Plusnet, Struggling?

I'm just about to change broadband providers and am looking for any insight on Plusnet since I haven't been keeping up with them(although I never had any problems with them as my first fibre provider).

Currently there seem to be a lot of complaints about capacity though their staff have commented that there is no congestion on their core network. I really hope Plusnet aren't becoming TalkTalk Mk. II.

To be honest the only other ISP I'm considering is Zen but they apparently want me to revert back to ADSL and then place a fibre order(not sure how long that'll take) - which is not an attractive proposition.

There has been no conclusion to the performance issues.

People yesterday were still showing poor performance in the capacity thread, so clearly its not resolved.

If you dont mind gateway hopping to get good performance then go ahead, otherwise it may be wise to not sign up at this time.

You may also want to consider pulse8 who are supposed to be as good as AAISP but without the eye watering prices:

https://pulse8broadband.co.uk/

Had a look to see what the monthly charge for ADSL1 unlimited usage would cost me being connected to a 20CN exchange market1/A and at £28 per month for BB it is sadly too costly for me.

Edit: FTTC is not available at my rural exchange (EO)

Edited by Apprentice (Mon 04-May-15 09:20:47)

The current Plusnet problems appear to be regional, with extra complications based on which gateway you happen to get connected to (as mentioned by Chrysalis). Many complaints come from Manchester or places close enough to have some association with it.

My speeds (Winchester) have been immaculate night and day, and I believe (but can't verify) that is the case for a large but silent majority of Plusnet customers. However, clearly there are issues, and if things are not right you won't get the same level of service from Plusnet as from a premium company .

Certainly had a problem last night, even my netflix would not play. Sort it out Plusnet.

Just proves how bad broadband is in this country, I do not think there is one supplier that offers a decent service. I can not and will not pay AA prices.

I would go for Zen if I was you... I've been with Plusnet since February and not having a good time at all...

Online gaming currently is screwed due to gateway issues... speed isn't so bad but then speed is only one factor of many that makes a good connection...

Saying that, I've been having some speed issues this weekend, and currently seems like Plusnet's QOS system isn't working to well under the load as streaming in the evenings goes to .... even though the bandwidth is available..

Plusnet's support on the matter has been very poor too.... trying to say that as I'm able to use the broadband to transfer high amounts of data (bare in mind this is in the day) that they aren't going to class my issues as a fault...

They've promised many callbacks but I've not received one... I have an open complaints case with them but they just seem to be ignoring it...

So do yourself a favor and pay the extra for a better service...

PS. If Sky LLU is available it might be worth looking at Sky Fibre Pro... heard a few good things and then won't be relying on too much on 3rd party infrastructure so the provider can on be to blame in circumstances like those Plusnet customers are suffering.

I think it s the fact that our Broadband is so cheap that it fails consistently in this country...

They're not enough revenues to keep the service afloat, specially when you consider what broadband used to cost compared to today...

The best move for Plusnet IMO is merge with BT... increase the prices and offer a "truly great" service.

I was just as bad, I wouldn't really pay much more for my service if it wasn't in line with other providers but then realized some benefits of doing so...

The fact is I can't afford Andrews & Arnold FTTC currently and wasn't sure about their ADSL packages but I saw the Xilo was basically in 2nd place behind AAISP so thought I would give them a go...

I'm going to be ordering an ADSL connection with them this week, and then I'm going to start optimizing my usage levels...

I think there is some regional issues coupled with the fact that plusnet appear to run some of their gateways close to capacity sometimes. They havent said that this is the case but it feels implied by some of their posts on their forum.

Got to be honest, with the cashback deals from Quidco and Sainsburys vouchers offers from BT I think thats where I will be moving to as BT broadband customers dont appear to be suffering like plusnet customers.

Also the added benefit of 12 month contracts which ties in with yearly line rental saver and a much better router in the form of a home hub 5.

In reply to a post by baby_frogmella:

You may also want to consider pulse8 who are supposed to be as good as AAISP but without the eye watering prices:

Those fibre prices are totally eye-watering compared with Plusnet's. For the record, I have had now slowdown or congestion problems at all, but I realise that doesn't help those that have.

I wonder how many reports he bases that assertion on anyway. Whilst I accept professor973's experience of them I don't recall any others. Maybe one other recent user on here?

In reply to a post by StephenTodd:

The current Plusnet problems appear to be regional, with extra complications based on which gateway you happen to get connected to (as mentioned by Chrysalis). Many complaints come from Manchester or places close enough to have some association with it.

My speeds (Winchester) have been immaculate night and day, and I believe (but can't verify) that is the case for a large but silent majority of Plusnet customers. However, clearly there are issues, and if things are not right you won't get the same level of service from Plusnet as from a premium company .

