PlusNet Reviews

I recently signed up with plusnet and they proved to be disastrously incompetent. They refused to provide VAT invoices and their 'support' service displayed poor product knowledge and total ignorance of UK VAT regulations.

They took 18 hours or more to reply to queries and their replies were rude, unhelpful and written in broken English.

I cancelled the order after 4 days of this nonsense and my money was refunded. However, they failed to cancel the migration from my previous ISP - though I wrote to them about this problem several days in advance - and as a result of their arrogance and incompetence I lost my Internet connection with my previous supplier and had no Internet access at all.

I strongly advise anyone considering this ISP to avoid them - Do not touch them with someone else's bargepole.

Note: I have given them a score of 1 for each category only because there is no Zero value available.

We were with Madasafish for about 10 years. Initially on dial-up PAYG, then unlimited dial-up, and finally upgraded to broadband. Having my domain name hosted by them for free (originally the service was called FreeNetName) I was reluctant to move ISP. However I was hitting the 5GB included bandwidth too often, and the price had always been a little more than other equivalent services. Hence I did not consider the service to be great value for money.

The support existed, but was hard to get straight answers from. Replies often ignored the question asked. Nor did I like the assumed "the customer must be wrong" attitude, particularly when their technical explanations did not make sense by comparison with trusted expert websites. (And BTW I consider myself a bit of a geek.) In one particular support case, they messed around for ages with different settings and then waiting. I then had to press them to pursue BT, and finally they found ants at the exchange shorting my line and causes my connection speed to drop to 160kbs. I then had to argue to get interleaving removed from the line after they left that on as one of the experiments.

Finally, on leaving I found them unhelpful. Not surprising really, they no longer needed to try and keep me. The support ticket had about 5 different account termination dates. And after I had confirmation of account termination, I was then asked to request account termination. I also got some worrying emails abut change of invoice date. At no point could then categorically confirm I was not going to get any additional charges, instead they used a code "we've moved your next invoice date to XX/XX/XX", the date after account termination. So I quickly cancelled the direct debit payment. When I suggested I was due for a refund for part of the month after account termination, they simply evaded the question and refused to answer at all on the ticket. So I promised them an on-line review here!

Have been with Plusnet for several years and experienced slow speeds throughout that time. I'm on a fairly long line and generally sync at about 2Mbit/s. However my actual throughput never got much above 1Mbit/s and was usually lower. I'm not a heavy user so shouldn't fall foul of a 'fair usage policy' and I've hardly ever used P2P. Plusnet seemed to blaim BT for my low IP Profile and could never sort it out.

Just moved to Fast and my line speed as risen to 3Mbit/s with a throughput in excess of 2Mbit/s. I know it's early days with a new ISP, but why couldn't Plusnet have done something.

As for Customer Service, Plusnet are just awful. If you ring them you have to listen to hard rock music (OK I'm getting on a bit) and wait ages. If you raise a 'ticket' via their web site they take days to respond.

Avoid Plusnet like the plague.

Everything about plusnet is shockingly bad. Really shockingly bad.

Constant speed and intermittence problems and all they do is ignore it for a while and then when pushed, they will 'try' a fix and 'hope' it works after a few days.

They have no regard for a customer who is without usable broadband due to their laziness and perhaps technical incompetence.

I'm baffled that they have not shut down by now.

AVOID LIKE THE PLAGUE else you will be signing up for an absolutely horrible experience.

Have been with Plusnet for about 7 months now.

Am currently on the 'Extra' package which includes 60GB peak allowance per month for £11.49/month (free/unmetered usage allowance from 12pm-8am). Excellent usage allowance for the money.

Have not experienced any throttling/slow speeds or the like. Consistently get faster download speeds than BT provisioned my line for.

Cautious eye on usage adviseable as you pay £5 for extra 5gb allowance once you've reached your peak allowance threshold.

Useful customer forum which is interesting to browse and makes me think that they do pay attention to what their customers have to say.

Reliable provider. No problems recommending.

Nice and steady.

Been with plusnot for seven years and in the beginning they were ok. Now it takes days and many different "support" staff lol for even simple errors (on their part) to be corrected,
and then no apology. I expect BT has a lot to do with the poor speeds and slow response but with 3 weeks of 200Kbts download I have had enough. Awaiting my MAC code to migrate away from this bunch of idiots.

