy about keeping up with different packages (ie I haven't bothered checking to see if I could get a better deal for years!). I am a moderately heavy user, sometimes >20gig per month, although recently its been 10-15 (However on the premier package the peaktime is different 4pm to midnight not 0800-MN, so I get extra off peak usage at weekends during the day. ) I have to say that probably my use will not get higher, maybe get a bit lower, I don't use bittorrent so much (hardly ever in fact these days) but I use streaming music (hi Spotify!) and video and iPlayer downloads a lot more, so that cancels out some of that.

Not sure why my exchange matters? (? to see if LLU is an option) - well O2/Be, C&W/Bulldog, Orange, Sky, Talktalk, Tiscali are the LLU providers to my exchange. Virgin don't cable my area. The 21CN switch over date for my exchange is projected to be Sept 2009.

I am about 4.5km from the exchange so not very good news there. I am getting about 1.8mbps which is pretty much as much as I can expect with a line attenuation of 60-62dB.

So my grand plans of going to O2 for a up to 8 no download limit but for a lot cheaper than PlusNet has been blown out of the water, because O2 say that I live too far away from the exchange for them to provide a broadband service with their network. I guess it might be similar with othe LLU providers.

So my options would seem to be choose a different non LLU ISP if they have a good price (and risk worse service), or downgrade to a cheaper package and stick with PlusNet. (I think the only sensible option would be BBYW Option 2. I might be able to manage with a 15GB restriction. I could try it and see if I end up paying for extra on a frequent basis. I could go for Option 3 I suppose although it's only a little cheaper than my current package. Still, its a wee saving...

Thanks for the hint about the £3/mo saving for loyalty. Can I change my package from for example Broadband Premier Op 1 to BBYW Option 2 and then claim the £3 saving?

Firstly, Yes you can apply for the £3 discount AFTER you have regraded your product. If you downgrade after you get the £3 discount, you will lose it.

I think you have a good handle on the product differences especially the off-peak periods. If you don't use p2p and are prepared to accept the throttling (see Kitz' excellent site for details) then Option 2 or even option 1 with the special offer of increased usage allowance may be for you.

Yes, if your exchange supports LLU on Sky, Be or even Talktalk, you may want to look at these. I was at a friend's home yesterday and he was complaining of slow p2p downloads on his TalkTalk LLU connection. However, what surprised me was the speed of HTTP access which seemed much faster than my Newnet connection. I think you need to select a service that meets your actual usage pattern. When I first got my Broadband service, I rejected out of hand any product that had limited usage or shaping of any kind. I have come 'round to the idea that shaping can be an advantage if it throttles all of the streams that I don't use because it gives my traffic priority at congested times.

Good luck with your deliberations....

Excellent advice .

(Bit sad - I agree that Kitz is probably better explaining Plusnet systems than Plusnet are).

Edited by RobertoS (Sat 17-Jan-09 21:16:31)

In reply to:

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well O2/Be, C&W/Bulldog, Orange, Sky, Talktalk, Tiscali are the LLU providers to my exchange.

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In which case if you have sky+ TV or Sky Talk you can get the Sky Max up to 16meg unlimited download for around £15.

Hi there,

If you'd like to PM me your username, I'd be more than happy to have a look at your account and see what we could offer you based on your current usage trends.