Have been with Sky for nearly a year now, since they took over O2 who we were with previously. No complaints, and we've been on a cheap deal (free line rental), but that ends in January when it goes up to the normal price of £28 (that's for 'anytime' phone package + line rental + unlimited broadband).
That's for 'normal' broadband. We get a decent 12 or 13Mb, but I've been thinking of upgrading to fibre, and looking around at what's available. Now it just so happens that Plusnet do an unlimited 40Mb fibre package, with evenings & weekend phone, for £31 (inc line rental). That's discounted to £20 for the first 6 months, and on top of that, Topcashback are offering £101 back on that package for the next 2 days. (The reduced phone package isn't an issue - it doesn't get much use during the day.)
What might be the clincher is that Sky have just notified me that they're putting their line rental up by £1, allowing me to escape what's left of their year's contract without penalty.
So any Plusnet customers out there? Anything I've missed?
BTW just looked at Talktalk - they do £21 for 12 months then £29.45, although as far as I can see that doesn't include any free calls; it's £5 extra for anytime calls. The Topcashback offer is £81. I know there's at least one satisfied Talktalk customer here, but my instinct would be to go with Plusnet.
Last edited by: Focusless on Fri 24 Oct 14 at 20:49
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>> So any Plusnet customers out there? Anything I've missed?
It's a BT Openreach product if it's fibre broadband.
Last edited by: rtj70 on Fri 24 Oct 14 at 21:59
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In my opinion they are all much of a muchness until something goes wrong.
Once something has broken, then their customer service becomes very important. In my experience, BT are the least s***. which is NOT to say "good".
Everybody's mileage differs. You would probably gain more valid feedback by asking your neighbours who are more likely to share a comparable and relevant experience.
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>> You would probably gain more valid feedback by asking your neighbours
Mmm... we've got a lovely 80+ year old lady on one side who isn't connected in any form, and we don't get on with the other side due to their fondness for late night parties and staying out in the garden making a racket into the not-so-small hours of the morning...
I think you're probably right about providers being pretty similar. I'm not that bothered, but would think twice if a number of members had had bad experiences.
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I've used Plusnet for broadband and phone for about 5 years. I've had one or two problems, but they were all sorted quickly. I'm a satisfied customer.
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>> In my opinion they are all much of a muchness until something goes wrong.
>>
>> Once something has broken, then their customer service becomes very important. In my experience, BT
>> are the least s***. which is NOT to say "good".
At the end of the day, they are all using the same cable, exchange and kit. Moving from TalkTalk to BT left me with the same speed, the same contention issues and the same DNS route holdups*.
Only Customer Services differ.
Unless you are with cable, and you only have one operator there.
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>> Unless you are with cable, and you only have one operator there.
Previous occupants had Virgin, but I don't want to pay anyone for TV, hence the switch to O2 when we moved in who were cheap. Virgin's broadband (up to 50Mb) + phone (and line rental) would be £30 for a year then £36; would be tempted if it was £5 cheaper.
Last edited by: Focusless on Fri 24 Oct 14 at 22:45
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Talk Talk drove me close to insanity. Well, getting on that way.
If there was a problem, you spoke to someone you couldn't understand in the far East. If they said it was a technical problem they then put you on to someone you couldn't understand in South Africa - or perhaps it was the other round.
:-(
After many problems, I said I wanted to cancel, they then put me on to someone in England, who offered me all sorts of inducements to stay. I said, no. I can't take any more, this isn't a negotiating ploy, I just want to cancel - and I did.
I have never found a relationship with any company to be so frustrating as that with Talk Talk.
I switched to Plusnet and they have been fine. The bill seems to go up each month, but at least I talk to someone I can understand in Sheffield.
Last edited by: Duncan on Fri 24 Oct 14 at 22:47
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Thanks John Boy and Duncan. My parents are with Talktalk, and moved house recently - I think they had a few problems getting Talktalk to move with them, but managed it in the end. Had 4 or 5 days with no phone/internet IIRC.
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>> I switched to Plusnet and they have been fine. The bill seems to go up
>> each month
Slightly worrying! And I forgot to mention it's an 18 month contract. Although presumably they'll be like Sky in that they'll let you out of the contract if they raise prices.
Last edited by: Focusless on Fri 24 Oct 14 at 23:29
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BTW, "unlimited" almost certainly isn't.
You need to find out what they will accept and what they will do if you exceed it.
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>> BTW, "unlimited" almost certainly isn't.
>>
>> You need to find out what they will accept and what they will do if
>> you exceed it.