The reported Manchester BTW BRAS issues Have been fixed as capacity was added some time ago, and the huge latency humps at peak times have disappeared, How ever there are still those issues with throughput that existed prior to the issues with Manchester , which was convenient for plusnet,
Actual throughput during peak times can be severely impacted both in a ds or us direction , it's dependant on the Endpoint you get connected to as some are clearly saturated, all you can do is repeatedly hop between gateways (drop pppoe session and reconnect )until you get connected to an endpoint that has enough capacity, IMO this is no acceptable solution,

Edited by tommy45 (Mon 04-May-15 13:09:11)

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

I wonder how many reports he bases that assertion on anyway. Whilst I accept professor973's experience of them I don't recall any others. Maybe one other recent user on here?

I knew of pulse8 long before Professor973 joined them. I've recommended them to a few people who wanted to get away from BT back haul based ISPs and they've been highly impressed with them so far with the quality of connection & technical support. The fact they've managed to get in the prof's good books speaks volumes

Talktalk broadband is rock solid. You just need to find a reseller that gives the good customer service that TT often don't.

I can confirm their superb customer service. The icing on the cake of an ISP with no contract tie-in even for fibre.

In reply to a post by kasg:

In reply to a post by baby_frogmella:

You may also want to consider pulse8 who are supposed to be as good as AAISP but without the eye watering prices:

Those fibre prices are totally eye-watering compared with Plusnet's. For the record, I have had now slowdown or congestion problems at all, but I realise that doesn't help those that have.

Plusnet are a mass market budget ISP no better or worse than the likes of BT , Talktalk , Sky et al. AAISP, pulse8, Goscomb, Netplan are niche ISPs catering for those who are willing to pay extra. So comparing niche ISPs to plusnet is like comparing apples to oranges.

Pulse8 prices are FAR BETTER than BT or PN on a market 1 exchange and INCLUDES line rental. Take near £17 off headline price and it looks a lot better. Look at call prices, good customer services and no contract tie-in also.

Lol - It has been documented here recently how Adam at Pulse8 has jumped through hoops to help sort my flaky line. Honestly never had such customer service. Email answered immediately and he will sit at his control page making adjustments for hours. better than I had with Zen and far cheaper than AA.

Edited by professor973 (Mon 04-May-15 13:50:47)

In reply to a post by mlmclaren:

PS. If Sky LLU is available it might be worth looking at Sky Fibre Pro...

Does Sky use LLU to deliver their fibre? I was not aware that Sky LLU had to be at an exchange for that as it uses BTW network? Or is it a case of they use their own backhaul and so without LLU there wouldn't be one at the exchange?

Genuine question to clear up some confusion and greatly appreciated.

In reply to a post by zyborg47:

I can not and will not pay AA prices.

They are expensive and yes they support you well but with the usage limit I agree they are not really a long term goal.. And I am with them on ADSL right now.

I will be moving to Zen for FTTC it's a reasonable price and unlimited. Something I doubt A&A will ever do.

In reply to a post by kasg:

In reply to a post by baby_frogmella:

You may also want to consider pulse8 who are supposed to be as good as AAISP but without the eye watering prices:

Those fibre prices are totally eye-watering compared with Plusnet's. For the record, I have had now slowdown or congestion problems at all, but I realise that doesn't help those that have.

My price when I was with PN was £36 a month for phone and FTTC so not really that bad if the extra gives better support?

In reply to a post by AAuser27:

In reply to a post by mlmclaren:

PS. If Sky LLU is available it might be worth looking at Sky Fibre Pro...

Does Sky use LLU to deliver their fibre? I was not aware that Sky LLU had to be at an exchange for that as it uses BTW network? Or is it a case of they use their own backhaul and so without LLU there wouldn't be one at the exchange?

Genuine question to clear up some confusion and greatly appreciated.

AFAIK Sky uses LLU from the exchange for fibre connections too, I assume that areas where Sky LLU is not available but FTTC is might use BT Wholesale to get to Sky's network like Plusnet does currently... This could also be compared the same to Sky's Connect Service...

In reply to a post by mlmclaren:

In reply to a post by AAuser27:

In reply to a post by mlmclaren:

PS. If Sky LLU is available it might be worth looking at Sky Fibre Pro...

Does Sky use LLU to deliver their fibre? I was not aware that Sky LLU had to be at an exchange for that as it uses BTW network? Or is it a case of they use their own backhaul and so without LLU there wouldn't be one at the exchange?

Genuine question to clear up some confusion and greatly appreciated.

