ISP Reviews by mlmclaren

I write this on behalf of a recently retired man!

His needs where simple, A broadband connection, good enough for 2 laptops and the odd bit of streaming!

Sky's Broadband Unlimited (ADSL) was perfect for them, they lived within a decent line length from the exchange and got a solid 10/1 service, this was great for him, a good value phone package for the wife too, Anytime Calls to Landlines was sufficient enough and TV that wasn't really needed but worked as promised.

So what prompted him to leave you may ask, well Sky followed in the tracks of other providers and upped the "line rental" by £1 (no biggy) But then notification came that as Sky has stopped selling the traditional Anytime UK Landline Calls at £5 and now released a new package £8 that included mobile he wouldn't have any choice but to move to such package.

Now he agreed that it was good value still, unlimited mobile calls swell as landline for £8 was great and no relying on pesky mobile signals, but unfortunately monthly outgoing's where going to need a cut due to his income being cut due to retirement.

Between myself and the gentleman we contact Sky's leaving department to haggle a new deal for new contract, the thought it would be wise to cancel TV due to the lack of use, but then said everything else looked fine, didn't mention anything about price rises and even when prompted wouldn't give any sort of loyalty discount or reward, even after being thanked for being a loyal customer for many years.

So that was that, no discount for loyal pensioner, but free for 12 months with a gift for a new customer... subsidisation at its best...

So an order has now been placed with a competitor that has offered him the same package with a few discounts, a voucher and even lower prices once the discounts run out (in 18 months)

So until this morning I was a customer of Plusnet's so called "fast lane" fibre optic 'based' broadband service that promises to "do you proud" however since joining in February 2015 that has not been the case.

Upon finding Plusnet we was amazed by all the awards they had got and the features they offered.

We where helped through the process of joining by a very helpful guy "Matt" who was very helpful and on hand through-out the long process of getting a new line installed to the property by Openreach.

After around 4-6 weeks we where finally up and running, however within 4 weeks we started seeing light congestion issue which at first Plusnet said was rare and would be fixed but it got worse and then the helpful Plusnet support and Matt himself didn't seem to give a damn anymore.

We submitted tickets online with diagnostic's, we jumped through all the hoops, but still got know where and got a some what 'oh well' feeling from Plusnet.

So support tickets turned into a blood bath argument over terms and conditions, we weren't getting what we was promised... this went on for sometime and services got worse during this time too.

By now we was involved in discussion on with Plusnet's community forum, I and others started noticing the transformation of Plusnet's service quality and then features of the service started disappearing, the electronic ticket system started being stripped of options and even started hiding in menu's in the background of Plusnet's site, then a "leaked" announcement of Plusnet's plans to reduce it's 24/7 support lines to daytime hours which added to the insult of communication cuts.

The tools on Plusnet's customer portal and support pages started being removed that helped customers diagnose issues.

So then a new argument over the terms and conditions of service started as they had altered the terms and conditions of customers contracts without the required notice and without the option to leave penalty free, this was agree on by Ofcom and CISAS and after highlighting these concerns to Plusnet by quoting the Ofcom GC9.6 regulations they finally folded and agreed they would clear all early termination charges from the account.

During this time I had contacted CISAS about the issues with performance, service alterations and receiving contact from CISAS saying that Plusnet had "ignored" their requests for comment on the issues.

It was pretty obvious that something was seriously wrong at Plusnet...

(later) received a notification from Plusnet saying that CISAS had been in touch and that they had been order to pay out compensation (£200) to myself for any inconvenience.

The issues with service quality and speed continue to get worse with browsing for me was very choppy and basic things like streaming Radio was impossible some days, even when I had speeds of 60Mb/s I could not stream Radio or services like Now TV which only required 128Kb/s - 2.5Mb/s between them.

Plusnet's latest announcement on the community forum was that they where aware of the issue and could replicate it on there own connections in there offices but could not pin point what or where they where....

I highly recommend that you think twice before committing to any 18 month contracts with these guys as they'll certainly not "do you proud"

A note to customers switching from Plusnet too, Plusnet told me I would be switching on the 16th Sept, however it was 15th and before Zen had taken control of the line Plusnet had already ceased my connection at the strike of midnight!