Please do not ever use Plusnet. They failed to supply me with a service and are currently trying to get £65 out of me for cancelling the contract. They are rude, sloppy, obnoxious and their customer service and technical support is non existent.
AVOID AVOID AVOID AVOID AVOID AVOID AVOID AVOID AVOID AVOID AVOID AVOID AVOID AVOID AVOID AVOID AVOID AVOID

When i first signed up to Plusnet, they were Top Johnny. They promised 6meg, and i got, regularly at all times of the day, at least 4.5meg, easily enough for my purposes.
Now, through tech advances, they are promising at 8meg, but i actually get less than 1meg. 900kbs to be precise. And during the day, it can slip to 400kbs.
This is not good enough. Its becoming REALLY frustrating.
And thereof, i have realised what is going on with these ISP's. ALL of them, not just Plusnet.
What they do, is when you first sign up, you are categorised as a priority customer, and get the bulk of the bandwidth, whch keeps you happy. But as time goes on, you are shunted down the list and receive whatever is available. Its a bit like buying a sandwich from a well known Supermarket chain. The part you bite into is the part with all the sumptuous filling. But as you get towards the crust, there's nothing there except bread and margarine.
ISP's operate in exactly the same way. The longer you are a customer, the less you are deemed to matter, because you are classified as byte fodder.
So remember next time as your ISP service speeds drop significantly. It is because what should be YOUR speed, has been given to dozens of new customers.
And don't believe all that waffle about when Routers get turned of at night, or if the are old and damaged, that this can affect your connection speed. Total garbage. Thats just a smokescreen to stop you asking too many questions.
And also, dont forget that if your ISP, like Plusnet, offers a connection priority service for an additional fee, then this fee will go to BT, and they will make extra bandwidth available for you, which ordinarily would be reserved for new customers.
Sorry guys, but i'm afraid the wait for decent speeds will only be over when FTTP becomes the norm. But even then BT will find some way to rip us all off just so they can fill their pension blackhole, and continue to pay their employees obscene pensions, just at a time when the country is virtually bankrupt.
BT are an abomination. They always have been, and always will be.

I saw all the bad reviews but I said to give it a try. I left Sky as they kept messing up my bills constantly, speed was always good and reliable no matter the time of the day. I wanted an ISP with no contract and I found Plusnet. I ordered / connected days. Promised speed of 13 Mgb their website confirmed when I checked my phone line. So, got connected and checked my speed every half an hour, no more than 1.5 MGB/s. I raised a ticket and they said it takes 10 days so that they can establish the capability of your phone line! Measured the speed over the next 10 days, same, every minute. Raised a ticket again, they told me to take off the socket from the wall and do something as there is noise on the line!!!!! I heard this before from Titan ADSL. When I was with Titan I had the same problem, speed under 2MGB/s and they said same thing noise, take off the socket, etc. I left Titan and joined SKY and the speed was immediately 8-10 MBG/s without doing anything. So, keeping this in mind I called someone from Plusnet technical support and i said that I won't take any socket off as I don't have time for stupid things. The guy on the phone agreed with me as the noise cannot lower down your speed from 8 to 1.5 MGB/s. After 10 days I received and e-mail from plusnet saying that they have finished the tests and my line supports 1.7MGB/s and that's the speed I will get from now on. I called them back and requested the MAC code, but not easy. I spent some time on the line (which costs you 15 pence / min) and after 10 minutes I realised that I will have to wait forever. I called the sale line which of course answered in 1 minute and requested to put me trough to MAC code guys. They said they cannot do that, bla bla. I got really nervous and stressed that I want my MAC code, they connected me immediately. Mac code arrived after 7 days (not 5 as promised) after I kept asking for it online. I do not advise anyone to subscribe for Plusnet. I did not use their webspace, e-mail so I cannot talk on that. Support works and is in UK but what good as they don’t know what they are talking about? It cost me £25 (connection fee) and a lot of my time listening to their "support", and I am not a newbie. I am computer / internet expert and I know exactly how it works. I would give them a 0 (zero) but there is not such a possibility. Do not even think about Plusnet or other small providers.

24th July - got my login details from orange - logged in and did a speed test - instant speed 13 Mgb/s from a 1.6 Mgb/s Plusnet "noise in the socket" internet - awesome, bye plusnet