AFAIK Sky uses LLU from the exchange for fibre connections too, I assume that areas where Sky LLU is not available but FTTC is might use BT Wholesale to get to Sky's network like Plusnet does currently... This could also be compared the same to Sky's Connect Service...

AFAIK Sky (and Talktalk) can't offer you a FTTC connection if they haven't unbundled your exchange.

In reply to a post by mlmclaren:

AFAIK Sky uses LLU from the exchange for fibre connections too, I assume that areas where Sky LLU is not available but FTTC is might use BT Wholesale to get to Sky's network like Plusnet does currently... This could also be compared the same to Sky's Connect Service...

Sky and TalkTalk use the Openreach fibre to get the speed from your home to the exchange but it then connects to the Sky or TalkTalk networks, not the BTwholesale that Plusnet, BTretail, and others use.

The thing about fibre is if you are on a smallish exchange, the fibre may go to a neighbouring town, the distance doesn't matter once you've hit the cabinet.

In reply to a post by AAuser27:

Does Sky use LLU to deliver their fibre? I was not aware that Sky LLU had to be at an exchange for that as it uses BTW network? Or is it a case of they use their own backhaul and so without LLU there wouldn't be one at the exchange?

Genuine question to clear up some confusion and greatly appreciated.

Sky FTTx uses Openreach GEA-FTTx products, connecting to the Sky network at the handover point (via a connection sometimes referred to as a Cablelink). These handover points are at the exchange or at a nearby larger exchange. Sky don't use the BT Wholesale backhaul network that companies like Plusnet and BT Retail (for Infinity) use.


BT Wholesale and TalkTalk run wholesale FTTx backhaul networks.

Sky runs a FTTx backhaul network that they only use for their own products (unless I've missed a wholesale announcement from them).

Zen run a FTTx backhaul network for their own use from many handover points. Unlike Sky and TalkTalk, Zen will use BT Wholesale to provide service when they don't have presence at the relevant handover point. I believe Zen now offer wholesale service, but might be mistaken on that.

In reply to a post by baby_frogmella:

AFAIK Sky (and Talktalk) can't offer you a FTTC connection if they haven't unbundled your exchange.

That is true - but it may not be your exchange but the exchange where the FTTC ends.

Also Sky/TalkTalk have to buy what is known as a GEA-CableLink from openreach, which connects their LLU kit to the FTTC kit. Sometimes this takes a couple of months between a cabinet going live before this link is in place.

In reply to a post by baby_frogmella:

AFAIK Sky (and Talktalk) can't offer you a FTTC connection if they haven't unbundled your exchange.

That would make sense.

In reply to a post by jchamier:

In reply to a post by mlmclaren:

AFAIK Sky uses LLU from the exchange for fibre connections too, I assume that areas where Sky LLU is not available but FTTC is might use BT Wholesale to get to Sky's network like Plusnet does currently... This could also be compared the same to Sky's Connect Service...

Sky and TalkTalk use the Openreach fibre to get the speed from your home to the exchange but it then connects to the Sky or TalkTalk networks, not the BTwholesale that Plusnet, BTretail, and others use.

The thing about fibre is if you are on a smallish exchange, the fibre may go to a neighbouring town, the distance doesn't matter once you've hit the cabinet.

Ok that's good to know... Yes I already was aware of the setup with Sky and TT LLU on Fibre just thought it might use Wholesale for when theirs no LLU but then I now remember hearing about fibres going to alternate exchanges for service so thanks for the reminder

In reply to a post by mlmclaren:

In reply to a post by baby_frogmella:

AFAIK Sky (and Talktalk) can't offer you a FTTC connection if they haven't unbundled your exchange.

That would make sense.

That is not correct. Sky can and do offer FTTC at their non-LLU exchanges. Indeed BT run FTTC at exchanges which do not have WBC.

Openreach do this by running fibre from the smaller (non-LLU non-WBC) exchanges to a nearby exchange which does have LLU and WBC. The backhaul from the larger exchange, in the case of Sky, is then handled on their own network, as it would be with LLU.

I dont know about that, I am not near manchester.

However I do think plusnet were using the manchester issues as a shield or at least hoping the manchester issues were the reason for our problems.

The manchester issue was resolved a week or two ago.

To say your speeds have been fine shouts "Im alright jack" so everyone else must be.

You havent stated how many different endpoints you have been on during that time and why you believe the majority of customers dont have this issue (which may not be immediately obvious to many light users).

I can't even get phone and ADSL2+ for £36 from PN on Market 1.

OK, I had neglected the inclusive line rental, for which I apologise, but it is still significantly higher than Plusnet for the 500GB package - which is the nearest they do to unlimited as far as I can see - even on Market 1, and way, way more than I pay.

