Broadband ISP Plusnet Stops Selling UK Business Products UPDATE
Budget UK ISP Plusnet, which is part of the BT Group, appears to have now officially stopped taking on new SME (small and medium-sized) business customers. A message on their website confirms that the products are “no longer available” and instead directs new customers to take up packages directly with BT.
Regular readers may recall that we indicated this might happen last month (here). The move appears to form part of BT wider branding strategy and their work to turn EE – over time – into their “flagship brand for our consumer customers” (here), while BT itself would become more business centric.
As part of this, we’ve already seen Plusnet cease to provide managed broadband and phone services to new residential customers under the John Lewis brand, and now they’ve also removed their business products from sale (credits to John for spotting). A brief note on the provider’s website now redirects visitors to BT’s business packages.
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Plusnet’s Website Statement
Plusnet Business packages are no longer available
For 25 years we’ve shown our customers that getting great value reliable products doesn’t have to mean compromising on service. As we look to the next 25 years, we want to simplify our business. We’ve taken the decision to no longer sell Business products.
We believe that our business customers both existing and future are best served by our friends at BT who offer market leading propositions tailored to small businesses.
Take a look below at why we think BT could be perfect for your business.
The related FAQ page for this also clarifies that “within the next 12 months we will be closing our business broadband services,” which is relevant to existing customers. Plusnet is working to contact all of those impacted by the change, and they will no doubt be offered a route to take a similar BT Business package, but those who don’t want to switch to BT may risk being charged exit fees unless they’re already out of contract.
As the service is closing down, then it also means that any business customers with a Plusnet email address will lose that too. This is of course why you should never entrust your email service to a broadband provider.
UPDATE 1:59pm
We’ve had a comment.
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A Plusnet spokesperson said:
“We’ve taken the decision to no longer sell Plusnet Business products and will be focusing on providing the best value and service to our consumer customers. In the coming months, our existing Plusnet business customers will be given the opportunity to join BT Business, who offer market leading propositions tailored to the needs of small businesses.”
Mark is a professional technology writer, IT consultant and computer engineer from Dorset (England), he also founded ISPreview in 1999 and enjoys analysing the latest telecoms and broadband developments. Find me on X (Twitter), Mastodon, Facebook, BlueSky, Threads.net and Linkedin.
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I think sooner or later plusnet will closed down for good.
BT’s original plan for Plusnet was to do things as cheaply as possible (mid 2000s), just to maintain market share if it cost them money.
With now BT becoming the business side of the brand and EE becoming the consumer side (https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/apr/27/bt-unveil-plans-to-make-ee-its-consumer-facing-brand), unless they want to keep Plusnet for being the cheap and cheerful, it certainly looks that way.
I’m with Matt in thinking that PlusNet will be the cheap and cheerful counterpart to the EE brand.
Sky of course having launched Now Broadband as a flanker brand & TalkTalk buying Origin.
(On the topic of Origin – I have no idea what TalkTalk are actually doing with it considering that TalkTalk was always trying to be a cheaper option and Origins pricing now appears to be more expensive, leaning towards the mid-market pricing)
That would be a shame if it did, but if it is going to close, then do it before my contract runs out in June next year. I don’t want to go to EE or BT. The problem is, there are very few budget ones left now, the cheapest is now broadband, which I must admit I am looking at going to next year, not so much the price, but the contract is only 12 months, but the price is good, £20 for a 36Mb/s connection.
Correct, Business to BT, Consumer to EE, bye bye Plusnet.
BT isn’t an option for me (my customers I mean). I was a Plusnet dealer but they closed that down this month.
I won’t go to BT for SME broadband for the same reason that I won’t go to BT for leased lines ever again, and that reason is the shit show that is “BT Local Business”. If you try to deal with BT as a small business, you will eventually have your account handed over to these independent telecoms dealers who trade under the BT name. I don’t have time to go into why BTLB are bad right now, but there are enough solid reasons, as you’d expect from an independent commission-driven telecoms dealer/scammer.
