Posted: 16th Feb, 2005 By: MarkJ
ISP
Plusnet has announced a raft of free broadband ADSL speed upgrades (due April), along with a brand new 8Mbps product. The provider has also introduced their new "fair use" policy, although some may find it a little confusing:
From April, all PlusNet customers will be able to take advantage of the increased speeds as they become available. Existing PlusNet customers will be able to upgrade free of charge to the maximum available DSL speed. BT is working hard to ensure that as many people as possible are able to receive the maximum available speeds. Further, BT Wholesales changes enable the ISP to determine its customers actual speed setting, instead of this being set at BT's local exchange.
Upgrades to all fixed cost broadband product speeds
Premier customers will be able to choose the speed they wish to operate their connection at, from 512kb right up to 8Mb where available.
The Premier product range offers a clean DSL connection with no network restrictions or traffic shaping applied, enabling customers to run whatever applications they need to, at any time of the day, with no worries about speed or performance. In conjunction with this, PlusNet is implementing its fair usage policy in which it will deliver a commitment to its customers, ensuring platform performance is not disproportionately affected by a small minority of extremely heavy users.
Broadband Premier Product |
Fair Usage On Peak Levels |
Total Fair Usage Achievable Inc Off Peak (based on 2Mb) |
£21.99 £29.99 £39.99 £49.99 £59.99 |
30GB 50GB 75GB 100GB 125GB |
230GB 250GB 275GB 300GB 325GB |
The above table shows how prices relate to usage, rather than speed. Usage between 1am through 8am is excluded from fair usage levels, so if a customer schedules their downloads off-peak they can achieve a far higher usage with no restrictions. Further, only download data is monitored, uploads are not restricted in any way.
Speed increases for PAYG products
PlusNets Broadband PAYG products, formerly known as Lite, will also be extended to include 4 and 8Mb speeds from April. At £14.99 per month, and £1.50 per GB thereafter, speeds of up to 8Mb will be a fantastic value product option for light and infrequent Broadband users.
Introducing Broadband Plus
Broadband Plus will be available from April. This product range will complement the existing Broadband Pay As You Go and Premier products, and will offer unrivalled price value. Broadband Plus is designed to meet the needs of the average Broadband user, looking for fast email and web browsing, with more advanced applications being more suitable on the Broadband Pay As You Go and Premier products. A fair usage system does not need to apply to Broadband Plus due to the way the product is designed and network managed.
Broadband Plus has a lower service-providing cost than the Premier products, which will be reflected in the pricing PlusNet will publish for Broadband Plus in the near future.
If you havent bought broadband yet, want to upgrade or migrate, visit us at http://www.plus.net