Posted: 28th Sep, 2006 By: MarkJ
PlusNet has introduced a questionable new practice aimed at speeding up the process of upgrading customers onto its newer 8Mbps (Max) platform. The ISP's 11 week long backlog can be circumvented for a fee of £5, otherwise you'll have to wait:
Customers who have opted for the free upgrade up to 8Mbps may have to wait for up to 11 weeks to go through the bulk migration process, in which a thousand requests per week are being sent to BT by
Plusnet. Therefore, the internet service provider (ISP) has offered to make manual, individual requests to BT for a fee of £5. This would ensure migration within days.
"
We've processed 65,000 people on the free upgrade," a
Plusnet spokesperson told
ZDNet UK on Wednesday. "
We've [still] got around 11,000 people [in the queue] it will take a number of weeks to get those people upgraded through the bulk process."
The spokesperson denied the scheme means that customers who don't pay the will get bumped down the queue, stressing that the two upgrade streams will run independently of one another. He added that free-upgrade customers were "
being processed in the order they opted in".
While it's nice to be offered the choice, many will no doubt point a degree of understandable concern towards doing it this way.
Meanwhile we'd be remiss for not mentioning the slow, yet steady, stream of complaints that keep rolling in about PlusNet's service. Most pointing the finger at worsening customer support, while others have had speed, connection and the odd billing problem.
Hopefully that should stop Darkspark from breaking our knee cap's, at least for one more week =). Don't ask.