There are a very vocal minority that are reporting issues pretty vociferously.

All those I've had have been traced back to BT Wholesale issues. I've been on the same PN gateway for over a month and performance has been fine.

The joys of having 900k subscribers I guess.

Ignition if you have read and mine and kitz posts, you will see we have said once on a good endpoint the performance stays good.

The test is when you move to a different endpoint and see what happens then.

Given BTw routing is static in and around the exchange area how do you explain the performance variation based on connected endpoint?

Plusnet have even admitted now to saturated endpoints and are stating they carrying out upgrades, they wouldnt be saying this is if all was fine.

The problems are so bad, I have held of a router firmware upgrade, because I am too scared to lose this endpoint.

That's great - thanks for the explanation

Ah yes I forgot about companys who work in the 80s when the rich had better costs than the poor. or in their case market areas.

I didn't actually comment much on anything beyond my own experience, however:

In reply to a post by Chrysalis:

Given BTw routing is static in and around the exchange area how do you explain the performance variation based on connected endpoint?

It isn't static 'around the exchange area' if exchanges have more than one path out of them. In my own exchange's case a capacity issue was relieved by spreading from using a single path out of the exchange to using three by adjusting OSPF costs.

Thats the thing though, BT who dont appear to be having the same problem or for that matter Sky FTTC arent hugely much more expensive and are both unlimited too.

In reply to a post by barker04:

Thats the thing though, BT who dont appear to be having the same problem or for that matter Sky FTTC arent hugely much more expensive and are both unlimited too.

There is also contract length and calls to consider. I don't think BT or Sky do calls for 0.8p, per second billing and no call connection fee, let alone no contract tie-in even for fibre. personally, I put good service and no tie-in at the top of my list over saving a couple of quid. We pay exactly the same £26 to EE at our other home - Total nightmare by comparison!

Fair point but most folks dont want to stump up £38 a month for fibre when it can be had elsewhere cheaper, and for the most part to a good standard, talktalk business being one example.

I am on resold Talktalk, with better customer service and better contract conditions. it's all a matter of choice and that we should be allowed to exercise that choice. A little like cars - There will always be someone prepared to drive a Lada. the Broadband equivalent I see here, are those that put cashback before service. I could be stumping up £38 pounds per month to be tied to Plusnet ADSL2+ - A reign of terror that still gives me flashbacks

Edited by professor973 (Mon 04-May-15 22:05:51)

Sky 76/20 is £30pm.

As long as I have been on this board, Plusnet capacity problems have been a theme. In the adsl max days it was blamed on BT round robin system of allocating gateways to users. I personally think its a stack em high shift em quick mentality at PN.

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

Sky 76/20 is £30pm.

+ line rental at £16.40 = £46.40.

The nearest Pulse8 equivalent is P8Ultra Fibre/Line at £50 per month, although that has a usage limit of 500 GB.

Without phone its £19 pm for unlimited TTB SMPF Pulse 8 3:1 contention, which seems quite reasonable.

In reply to a post by Banger:

Without phone its £19 pm for unlimited TTB SMPF Pulse 8 3:1 contention, which seems quite reasonable.

Quite reasonable for those with MPF-phobia.

3:1 contention? Where? (Both where is the contention that low, and where is such an impossible figure stated?)

Here.

Well... Seem to be doing well tonight Plusnet do...

My fibre connection has been suffering a lot of packet loss... Online gaming has been impossible so switched to my iPhone in EE and actually been OK... A lot better than Plusnet the last couple of months... & my ADSL connection has gone offline ...

No idea why either!

I can't at the moment find where they define what that means, but seeing as it is the lowest, with 2:1 and 1:1 above it, it cannot be a contention ratio with any real meaning in terms of the contention a user's connection experiences.

What I can't understand is why, if Plusnet is struggling so much, it is so keen on special offers to gain more customers and, presumably, make matters even worse

Given that they have over 830,000 customers, if one in a thousand had problems worth complaining about on forums we would be seeing 830 different usernames doing so.

Have we got one hundred? Of the number we have, how many are posting several times a week. Twenty?

If I needed to post several times a week for months complaining about any ISP I was with, I would certainly adopt the obvious solution.

Plusnet currently has a few issues. That is clear. Are they "struggling so much"? The figures don't suggest it.

Edited by RobertoS (Tue 05-May-15 11:22:19)

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

Given that they have over 830,000 customers, if one in a thousand had problems worth complaining about on forums we would be seeing 830 different usernames doing so.

They would more likely to complain on the Plusnet forum since that is more likely to achieve results.