Thanks - I'm aware of that, but we're not heavy users and I'm not expecting to exceed whatever limit there might be.
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>> Previous occupants had Virgin, but I don't want to pay anyone for TV
You can of course get Virgin Media broadband and nothing else. But then value for money comes into it.
We have BT Infinity with anytime calls and Sky for TV. Virgin would be a bit faster in theory for broadband but no cheaper if we had everything with them. And we'd lose a few things features too.
Not worth the change to me.
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>> You can of course get Virgin Media broadband and nothing else. But then value for
>> money comes into it.
Indeed - if it's already £36 for broadband + phone then paying someone else to do just the phone separately isn't going to make financial sense.
Last edited by: Focusless on Fri 24 Oct 14 at 23:54
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Curiosity got the better of me so I checked anyway - "All of our current residential products are are completely unlimited with no usage limits".
www.plus.net/info2/legal/price_guide.html
Might be some sort of 'reasonable usage' policy but I can't see us falling foul of that.
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BT, to the best of my knowledge, has involvement with Plusnet, although the latter has always had excellent feedback.
I've never had any problems with TalkTalk and its value for money is difficult to beat.
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I left BT for Plusnet (BT own them, ironic innit?).
Got unlimited broadband (around 4meg), free 24/7 calls, caller identity and call minder for around £10/month.
Had one problem that turned out to be a line card in the exchange, fixed by a BT engineer employee.
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TalkTalk CS on the phone is rubbish as stated. I go to the community forums when I have a problem and the TT people on the forum have been very good - they'll change noise margins, send new routers, do diagnostics etc quite sensibly.
I put my aunt with TT but when she moved from Yorkshire to Lockerbie they wouldn't supply - said they couldn't. We got her a contract with Plusnet. The line is very poor with a very fragile up sync but we have got nowhere in getting it fixed. The download is usually 3.5mbps, the upload is often single figure kbps. It's not an unbundled exchange.
That said, Plusnet did get Openreach out - they just said there was nothing they could do about it.
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>> Curiosity got the better of me so I checked anyway - "All of our current
>> residential products are are completely unlimited with no usage limits".
>> www.plus.net/info2/legal/price_guide.html
My Plusnet contract most definitely has a 10GB limit, because I have breached it and paid another £5. Perhaps I am on an old contract. Must have a little chat with them.
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I recalled seeing something on the Virgin website a day or two ago about getting tv only with no phone line, so tried to find it to see if was relevant. It's probably buried somewhere and I couldn't find it again. But I did discover that right this minute, until 28th October, they are having what they describe as a massive sale on their packages.
Not really looked at the prices in comparison with your sums, but right now might be a good time to check their site. They might be more attractive than you thought. And I'm sure they do a tv and broadband only deal somewhere, if you poke about or ask, but not pushed on the front pages.
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Edit. Too early in the morning. You don't want tv, do you. Oh well, package price info might still be relevant.
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>> Edit. Too early in the morning.
:) Thanks CC - looks like £36 for bb/phone/rental, which is £5 more than Plusnet, so not worth it IMO.
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>> :) Thanks CC - looks like £36 for bb/phone/rental, which is £5 more than Plusnet,
>> so not worth it IMO.
I have had a quick online check with Plusnet and with fibre and unlimited and anytime calls it comes to £36p.m. including line rental and ignoring pennies.
Is that the quote you got? Yours sounds £5pm cheaper?
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>> Is that the quote you got? Yours sounds £5pm cheaper?
Don't think we need anytime calls so mine was just evening & weekend.
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>> I have had a quick online check with Plusnet and with fibre and unlimited and
>> anytime calls it comes to £36p.m.
BTW if you need anytime calls, have a look at www.18185.co.uk - you dial 18185 before the number and the call is free (+ 5p connection charge). No monthly charge. We used it when we were on evenings & weekends with O2.
EDIT: sorry - free to fixed lines. Don't know how it compares to the Plusnet anytime package.
Last edited by: Focusless on Sat 25 Oct 14 at 12:26
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>> My Plusnet contract most definitely has a 10GB limit, because I have breached it and
>> paid another £5. Perhaps I am on an old contract. Must have a little chat
>> with them.
>>
You need to go to their website and follow this route:
my account / connection settings / more / upgrade account
That will show you what you're on and what your options are. I did that idly one day and found that I could get unlimited broadband for less than I was paying for 10Gb. "Why didn't you tell me?" got the response "It's just an experiment." It looks as if it's still going on.
