Thought I'd post this on here as it might give some a larf and warn others orf a certain ISP.
Received MAC from PlusNet on 23.09.13 and gave it to www.icuk.net/
ICUK notified me that their two attempts at the migration have failed for some strange reason.
I've been trying to contact 'support' @ the Post Office who I have my line rental with for 4 days now but have yet to receive a reply.
I spent an hour on the phone to them on Friday but ring, ring, ring.
I cant even log into their site now so they must have major issues with their IT up there in N. Ireland which is where I believe their call centre is based.
ICUK managed to extract £52 from my account 3 weeks ago so at least they're on-the-ball :(
So I'm beginning to contemplate life sans internet, I've been without the internet before for 2 months, and managed to survive somehow, so, If I disappear orf the airwaves in the near future, you'll now know that I'm not brown bread just yet.
forums.thinkbroadband.com/general/4274206-problem-migrating-from-plusnet-to-icuk.html
Last edited by: Webmaster on Sun 13 Oct 13 at 12:13
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Actually, Dog, I've been thinking of migrating from my current ISP (where charges for humble internet only use look likely to head in a northerly direction very soon) to PlusNet, based on favourable comments made by your good self a while back.
Damn and blast.
:(
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Plusnet are okay C/S and their customer service is exemplary, I just want to move on, I like moving :)
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PlusNet is owned by BT....
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>> PlusNet is owned by BT....
But it's run as an independent subsidiary.
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The story begins back in late September when I asked Plusnet to generate a MAC key for me as I wished to move on.
Of course, they always offer you inducements to stay with them, and in my case it was Superfast (fibre) broadband for £16 per month but, that comes with an 18 month con-tract.
On the 23rd September, I duly gave my MAC to ICUK, my then intended internet provider, and I was due to go ‘live’ with them on the 1st October but.
I received an email from them stating that the migration had failed.
After many phone calls and emails to Plusnet ‘support’, it turns out that the problem was due to an ‘open order’ (active asset) on my previous phone number, which for some reason was still linked to me, even though I had changed my phone number a year beforehand, to stop all the bleed’n cold calls, apparently Openreach hadn’t cleared it from their systems.
So, o’er the next 3 weeks, ICUK tried the MAC again and again etc. but it was a no-go.
Eventually, these ere blimmin MAC keys expire (after 30 days) so orf I goes to Plusnet ‘support’ for a new MAC key, geddit.
26th October am issued with new MAC key - given to ICUK.
Email from ICUK stating "still error with duplicate order".
This could (and does) run into a war and peace jobbie so basically, the new MAC key I was given ... was actually the old one and, after much screaming and shouting by phone and email, Plusnet 'support’ state they can not generate another MAC key for me, and put the blame on Openreach/BT wholesale.
Eventually, Plusnet say I could terminate (cease) my broadband with them without incurring a cancellation fee (how kind) and then I can move on to my new ISP.
But even then ICUK couldn’t takeover my line for bb, because Plusnet still had their ‘tag’ on it.
In the end I had to give ICUK the boot because by that time I had started to think about life without internet access, as the only other choice was to stay with Minusnet and, by that time, I hated them, and wanted out.
Dragging on and on and on, I looked at IDNet, Xylo (Uno) and Zen internet based up in Rochdale (somewhere oop North)
I used to be with Zen about 6 or 7 years ago, so I went back to them and I was even able to use my previous Zen email address.
It was Michael and Jamie at Zen who really did the business for me, they kept telling me to go back (again and again) to Minusnet, not to be put orf by anyone, and if I don’t receive an answer, then to ask for it to be escalated to a supervisor/manager.
It got heavy in the end with me mentioning OFCOM, my solicitor (my wife!) and the fact that ISP’s have an obligation to supply you with a MAC key etc. etc. so on 13th November my cease took place with Minusnet and I awoke to the red-light-of-death on my router.
I had planned for this and had a nifty little £6 dial-up modem, which connected at 200 kbps :)
I ‘went live’ with Zen this weekend but had to kick out Minusnets router (which they can con-trol remotely) and installed a cheap £28 TP-Link TD-W896N jobbie which is working well inc. the wireless connection to Ann’s Laptop.
But there’s an awful lot more to this story, which I wont bore you with, which entails switching my line rental from Plusnet to the Post office ... BIG mistake!
And the point of this exercise? .. to prove (to myself) that PlusNet, and other budget ISP's throttle your bb speed.
My download speed has gorn from under 2Mbps with PlusNet to over 5 Mbps with Zen.
Upload speed with PlusNet was always 400Mbps (capped via their router) to 0.9Mbps with Zen.
Moved to the thread that it relates to
Last edited by: VxFan on Wed 20 Nov 13 at 10:23
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"budget ISP's throttle your bb speed"
Why would that be - to try and prod you into upgrading to fibre?
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Funny thing is we've just bought our own Youview box so we could remove our reliance on the BT TV services we receive through their own box... so we can move to Plusnet!
Appreciate you agony but I still may give Plusnet a go. Our bb speed is high here at around 17Mbs so we could afford a small drop.
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you are just an out and out masochist Dog. Self induced pain.
Cheaper BB suppliers do not "throttle" your speed any more than the more expensive BB suppliers do, they all employ packet shaping unless you pay more for business rates.
Your BB is slow because you live at the end of the world.
Last edited by: Zero on Tue 19 Nov 13 at 10:04
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>>Your BB is slow because you live at the end of the world.
What, do you suggest, would explain his increase in broadband speed?
My download speed has gorn from under 2Mbps with PlusNet to over 5 Mbps with Zen.