There is a thread running there with over 1,800 posts: http://community.plus.net/forum/index.php/topic,1353...

It's hard to assess statistics though, since many people might complain once and then consider it not worth complaining again, and others may complain continuously. I have not analysed the statistics of that thread in question.

Without looking at the thread, (for the moment), I think we can assume an average of more than 3 posts per complainant. There are also no doubt a large number of people giving advice or simply commenting.

1800 / 3 = 600. So less than 0.073%, including the non-complainers.

Even 1800 individual complainants making one post each, with no contributions at all from non-complainants, would be less than 0.22%.

Edited by RobertoS (Tue 05-May-15 12:10:20)

bear in mind there is also many other threads made by people who are unaware of that thread.

Also to consider lets say you got someone who just uses it for email or twitter or maybe internet banking, those types of users are unlikely to notice then there is also the issue people may be assuming the problem is elsewhere.

If we applied this logic e.g. to virgin media where I was often the only person in Leicester complaining, then one could assume virgin media in Leicester is top draw performance because I was the only one making noises about it online.

These type of issues dont just randomly only affect a small number of people, this is really an issue about people noticing and willing to complain about it online rather than some network wide issue by some miracle only affecting less than 1% of customers.

Edited by Chrysalis (Tue 05-May-15 13:08:21)

I stand by my original figure. The later ones were simply trying to illustrate further its validity.

It's a big jump from almost certainly less than a hundred long-term complainers to 830, and 830 is 0.1% of the customer base. (Not the 1% = 8,300 you just suggested). Plusnet is not "struggling" under a huge problem.

I expect your posts amount to well over 1% of the overall public complaint total. Yet you still consider it worth staying with Plusnet.

Don't forget that the vast majority of forum posters have individual problems that are generally solved within a few days. That's normal. The discussion is about "Plusnet, Struggling?" The figures clearly say they are not.

In reply to a post by StephenTodd:

The current Plusnet problems appear to be regional, with extra complications based on which gateway you happen to get connected to (as mentioned by Chrysalis). Many complaints come from Manchester or places close enough to have some association with it.

My connection (South Midlands) improved a lot after the Manchester upgrade. I lost the typical peak time latency increase on my graph and I went back to getting full speed 24/7. However it seems to have been a bit short lived because although the latency still hasn't come back I am now finding singlethreaded downloads dropping to 50% of my throughput at times.

I don't know how many endpoints I've been on because I never bother to try and change it. Presumably I stay on the same endpoint for months at a time.

Edited by Andrue (Tue 05-May-15 13:52:35)

I assume the struggling are mostly customers with FTTC connections?
My ADSL1 connection had higher than usual latency for around ten days a week or two ago but now everything is back to what it was before that issue occured.

It should also be considered that no all affected customer will complain on forums , they may complain directly with support via phone or e-mail, they also may have complained to CISAS ect
Using the number of people complaining on forums isn't reliable enough to gauge what is going on

Edited by tommy45 (Tue 05-May-15 14:18:26)

The Manchester bras issue was a convenience for Plusnet, But the peak time throughput issues where all too apparent long before that , and they still are evident now,
They may of recently added capacity but the amount they added isn't enough , or their host links aren't sufficient because some of their endpoints regardless of the which gateway,(endpoints & gateways are separate) are clearly becoming saturated at peak times

Edited by tommy45 (Tue 05-May-15 14:25:08)

In reply to a post by tommy45:

Using the number of people complaining on forums isn't reliable enough to gauge what is going on

That's very true Tommy.

What exactly are you relying upon?

I don't rely on forum posts only Plusnet have issues at peak times they have had for a very long time , they will never do anything about it,imo

Yet you still remain with them. This does not make much sense to me when someone says they've been experiencing such a poor service for a very long time and they will not move ISPs.

I think you almost certainly outstrip Chrysalis in your criticisms of Plusnet. Very rarely about your own connection, just many comments running down Plusnet in general. Huge noise, no content.

I agreed in my post about the figures that there are some problems. But they are nothing like as significant as half a dozen people or so would have everyone believe. You and Chrysalis being major players in that.

People such as the OP need to be aware of this factor when assessing the replies.

I see no sign of a major problem in these graphs other than the ongoing mess over the IPv6 trial where the (now hard to avoid) bng series gateways don't set up the connection properly and it falls back to IPv4 - leaving the graph red.

(For those who don't know much about the ping graphs - thinkbroadband BQM - they rely on a fixed IP address so many of the blank ones will be where the user's IP address has changed since they set up the monitor. The solid red is where the above IPv6 problem has arisen, or the user's router is off, or their router is set not to respond to pings. Mine isn't on that page but the IPv4 one is linked to in my sig. The IPv6 one I have disabled as the red annoys me ).

