Moving from 'Premier Option 1' to 'Premium' or 'Pro'

Hi folks,
I've been on 'up to 8MB' Premier Option 1 for many years and I'm thinking about changing to either 'Premium' or 'Pro'.

I'm currently paying approx. £22 - £2 referrals = £20/month, so Premium would cost me £14/month (after initial discount period) and Pro £18/month - either way I'll be saving money.

I can't remember exactly what my current monthly peak usage limit is (20 or 30GB?), but I do most of my downloading overnight and have never got near this...with my peak-time downloading at least. This means that limit-wise, either Premium or Pro should be suitable.

I'm aware that my peak-time will change from 4pm-midnight to 8am-midnight but this shouldn't affect me that much.

The traffic prioritisation/shaping for Premium looks to be roughly similar to my current package, so changing over to Premium seems to be a no-brainer if it saves me £6/month.

However - I quite like the idea that, with Pro, I can download at line speeds at any time. I don't tend to download huge files, but the idea of downloading smaller files at peak times a lot quicker does appeal.


Does anyone have any thoughts on this ? Has anyone switched from Premier to either of these new packages ? Am I missing anything that could affect my decision ?

For those on Pro - is it be worth the extra £4/month ? Can you actually do P2P at 7pm at anything approaching line speeds ? (I know there are other factors that affect P2P speeds, but I rarely get >10kbps between 6pm-midnight, hence the >midnight downloads !)


One last question : I'm currently on 'up to 8MB' and my actual speed is around 6-7MB (ie. pretty good). I notice that both the new packages offer 'up to 20MB' - what factors would affect me getting anywhere near 20MB ? (I might have to check the firmware on my Netgear DG834G router, for example)

FWIW, I did get an email about my line being moved over to the '21CN' network, so I presume that ADSL2+ speeds should be possible.

Cheers.

I guess I am in a similar position, as I am also on Premier Opt1, get 6-7MB speeds and have a Netgear DG834G!

Peak usage on Opt 1 is 20GB, and peak time traffic prioritisation starts after 13GB have been used for the month. On some days i can stil get full speed P2P at peak times, but not always.

The DG834G does support ADSL2+, but I think only from v2 onwards (I think there are about 4 versions of it now). I have v1, and although some of the firmware updates mentioned ADSL2+, the option does not come in the router menus like it does on the updated versions.

I remember doing some 'initial checks', and they estimated that I would be able to get around 12-14MB on an ADSL2+ service, The usual factors affect it (distance from exchange, quality of phone line, quality of cabling inside house etc)

Hi there,

The limit on Premier Option 1 is 20GB peak. You're right that the peak period will change, but you've got a lot more usage on Premium to play with.

Premier vs Premium management is comparable, apart from the non-restricted periods (as you'd have ADSL2+ rather than Max).

With Pro, you'd have no limits at any time and all traffic is in Gold or Titanium (whereas P2P/Usenet on Premier and Premium is classed as Bronze).

If you've been moved to 21CN already it's just a modify order to give you ADSL2+ so you'll definitely be able to get it, and should see a nice speed increase.

Ive been on premier option1 for quite some time as well, i was thinking of moving to a cheaper package, but there isnt much in it, with both premier and premium both costing £20 per month, and the limited value package coming in at £12 per month ( rounded up by 1p)
Thats taking into account plusnets incredibly misleading front page offers that turn out to be nothing more than for the first few months only type of thing before the prices almost double.

Theres at least two people that i know who, on my recommendation were going to sign up to plusnet but after finding out that the £11.99/£5.99 offers were only time limited before the prices doubled went elsewhere as they've said that they wont sign up to a company that trys to rip people off.

I have been on plusnet pro package (£19.99) for nearly a year, i was sold on the fact that i would get prioritised traffic and would not be affected by internet shaping. Also a major factor was that i like to play quite a bit of xbox live.
I live a fair way from my exchange and have always been told i would struggle to get a brilliant speed but i thought and was told that paying for the pro would help me at peak times.
I do not dowload too much so the limit of 15gb was fine as i do most of my downloading after midnight due to my poor speed.
I have never had speeds of more than 4mb but i have had a ticket raised with plusnet as my speed has been very poor for around 5 months. The speed at peak times is very bad, I dont seem to be getting any benifit from the pro package. It is almost impossible to even browse the net during peak evening times some days!!! So as i see it i am paying extra for nothing, i still lose speed at peak times and find it nearly impossible to play games some days.
As soon as my contract is up next month i wiil be cancelling my account, if this is the best service i can get (as told by plusnet) i may as well get the cheapest package possible. I dont feel this is the case tho as after speaking to neightbours they get much better service from much cheaper suppliers.

Have been with plusnet for 6 years and on their Pro/ Gaming account.

Great to know you have prioritory on their network but the 20GB monthly usuage was a joke, especially when you have more than one person using your net (ie a facebook addicted gf).

Have been on their premium (up to 20mb) account since November, ever since then my avg speed dropped to 2mb (I was avg. 6mb on the 'up to 8mb' premium package). Only recently has this improved to just around 4/5mb but like tonight, i'm down to 1mb. The fact i've a network cable across the house to the goddamn master socket (while testing), is lame too.

The lure of 80gb usage hasn't been worth it so far and 'up to 20mb' is simply a dissapointment, time to try out O2 and see how they fair!

In reply to a post by SethMace:

The lure of 80gb usage hasn't been worth it so far and 'up to 20mb' is simply a dissapointment, time to try out O2 and see how they fair!

Only go to O2 if there is Be/O2 LLU at your exchange do NOT go for O2 access as it is just BTs MaxDSL.

In reply to a post by TheHorseman:

Only go to O2 if there is Be/O2 LLU at your exchange do NOT go for O2 access as it is just BTs MaxDSL.

Not only is it just ADSL Max, it is over-subscribed like BT, Plusnet, ex-Tiscali non-LLU, Entanet and many others. Unlike the good ADSL Max suppliers such as IDNet, Zen, AAISP, and Newnet (Newnet currently needs care after the recent takeover).

I got a message that I'd used over 60% of my allowance for the month (mainly due to a heavy iPlayer download session after I discovered that I'd had a glitch with my PVR & hadn't got recordings of a series that I thought I had) so I signed up to go over to Premium (also from premier Option1). I then found that I would be switched on my next billing date (not til 26th).

I asked if I could get switched early but the reply has come back saying no. Is that correct? I stated I wasn't interested in getting a refund for the part month just the switch of package.

I really don't want my service clamped at 2MB for the next 2 weeks - it makes O2 look even more attractive!! It would probably be cheaper but up to now I've had no problems with Plusnet so haven't felt the urge to move.

Can anything be done?

Hi bluetroll,

I'll take a look and see what I can do for you - would you be able to PM me your account username please?