Upload speed with PlusNet was always 400Mbps (capped via their router) to 0.9Mbps with Zen.
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I wondered that. I seem to remember Zero helping me years ago with slow broadband and a router long power down seemed to help so perhaps the new router is largely responsible??
BTW just done a speed check and we're at 19Mbs this morning, OK for a standard phone line system all on wi-fi. Our last house up to a couple of years ago out in the wilds of the fen it was 2Mbs.
Last edited by: Fenlander on Tue 19 Nov 13 at 10:22
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Download speed:
19.9Mb
Upload speed:
1.1Mb
Provider:
Virgin Media
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i wish I could give you guys some of my excess speed. It's ludicrous.
I paid for 10Mb with Virgin some years ago, and although my payments have never increased, it went without me asking to 20Mb, then 30Mb, then 60Mb. And I've just had notice that it's soon to go 100Mb.
I probably need about 3.
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I'm with Tiscali deep in the Fen and get 11.04 down and 1.04 up which surprised me.
Pat
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Its the router. And throttling does not show up in your connection speed readout from the router.
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I'm getting 4-5Mb down and 0.3-0.4 up (non-fibre, two miles from exchange).
Are you suggesting I could get a higher speed by changing my router?
I'm with Plusnet. Router: Technicolor TG582n (supplied by Plusnet).
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>> forums.thinkbroadband.com/plusnet/4212691-upload-speed-halved.html
Upload speed is rarely important or of significance for average home users.
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Maybe so but, I'm glad mine has doubled b'cos I upload a lot of pics and attachments to various fiends.
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>>Are you suggesting I could get a higher speed by changing my router?>>
I've had at least seven or eight routers since April 2006 and normally speeds have gone up slightly (or even more) each time; however, there are other factors that play a part and I used to spend quite some time with TCPOptimizer and dslreports.com's Tweak Tool to maximise speeds. But this was with earlier versions of Windows and Windows from Vista onwards don't allow such fine tuning...:-(
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Tweaking a computer's TCP/IP setup is largely pointless if you connect via a router that imposes network configuration like packet size, MTU, etc.
Now we are all on Ethernet networks let the operating system config itself. Don't assume you can make bigger improvements over an above a good router/switch will provide.
If you rely on WiFi for Internet, then a better WiFi access point/router could make all the difference. Or more than one access point. If you're using wired Ethernet then for the faster Internet products out there you're starting to really need Gigabit. And to get close to that with Wireless ac needs the right conditions etc.
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>>And to get close to that with Wireless ac needs the right conditions etc.>>
I think if you read my last paragraph, you will realise I'd worked all that out some time ago...:-)
But at the time the tweaking did improve upload and download speeds quite markedly until I eventually moved up from 98SE to Windows7.
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>> Windows 98SE
Fair enough. If run on the hardware W98SE was aimed at then the content rich Internet we have now will have been beyond the hardware I guess. And running Windows 98SE on recent hardware is a little crazy security and experience wise.
But that's up to the individual.
Back in 2000 500Kbs (it wasn't even 512) was super fast shared between 3 or 4 PCs at home. IT was only when the websites assumed we all had super fast broadband that you needed higher speeds to load what were one low bandwidth websites. Not that the final rendered page looks much different.
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I can only speak from my own personal experience over the last 2 months almost, I'm no IT ex spurt, just a punk with a PC.
But I have spent hours/days/weeks reading up on the likes of fair usage policies, contention ratios, capping and throttling on many broadband sites including the esteemed (IMO) Thinkbroadband.
I would still say PlusNet are okay though, I had been with them for about 5 or 6 years, but I've gorn my own way now, phone line with a phone line provider, and bb with a broadband provider, on a one month contract using my own router.
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Someone with Virgin Media's fastest product will no doubt post. My speeds seem a bit low when I check today but here's what I got via BT Infinity just now:
www.speedtest.net/my-result/3111447701
This is a connection to my Linksys router via Gigabit Ethernet which in turn is connected to the BT provided VDSL modem.
Virgin Media will be providing 150Mbps broadband soon.
Some say upload speed is not important - I have had to upload a fair bit for work this month so far. So upload about 23GB not including today. So upload speed is important at times for me.
Downloaded (somehow!) 115GB so far. We do use On Demand TV services from Sky etc. Probably going to be a total of 200GB for the month. But then each episode of say Borgen in HD from the BBC is 1GB. Goodness knows what the GP highlights were (several GB).
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>> Goodness knows what the GP highlights were
I missed them completely. My PVR failed to record the quali (I initially put it down to operator error), but when I double checked I'd got the race set up correctly and found it hadn't recorded that either I can only blame the damn Humax,
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Also got Virgin's basic broadband package 4 or 5 years ago, and it has been gently prodded upwards without request.
Ran that speedtest just now from laptop using wifi in the house.
Download 59.5 Mbps
Upload 3.0 Mbps
In central Jockoslavia.
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When I first got Virgin Media broadband in Manchester (it was still NTL at that point) I got all of 500Mbps download. That was it. Then it moved to 600Mbps to bring it inline with what Telewest offered. Then 1MBps, 1.5Mbps etc. It used to come via the STB but that maxed out at 3Mbps.
When I moved and swapped from VM it was probably 10Mbps for the same price I originally paid. I'd expect a lot faster now for less money. For what I pay BT I'd probably get 100Mbps via VM and I'm sure I'd get that (there's a street cabinet near and a headend not too far from that) but the upload speeds are a bit low still I think.
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Problem migrating to new ISP - Clk Sec
