Posted: 01st Mar, 2011 By: MarkJ

Consumer ISP PlusNet UK, which frequently pledges that its "
broadband won't be beat on price", has announced that existing customers will all be given a
free speed upgrade to its latest
21st Century Network (BT 21CN) based 'up to' 20Mbps service.
PlusNet Statement
We’re starting in March with around 12,000 customers and continuing onwards with another 8,000 customers per month. Our aim is to have over 60% of our customers connected on up to 20Mb speeds by the end of 2011, against the 15% already on these speeds.
Customers may also like to know that the new 21CN network
offers significantly lower latency than their existing 20CN (up to 8Mbps) services. Low latency is good for internet voice (VoIP), multiplayer gaming and Virtual Private Network (VPN) traffic.
Over the past six months the average latency for PlusNet's Titanium and Gold traffic across the 20CN network was
1.20ms and 1.91ms (milliseconds) respectively. The average across the 21CN network was just 0.17ms for Titanium traffic and 0.96ms for Gold.
Sadly
not everybody is covered by BT's 21CN platform, which is still effectively in the process of being rolled out. As a result some customers, often regardless of which ISP you choose, may be left at a disadvantage until BT picks up the slack.