Been with plusnet fibre since last November, moved over from Sky llu ADSL.

I had general maintenance problem, having no phone, could not fault CS, all sorted within 3 days. There are the apocalyptic outage\s, apparently it seems, I'm not on planet earth when it happens. I'm happy with them!

In reply to a post by mlmclaren:

I think it s the fact that our Broadband is so cheap that it fails consistently in this country...

They're not enough revenues to keep the service afloat, specially when you consider what broadband used to cost compared to today...

That is true, but it do not help with these large providers fighting each other to offer the best price.
Saying that I did choose plusnet because of price.

The best move for Plusnet IMO is merge with BT... increase the prices and offer a "truly great" service.

I would move, I have no idea who I would move to, but I would be gone.
I am not a fan of BT, i been with BT before and had a awful service, with naff customer service. I was a bit worried about going with plusnet, but I was told by a few people that it was better than BT and the customer service was better, so I decided to sign up and hope.

It was either plusnet or Talk talk and I had enough of Talk Talk and their customer service and I have never had a Talk Talk connection.

I was just as bad, I wouldn't really pay much more for my service if it wasn't in line with other providers but then realized some benefits of doing so...

I think most of us is the same.

The fact is I can't afford Andrews & Arnold FTTC currently and wasn't sure about their ADSL packages but I saw the Xilo was basically in 2nd place behind AAISP so thought I would give them a go...

A bit pricey and now i would not pay that much, I did pay more for my ADSL with
ADSL24 than i would have if i went for say Talk Talk, but I did nto mind as for ADSL i had a good service. I only changed to a local wi-fi service because I needed a bit more speed. I would still be with them if they kept up the speed, but they had problems and 1-4Mb/s is no good for Netflix.
FTTC was the next logical step, but the prices from the larger providers are so much better than from the smaller ones.
At the moment I need to go on price.

I'm going to be ordering an ADSL connection with them this week, and then I'm going to start optimizing my usage levels...

I have no idea what they offer to be honest, I did look a while back, but i forgotten, I do not think they was much different than ADSL24,

Plusnet was a lot better last night, I streamed about 10 mins of something on netflix and it was in HD, only ten minutes as I got board and decided to read instead.

I could put it another way, if you remember plusnet's issues prior to the BT buyout, it was well under 1% of users complaining then as well. So I guess that meant at that time only >1% of users were affected.

Looking at forums is not a way to assess who is affected.

So to clarify.

You are suggesting the following is not significant?

under 10mbit throughput on a 73mbit sync.
under 2mbit throughput on a 20mbit upload sync

Having to hop over THIRTY times to get reasonable performance (this one suggests multiple endpoints are affected).

The above has been verified by multiple people in different parts of the country, and all of us have either green or blue svlan's.

Given support staff have been happy to make people think their issues are peering, exchange., svlan related for months before finally admitting they have congested endpoints, is it not unreasonable to assume anyone phoning up with the issue is been fobbed off as well.

Either plusnet are incompetent (dragged on since start of 2015) or their hands are tied financially to resolve the problem.

Pretending its not a issue for people signing up to be worried about is been dishonest to those people, I know you may have an interest to keep appearances up for referral bonuses, and andyh has his own vested interest which he wont disclose, but I prefer been honest to people who ask the question.

Edited by Chrysalis (Tue 05-May-15 17:46:36)

If it's a major issue - then why have the likes of TBB/ISP Review/The Register or the mainstream media (BBC/newspapers etc.) not reported anything?

they would want to be very sure of it first, generally they report when everyone or close to everyone is affected, as not all plusnet endpoints are affected there is various people who will report normal speeds.

e.g. the register doesnt report on regional VM issues, if it did it would be filling up its page every day with them.

The one thing I agree with you on is tommy should have migrated out by now.

I personally will migrate out if it gets bad enough that I cannot keep good performance by staying on a good endpoint (currently I can), although this problem is bad enough it has prevented me from doing router maintenance as I dont want to drop the PPP session.

Edited by Chrysalis (Tue 05-May-15 17:50:45)

some additional points.

I have not posted on the plusnet thread much at all compared to other people, in the past 2 weeks I have made 2 comments, one which was to tell andyh to stop been rude to people.

I did some calculations where in 76 ppp sessions I had 3 good endpoints and 73 bad one's. Suggesting that of the endpoints available to me 96% might be bad, or maybe the plusnet session steering just gave me very bad luck.

You yourself confirmed when I asked you some weeks ago you had to do a hop as you had issues, and I noticed a couple of days ago on your tbb graph at peak you had some packet loss, followed by what looked like a disconnection and then a recovery.