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>> "It's just an experiment."
...to see how much they can overcharge people and get away with it? :)
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>> ...to see how much they can overcharge people and get away with it? :)
>>
That's just capitalism, isn't it? Consumers have to look out for themselves.
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My ISP is Waitrose, who outsource to Plusnet. Only had one query, when I set it up some years ago. Lovely to talk to someone in the UK who knew what he was doing and solved my problem.
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>> My ISP is Waitrose,
>>
I'll wait for Aldi to start theirs.
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I spent a lot of time on the phone to ISPs. I find a typical conversation with sky lasts for at least half an hour, with Plusnet it takes around 2 minutes.
I am with TalkTalk as it works, it is cheap so see no reason to change. I am looking into getting a dedicated business broadband service though via a council grant.
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Been with Plusnet for about 3 years, the only issues I've had have been with the wet string connecting me to the exchange, and the internal house wiring (the previous owners removed the master socket and replaced it with some twisted connections plastered into the wall!). Faults were fixed promptly and free of charge (which seemed good going for the removed master socket) As Rattle says support conversations tend take take minutes not hours.
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I'm with Talk Talk and they have had issues with the email service being down for days at a time, though not recently. I'm seriously considering a change to Plusnet, good reports here and elsewhere and it works out a few quid cheaper.
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>> and it works out a few quid cheaper.
...and don't forget the various Topcashback offers (£105 for fibre if ordered before Monday).
www.topcashback.co.uk/plusnet_broadband/
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Well, after a heated row with some airhead in India about the new router TalkTalk promised me twice but never sent, I've signed my name in blood on the Plusnet contract.
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"So any Plusnet customers out there?"
We've been with Plusnet for about 5 years, and have no reason to change. Costs are:
Unlimited broadband £9.99pm (this is not fibre, so we only get around 3Mb)
Talk anytime international (inc. caller i.d.) £7.00pm
Annual line rental last time £137.88 [though now I see a figure of £155.88 on their website]
Total around £344pa
We can't decide whether or not to go with fibre for, I think, an extra fiver a month; my theory is that it'll all go that way, anyway, and the price will come down.
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>> my theory is that it'll all go that way, anyway, and the price will come down.
I don't think see. In some areas there are too many houses near the fibre connected cabinet to all use it. There's not the capacity. Your phone line needs to be patched across to the other (nearby) cabinet.
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I cannot get fibre for some reason, I know for a fact my local exchange has it but some reason there must not be a cabinet on my street. I can get Virgin but that is another hassle/expense. I get around 20mbps on ADSL and it doesn't really affect my work too much.
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Yes, don't forget when you look at Virgin you don't fiddle about with two and half meg or whatever. I don't think they even sell a package less than 30 now, possibly 60. I know mine is 100 (which is about 99 more than I actually need of course, it's true.)
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I'd quite like one of Virgin's super BB deals, but they only seem to cover a small part of the country.
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>> I'd quite like one of Virgin's super BB deals, but they only seem to cover a small part of the country. >>
Had cable down my street for many years (originally Telewest, now Virgin), but was always far too expensive to even remotely consider. Pretty much the same now......
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>> there must not be a cabinet on my street
Yet. But you need a fibre connected cabinet near your phone cabinet to benefit. I am surprised you do not have it in your area.
I could get much faster download on Virgin cable. But no sure they could match my upload speed (working from home a lot means sending files fast is useful... sometimes many GBs). And the overall package does not beat my BY/Sky combination.
Last edited by: rtj70 on Sun 26 Oct 14 at 21:20
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I don't get it either, I am sure it was offered to me at one point. My broadband seems to work well though, I even host my own remote software on it despite not having a static IP address.
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>> I even host my own remote software on it despite not having a static IP address.
I don't have a static IP. As you know you just need to know the IP or a way of finding it. It might not change to often but it will. I use a free service which my NAS updates.
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Yeah it only changes when I rarely need to reboot my router (once every 3 months or so). Just find it staggering how well the remote control server software works with such a limited upload speed.
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My download is 100 and up is 6, if that helps, Rob.
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My upload is up to around 18MBps. Which I can get depending on site. Download is only about 70MBps.
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>> My upload is up to around 18MBps. Which I can get depending on site. Download >> is only about 70MBps.>>
You must be left feeling very depressed...:-)
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Haywain, Check your bills, I'm on the £9.99 product (12 mth line rental paid fully at start for £131.88) and I'm only debited £2.50 per month which is what was agreed at the start of the contract.
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Plusnet - any good? - rtj70