I hear you entirely with BTLB. They are a total disgrace in my area.
They lie to customers, they make them buy things on long contracts they don’t need or want, and the second they’ve done the deal they pretend they’re nothing to do with BT anymore and can’t possibly help and fob you off regardless of the issue.
I have absolutely nothing good to say about any of the BTLB franchises I’ve ever dealt with.
BT Local Business is a car crash. We were relocating our office from one site to another. Gave 30 days notice, as required by contract, to allow time to migrate in a controlled manner. They abruptly terminated the line the very next day. This caused absolute ructions. BTLB claimed there was nothing they could do, and washed their hands of the situation. We’ve now moved all our premesis to other providers.
Ugh, don’t swear on here!
Indeed I shiver any time BTLB is mentioned.
This is going to be painful for me to manage. Have a couple dozen SMBs who I will now need to migrate to my preferred ISP, Spitfire. The problem with this is that I have to plan for the WAN IP changes with the new ISP. Going to cause lots of work.
That’s before I have to change our own connection and change all the firewall rules to every customer site to let us back in, plus all of our azure infrastructure.
Geese, thanks guys!
I’d be tempted to take the lowest available package when they move us to BT as long as I can keep my referral discounts and the WAN IP and only use it to get into the firewalls I may miss.
I’m not looking forward to this!
@Christopher
Sadly your experience is common.
They are the *worst* people around other than a telco near me that are also super aggressive and nasty with contracts.
Completely agree and also have little time to bash BT Local Business, but the summary is they are _really_ bad. I was fortunate enough to work for a financial firm in London and we were treated like nobodies until lawyers had to get involved for various account issues we had. Think of every possible screw-up, and it happened to us. BTLB are complete schmucks and have utter contempt for customer service. The take-home here is that the UK has a very fluid ISP market and good players like Zen exist to fill the gap left by BT.
My wife had a cheap account with Plus net which wasn’t to great at the outset.
Poor reception in our area and no better in N. Ireland.
Lately, the disruption on the phone I believe was not just down to the weather conditions. She had forgotten her security questions, had not written them down,and contacting Plusnet on another device proved fruitless. The staff were of no help at all, despite the fact that payment for the service was still going on by direct debit. I even complained to Ofcom, and still await a reply. ( I firmly believe that THEY work more for the Government, rather than the individual )
Reading this article only confirms my suspicion that Plusnet were deliberately causing disruption to her phone – apart from adverse weather conditions – in order to force us to close the account ; which we did. If B.T. is now their parent Company; then they must accept some of the blame for an atrocious service.
No idea what you’re waffling about. BT have owned Plusnet for 15 years, nothing has immediately changed in their network or infrastructure. This article relates to Plusnet’s business broadband, nothing to do with mobile.
Bottom line Plusnet are a MVNO of EE, I presume we can safely say your EE coverage is either poor – or there is a local phone mast issue causing you problems. Nothing more, nothing less sinister than you believe…
Pllusnet will be entirely gone soon, and the consumers will be shuffled over to EE
If that happens, I will certainly go, I may go anyway after my contract, Now broadband is a fair bit cheaper for the same service. My only problem with Now is that it is part of sky.
@Kelvin – I’m not convinced they’d deliberately make your phone performance bad to get you to move… doesn’t make any sense to do that whatsoever!
It’s a shame. I find Plusnet service is very good and I have stuck with them because whenever I have issues with them they solve them very quickly. My experience with BT (and EE) is the opposite. I’m willing to pay a tiny bit more for the customer service element.
Community Fibre is coming soon so I may try them.
I wrote three rants here and deleted each of them.
Instead I have to accept the Plusnet I knew has left the building in the name of progress.
We should all Doff our caps,
Captain Manford stands bravely on the bridge of the vintage Steamer HMS Plusnet as it glides slowly to the bottom of the sea.
I would miss you but you didn’t tell me you were going, hiked up my bill and binned my contract.
What I will miss is the stability, I contacted support only once in those 12 years, every other fault was caused by BT and their crackly old exchange lines.