Are you happy with your Broadband mob? I wasn't!

[uumode]

Anyone else with Plusnet? Anyone else unhappy with the customer service of their provider?

I'm with Plusnet.
Speeds are good, and prices are competitive and as you have noticed the added value services are great, and customer service is first class.

The portal is amazing, and every single action on your account, whether it's by you or their staff is documented as a ticket so there is a very clear audit trail. The webmail is jaw droppingly functional and has PGP encryption capbability! (if you use I.E.). - you can also pick up other ISP email here.

Who else has this level of transparency publishing their response times
http://www.plus.net/supportpages.html?a=212
and showing you the interior of their offices by webcam
http://www.plus.net/webcams/index.html

No real downsides, except for the fact that some people don't like a fixed IP address. Plusnet only issue static IPs at the moment though there has been talks about dynamic, but nothing for the near future. If you are a user that requires a whole bank of IPs then other ISPs like Zen are more flexible, I think Plusnet only issue a maximum of 4 optionally? - you need to verify this. The other issue (which could have been resolved by now) is BT's implementation of load balancing wasn't working properly across Plusnet's pipes. It was logging users mainly onto it's 155Mbps which were being overloaded unnecessarily instead of putting people onto it's wider 622Mbps central pipe. This resulted in slower and more laggy speeds. BT did some engineering work to resolve the issue. I don't have an issue with this particular problem. If users are finding their performance sluggish, they can log off and log on and after several log on attempts can manually log themselves onto the central pipe if the BT load balancing fails to assign them. (this was about 3 weeks ago).

If you do decide to join Plusnet, and you have no other referrer, I'd be other the moon if you could use my referral ID so I get a referral commission

Nildram, Zen, Eclipse and Plusnet IMHO offer a good balance of performance and customer service. My biased choice of course is Plusnet with their transparency, customer portal, and functionality and added features included with the account. - and of course they have their satisfaction guarantee as backup.

 

[scotth_uk]

Hi uumode,

I'd love to use you as a referral, but I already have noted another mate down who initially pointed me in their direction. :-(

Just noticed that my link is up, and the bt test login works, but I am not sure that Plusnet have activated my login account yet. Not sure what the format of the account login is to test it out - any tips?

2MB is great. Test rocketed along.

 

[samuelellis]

im with ntl and there broadband support is alright, there are queues and they are bad but as i work on a IT support desk (but not a public one) i can sympathise as i knwo what it can be like

but when i had to phone wannadoo support for my cousins pc, simple question why am i only able to connect at 28.8k when my cousin has a 56k modem, is there a configuration setting i need

i got though to a rather unhelpful woman who was continually saying to her collegue we dont deal with this give me a reasont o get rid

so i will NEVER user wannadoo

 

[Ian B Walker]

I am on Blueyonder telewest 1.5 mb.
I use a wireless system at home with 2 laptops and a desktop connecting to it.
No problems.

Joe

Same here but if you cant understand Scouse you are snookered with the help desk All in all very happy with them

 

[scotth_uk]

Got the email from plusnet today - account active.

2mb rocks!

 

[uumode]

Got the email from plusnet today - account active.

2mb rocks!

Good stuff!

 

[griffin5]

We use the lowcost Tiscali broadband and It's very good. No problems.

 

[pammy]

look see what you've done - since this our connection has gone all uppity and keeps cutting out then reconnecting sometimes needing a set top box reboot

Just called ntl who said -

"take out all your wireless stuff and recable and see how it goes as we can't see any problem with your stb from this end"

"I don't think so" says I in a polite tone although sod off was what I was thinking, "when it might be your set top box. I think you might want to look at that first then see where we go"

"OK" says Mr ntl but "they'll charge you if it's not the stb"

"mmmmmmm" says I, "Excuse my cynicism, but even if your records there don't show any prob's with the box, I have little confidence as the last time this happened it was your set top box which your nice engineer replaced and all has been fine n dandy since. So you can see my reticence in taking 3 PC's apart and reinstalling cabling that I no longer have just to see if it is the stb or not"


waits for two min's listening to what should be calming music and how wonderful ntl are at upping all the BB speeds for no more money - instead it was lousy static noise with ntl telling me how great they are

"Mrs G, we can get an engineer to you tomorrow evening - that ok?"

"Yup - but can you confirm there will be no charge?"

"NO - it's up to the engineer"

"Mmmm - not happy"

"OK - how about we see if the new stb fixes the prob - if not then you do the taking out of the wireless stuff and see if that fixes it"


So it looks like a new stb is coming this way. They think it might be a prob with the router causing breaks in the connection and resetting the stb resets the connection to the router. Does this sound reasonable or are they trying it on coz they can't see what else it might be?

 

[fuzzer]

look see what you've done - since this our connection has gone all uppity and keeps cutting out then reconnecting sometimes needing a set top box reboot

Just called ntl who said -

"take out all your wireless stuff and recable and see how it goes as we can't see any problem with your stb from this end"

"I don't think so" says I in a polite tone although sod off was what I was thinking, "when it might be your set top box. I think you might want to look at that first then see where we go"

"OK" says Mr ntl but "they'll charge you if it's not the stb"

"mmmmmmm" says I, "Excuse my cynicism, but even if your records there don't show any prob's with the box, I have little confidence as the last time this happened it was your set top box which your nice engineer replaced and all has been fine n dandy since. So you can see my reticence in taking 3 PC's apart and reinstalling cabling that I no longer have just to see if it is the stb or not"


waits for two min's listening to what should be calming music and how wonderful ntl are at upping all the BB speeds for no more money - instead it was lousy static noise with ntl telling me how great they are

"Mrs G, we can get an engineer to you tomorrow evening - that ok?"

"Yup - but can you confirm there will be no charge?"

"NO - it's up to the engineer"

"Mmmm - not happy"

"OK - how about we see if the new stb fixes the prob - if not then you do the taking out of the wireless stuff and see if that fixes it"


So it looks like a new stb is coming this way. They think it might be a prob with the router causing breaks in the connection and resetting the stb resets the connection to the router. Does this sound reasonable or are they trying it on coz they can't see what else it might be?

Make them give you a seperate cable modem ..... those set top boxes are really bad ...

 

[pammy]

Make them give you a seperate cable modem ..... those set top boxes are really bad ...

I'll mention that tomorrow when the man comes see if that's doable

Ta chuck are your knees feeling the draft yet?

 

[sym]

Agree with Jase.

I've got a redundant NTL cable modem .... so make sure they don't try & charge u for one .... u r welcome to mine if needed !

S.

 

[jaymanek]

I have used zen for over 2 years. Excellent Customer Service and never had a problem. No 12 month contract, dont have to pay by dd... I really recomend them.

But im having to leave them, as we've decided to go for homechoice, i get BB and a few digi channels for £27.50...

 

[pammy]

Agree with Jase.

I've got a redundant NTL cable modem .... so make sure they don't try & charge u for one .... u r welcome to mine if needed !

S.

Cheers I'll bear that in mind

 

[samuelellis]

definatly go with the cable modem route

apart from a dogy powersocket on mine (i ahve blu-tak holding it in place) it has been fautless