In reply to a post by AndyHCZ:

Yet you still remain with them. This does not make much sense to me when someone says they've been experiencing such a poor service for a very long time and they will not move ISPs.

Well, well,well if it isn't the plusnet shill racing to plusnets defence again on another forum,, FYI i was until recently still in min term you know those 18mth min term contracts that should of been outlawed by now

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

I see no sign of a major problem in these graphs .
(For those who don't know much about the ping graphs - thinkbroadband BQM - they rely on a fixed IP address so many of the blank ones will be where the user's IP address has changed since they set up the monitor. The solid red is where the above IPv6 problem has arisen, or the user's router is off, or their router is set not to respond to pings.

Funny that because following your link i can see congestion type issues on more than one graph at peak time too,,i suggest you take a proper look next time,
Congestion?
More congestion?
peak time plusnet jitter

And there is more like them with peak time jitter , that's just what is visible, then there is the other peak time issue of poor throughput sometimes will only affect single threaded both upstream and downstream, but has also frequently affected multi-threaded throughput also, and when by dropping pppoe session and cycling through gateways until you find a endpoint that has sufficient resources (bandwidth capacity) which then restores full or near full throughput means that it is a issue specific to plusnet how much more evidence is needed ?

Edited by tommy45 (Tue 05-May-15 19:21:41)

It's been nice having you as a customer then!

In reply to a post by Chrysalis:

Pretending its not a issue for people signing up to be worried about is been dishonest to those people, I know you may have an interest to keep appearances up for referral bonuses, and andyh has his own vested interest which he wont disclose, but I prefer been honest to people who ask the question.

I object very strongly to your frequent assertions to me and others that we are in any way dishonest, and that referral discounts have any influence at all on anything I or they say.

It is disgusting of you to keep on doing it. Once could be a misjudgement, twice, barely forgivable. Umpteen times is despicable.

I assume you also believe that thinkbroadband falsify these results. And the ISPA awards are all fixed.

830,000+ customers. You and a tiny proportion of others have a problem. At no point have I denied that - but you are the dishonest one by pretending the issues are widespread.

If you don't like the above 6-ISP comparison, try this set, with AAISP, Zen and IDNet replacing VM, Sky and TalkTalk.

Edited by RobertoS (Tue 05-May-15 23:55:46)

Something interesting happened at about 23:50 tonight on several graphs, and earlier on the same ones, but the vast majority there look fine to me. Several are of course being used heavily by the customers and their families.

The important thing to look for is almost identical underlying patterns on multiple graphs. Such as two of your three. The only frequent similarity I spot on a quick glance at the full page just now is the one I just pointed out.

Anyone on this forum can of course click my link to the whole page and your individual selections and form their own opinion.

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

Something interesting happened at about 23:50 tonight ...

There was a 'something interesting' virtually identical to yours on my connection as well ! Gateway 195.166.128.192 (lo0-central10.ptn-ag03.plus.net) obtained around 1530 hours today after much hopping around trying to find one that actually allowed me to DL iplayer programmes without giving up after a few MB. Connection has been very odd and really cranky today (much more so than usual) but it's almost certainly NOT a problem at this end or a line issue. Intermittent loss of connectivity without any loss of connection i.e. significant breaks in data flow and/or no response/timeout for no obvious reason and without either PPP or connection to exchange being dropped or any other problems/errors being indicated.

Edited by ambrougham (Wed 06-May-15 00:56:34)

That event at 23.30 and was followed several other similar events (packet loss) wich from my own monitoring looks like a change in routing after the linx peering so could be unique to tbb other ping monitor

Edited by tommy45 (Wed 06-May-15 00:59:49)

It certainly wasn't specific to TBB monitoring here. I was seeing intermittent total loss of any usable connectivity to various places at the same time. The TBB graph simply confirmed that incoming connectivity was also affected. Could well be routing mods and/or transit link issues though but then again I've been seeing strange connectivity issues at various times today, particularly noticeable since around lunchtime and particularly bad around 1530-1600 and 2330-0015. Suspiciously close to Traffic Management (Peak Time) changeover points it has to be said.

Edited by ambrougham (Wed 06-May-15 01:16:11)

Something has indeed happened and I am now on a different gateway. Don't know whether that's good news or bad.

In reply to a post by Chrysalis:

You yourself confirmed when I asked you some weeks ago you had to do a hop as you had issues,

In the end I attributed that to my laptop and bought a new one. That didn't cure it so I reverted to my Plusnet router instead of my ASUS. The problems stopped, but it was also at a time that Plusnet did some updates and/or the Manchester BRAS was fixed, so I assumed it was a combination of those.

