From Be to Plusnet

I've been a Be customer for a little over a year now and have had no problems at all with them. The connection has been reliable; the speed has been as fast as possible for my location and customer service has been helpful, courteous and quick. Taking all of this into account, I am reluctant to switch.

Plusnet Value however, offers the same speed at a lower price. The download limit put me off until I read that downloads from midnight to 8am don't count against my limit. So now I am more seriously looking at switching.

My questions to you are thus:

Are there any download monitors that can tell me when most of the downloading occurrs. Since at the moment I am not entirely sure that ALL of my downloading occurrs off-peak.

Will I get the same kind of speed I am getting now. According to BT I can only get around 4Meg at my location but Be have consistantly provided speeds of over 5 meg, occasionally it even reaches higher 6 values (for instance 6.7 as it is at the time of typing). This is much higher than I ever recieved with Sky which was often 3meg or less. Yet I'm told that both are ADSL2, as is Plusnet.

How does customer service compare between the 2 providers. Be have been excellent thusfar.

You may be asking the wrong question. How much (GB) do you expect to download per month?

The connect speed largly depends on the lenght and quality of your phone line, so that should stay the same. However lot also depends how Be and/or PlusNet connects to your exchange, that may well affect the actual download speed at various times.
Then there is the question of how and when ether IPS limits usage, e.g. P2P, video etc.

You can shedule downloads to start after 0:00 hours.

The free 'networx' software would help you understand your present usage.
Regards,
Martin

In reply to a post by k1ll3r:

I've been a Be customer for a little over a year now and have had no problems at all with them. The connection has been reliable; the speed has been as fast as possible for my location and customer service has been helpful, courteous and quick. Taking all of this into account, I am reluctant to switch.

I would stick with the ISP that is in my opinion currently the best in the country.

Setting that aside though, did you ever find what was wrong with your connection when with Sky, or did it just clear up when you went to Be?

Why did you choose Be? You don't seem to have asked here for opinions, but the reasons may still apply, as Plusnet was there at that time as well.

Plusnet Value however, offers the same speed at a lower price.

There is no way of telling, and it almost certainly won't. It has the BT DLM system running, with IP Profiles and aggressive noise margin management if you do have any line problems.

The download limit put me off until I read that downloads from midnight to 8am don't count against my limit. So now I am more seriously looking at switching.

As well as the download caps, are you aware of the traffic management?

My questions to you are thus:

Are there any download monitors that can tell me when most of the downloading occurrs. Since at the moment I am not entirely sure that ALL of my downloading occurrs off-peak.

If you don't have games consoles, just computers, then Networx is excellent. Run it on every computer, and make sure it is set to count only internet traffic, not LAN traffic.

If you have games consoles then it can't record big downloads to those, and I expect they are in peak time. But see the traffic management! Gaming itself apparently doesn't use a lot, but I don't do any so can't speak from experience.

Will I get the same kind of speed I am getting now.

See above.

According to BT I can only get around 4Meg at my location but Be have consistantly provided speeds of over 5 meg, occasionally it even reaches higher 6 values (for instance 6.7 as it is at the time of typing). This is much higher than I ever recieved with Sky which was often 3meg or less. Yet I'm told that both are ADSL2, as is Plusnet.

The BT estimator is just that, and notoriously inaccurate, usually downwards like you just pointed out.

In theory all ADSL2+ (not ADSL2 unless action is taken by you or the ISP to force it) connections should connect at the same speed. But then BT Wholesale noise margin management kicks in as soon as you have some instability, and any low connection speed for a few minutes knocks the IP Profile down.

Frankly anyone who can get Be, and afford it without having to resort to dry toast to eat, should not consider any BT Wholesale-based service.

How does customer service compare between the 2 providers. Be have been excellent thusfar.

See these thinkbroadband customer ratings.

I think Roberto has covered most things - Be are the best and much better than any BT wholesale based provider.

One additional thing to consider - when (if) you ring Be for your MAC and they ask why you are leaving and you say "because plusnet are cheaper" then they might possibly offer you a retention deal that could be too good to pass up.

Do you eat tinned peaches every night because they are cheaper than making a tasty stir-fry?

You appear to have found a good ISP that performs well. Stick with them.

If the price difference is a problem, sell your TV and cancel the license payments. That'll save you 12 quid a month and you'll still be happy with your broadband.


<Happy BE man>

In reply to a post by k1ll3r:

Are there any download monitors that can tell me when most of the downloading occurrs. Since at the moment I am not entirely sure that ALL of my downloading occurrs off-peak.

Another vote for Networx. If you do use a games console, then I suggest PRTG to monitor traffic through the router.

Will I get the same kind of speed I am getting now.

No. The only way to get faster than BE is to get FTTC.

How does customer service compare between the 2 providers. Be have been excellent thusfar.

Plusnet cannot be described as excellent.

I've been using Networx for a year or two now. I have no consoles, just desktop & netbook PCs. It's installed on both and synchronises between the two ok.

Look at this page in the on-line user manual for Networx, scroll down to near the bottom and you'll see an example of the hourly stats.

That should be able to help you identify when your traffic is happening and the volume.

I have also found the Networx forum on their web site very helpful and responsive to queries, possible errors, and enhancement requests.

Been a while since I've checked this thread for updates. As for the questions raised:

Setting that aside though, did you ever find what was wrong with your connection when with Sky, or did it just clear up when you went to Be?

Turns out the problem wasn't with Sky but with BT. There was a line fault which they eventually repaired. Still, the move to BE was worth it, higher speeds (before and after the line fault was fixed) better customer support and no dl limit.

With Sky I would ring customer support and be connected to someone who assumed I was completely incompetant and asked insistently to check if all the lights on my router were on. Then after that I would be put on hold for over half an hour for higher tier support who often said the problem was on my end with nonsense like "spyware" or somesuch. Other times the call would be dropped and I would have waited all that time for nothing. Emailing them got the same automated response telling me to use their online form or something which would never work.

Eventually I gave up and moved to BE who I knew were highly regarded and gave unlimited dls and good customer support. It was just a matter of raising a ticket and having a solution in a matter of days as opposed to the years of nothing with Sky.

There is no way of telling, and it almost certainly won't. It has the BT DLM system running, with IP Profiles and aggressive noise margin management if you do have any line problems.

That's less than ideal.

As well as the download caps, are you aware of the traffic management?

Hmm, I wasn't aware of this. This is exactly the kind of [censored] that put me off Virgin. I don't want my traffic managed in any way, and the 256k limit on P2P would effectively half my bandwidth.

As far as overall value is concerned it doesn't seem to be worth the price. Saving money is nice but I have found a pretty good ISP already and there doesn't seem to be any real reason to jump ship at the moment (like when Sky decided one day to reduce dl limit from 40gb to 4gb)