... and I noticed a couple of days ago on your tbb graph at peak you had some packet loss, followed by what looked like a disconnection and then a recovery.

A few days ago I reinstated the ASUS, and that looks to be the cause of all the problems. I've just had another such occurrence, one of several since putting it back, plus many very slow responses in normal browsing. It's always the router as my modem hasn't been touched or re-sync'ed for quite a while.

This time I checked its system log and it was a spontaneous reboot. The log goes back well into April, but of course I can't check for spontaneous ones before the latest as I've done quite a few reboots.

Next step looks to be a factory reset. That is a pain, losing many settings. Must see if I can back up the config first. Or maybe totally clean would be best.

To be honest I dont care.

All I know is my own experience, associates I know who also use plusnet, and what I read on forums.

There is clearly big performance issues with plusnet at the moment, whilst I acknowledge these may be down to BT wholesale and not plusnet themselves, I wont acknowledge its only one one little tiny part of the network, because if it was then I wouldnt be having such a hard time to avoid it. If it is down to BT wholesale, it doesnt give plusnet a get out of jail free card as they are responsible for that as well.

Sorry you took offense to me saying that you judgement "may" be affected that you "might" have referrals.

Again I repeat again, there is no way you can assume that the vast majority of customers are not affected, you have no access to the tech support data, you have no idea how many have noticed but have no idea whats causing it, and you have no idea how many have the problem but dont notice because their usage pattern wouldnt be affected,

So why do you keep repeating this claim "You and a tiny proportion of others have a problem"?

Why have you ignored my comment about when plusnet famously had a massive issue before been sold way less than 1% of their customers were vocal?

Please explain what sort of issue on a network that dynamically routes based on session steering would somehow only affect a few people with huge performance problems and affect everyone else not at all? I would love to hear how, maybe the 200 or so people I have seen complain in the past month have been put on a bad boys pipe?

Meanwhile whilst your head remains in the sand plusnet have confirmed more endpoint problems, and another issue that affected 5% of connected users.

Edited by Chrysalis (Thu 07-May-15 10:11:36)

I've had no issues the last few nights... but thats due to me not using the broadband and I've been using my mobile for HD streaming and Online Gaming of all things.... and it's been fine...

Surely this shows that PN have FAILED!

PS. I can note that BQM's have been showing packet loss and also same old slow downs and inability to stream properly... I know the sonos was streaming radio last night and that ended in a blocky breakup and disconnect!

Atleast Virgin could handle the stream even when 152mb was reduced to 11mbps...

Think I'm going to go back to ADSL on LLU I think... Plusnet really [censored] me off and so has BTw now!

Surely this shows that PN have FAILED!

Hmm I'm not sure this shows that Plusnet has failed - does it? I'm a Plusnet customer and see no issues with my connection despite heavy use by myself, wife and daughters. I also know at least 8-10 other Plusnet customers all over the UK that also have no issuses with their connections.

I think it shows that your issues are more likely to be local to you (as in your exchange) - perhaps down to congestion.

Glad to hear! However

In reply to a post by WelshWArrior:

Surely this shows that PN have FAILED!

I think it shows that your issues are more likely to be local to you (as in your exchange) - perhaps down to congestion.

Nope this isn't the case, thats been checked... my connection generally is brilliant... to the cabinet and the exchange and as the issues apply on certain Plusnet gateways and switching can fix the issues for a few hours - days I only see PLunet as the problem.. must also point out both neighbours either side of me are using different providers... one is BT and other is Sky and both reporting a bril connections and no online gaming issues reported by BT household...

(Sky household not gamers)

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

I can't at the moment find where they define what that means, but seeing as it is the lowest, with 2:1 and 1:1 above it, it cannot be a contention ratio with any real meaning in terms of the contention a user's connection experiences.

1:1 contention with no throttling is almost a leased line. At £36pcm there is no way that can be true.

Edited by Andrue (Thu 07-May-15 14:50:07)

well they have posted again today with much more details. I have gave them more feedback.

Cheers for heads up

I've posted on there now, I've started automated speed testing off and will leave that running throughout the night and see what it spits out at the end.

Quite.

Surely this shows that PN have FAILED!

Not proven for this user who has experienced no significant problems to date [WRVAUX Vauxhall exchange, central London]

Congratulations!

I am wondering if it is relative priority between the packages? Therefore the more you pay the higher priority you have on their network, although if the top package has a priority of 1:1 then that would suggest the other 2 packages would actually not get a look in when the network was over contended.

The actual text makes no sense and tells users nothing as it doesn't define what this priority "ratio" is for.