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Plusnet problems, recommend new ISP please!!

New to the forum guys!

I'll make it brief:

Basically I move from PIPEX (they were good for me at the time but hearing bad things about them now) to Plusnet Plus service because I thought I'd rather pay £14.99 over £23.44 which I was paying for a 1MB connection. It was such a horrible decision. I always got less than 1kbps on p2p (im using Shareaza) file sharing which is four times slower than dial-up! I was so mad and did so much forum reading because I thought it may just be some sort of software setting issue. With Pipex I always got about 150kbps average but I was so disappointed. I contacted Plusnet and they told me I had to be on their Premier service for optimum performance for file-sharing. I didn't really care because I wanted the speed so then I upgraded my account. Wow!! Speed went up but maybe a kilobyte... I now get 1kbps most of the time, 2kbps if im lucky. Plusnet are the worst ISP ever! They can't even help me. I will write them an essay explaining the various problems i'm having and they will then reply 10 hours later with a single sentence asking my to check something. They recently emailed me to say BT found I had high levels of congestion at my local exchange which they have now dealt with and ask me to check for improved speeds but no go. I asked for my MAC key because I can't take it anymore and they have asked for a £47 deffered activation fee. I am really annoyed by this fact because i'm not cancelling for no reason. I'm cancelling because i'm not getting what was advertised on their website. Their Premier service explains that it is suitable for file sharing and that because of the contention ratio being at 30:1 I should get fast downloads on p2p networks - i'm not getting even reasonable speeds! They should let me move for free because they can't sort out the problem I am having.

For the next ISP!!! I thinking of moving to Zen because i've heard only good things about them...Unless someone advise me not to go for them... I've was thinking about Freedom2Suft but heard that they are really bad now. Can someone recommend me 2 or 3 for me to decide. Thanks for your help guys.

Did I say I was going to make this brief?
 
lighterboy said:
goto NDO / Namesco - www.names.co.uk - great value, 24/7/365 local rate support on a no contention service, no traffic management, no port blocks.


Not true, look at the small print that says 'fair usage policy' applies to unlimited packages, which contradicts the term 'unlimited'!!!
 
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Fox2006 said:
Not true, look at the small print that says 'fair usage policy' applies to unlimited packages, which contradicts the term 'unlimited'!!!


From reading some where NDO have 2x155 pipes and 2x34meg pipes which would give them roughly 3720000kbps for the custmers to go through which if all them are connected to 1 gateway say it would allow 1800 2meg lines bandwidth to them from the BT network.

If anything over 1000 of them was downloading at full speed that would give poor speeds to every one else to the point where it is contended so with the fair usage policy which i believe is peak hours only wouldnt allow the mindless people that max out the connection 24/7 make the rest of the customers suffer after all you do want to get onto webpages, play online games, vOIP etc.

The unlimited part will mean in reality that it is unlimited 24/7 as there is no data limit restriction ie you wont get charged if you go over 30gig a month, but there will be a bandwidth limit on things like p2p to the customer base as a whole at the peak hours to allow normal traffic go through.

I do welcome the fair usage policy at peak hours only as I dont want the minority who have 2meg and soon 8meg connections making me suffer my normal internet usage.

Imagine plusnet who have just released that press statement about the problems of late its took them 12 months to start to get back to a "normal" operating level and theres a whole load of people want to use 8 meg lines to the limits all day every day, how are plusnet going to cope with that without a fair usage policy?

One thing i think ISP's should do is get away with fixed price connection and charge for bandwidth, 75p a gig say and see how much people download then.
 
Last edited:
nothing wrong with a fair usage policy, however let's be frank it isn't 'unlimited' and shouldn't be advertised as so, its very misleading. Personally I too am looking for an alternative to Plusnet, and I'm finding it pays to look at the small print!

cheers
Fox
 
The namesco FUP recommends a max of 60gb btw, but if you read it it also says: http://www.names.co.uk/usage-policy.html

If your usage exceeds the Fair Usage Policy by an excessive amount, not just a few GB over but reasonably over, then we will contact you by email and request that you reduce your usage.

Namesco will not impose a usage cap on your connection, however, if your usage continues to remain high over the weeks following the first email we have sent to you, then your connection will be contended with other users of a similar usage pattern to yours. The contention will apply upto the advertised level for your product, either 50:1 or 20:1. You can still continue to download as much as you wish, however you will however have contention on the service -noticeable mainly at peak times.

If you usage then tails back down to a more reasonable level then the extra contention applied to your account will be removed. At no stage will an upper download limit on usage be imposed on any account.

See - no upper limit, just essentially contention applied in a stronger manner. similar i guess to the 30:1 plusnet contention they apply ontop of the 50:1 bt impose...

So there isnt a limit as such you just get a few warning shots first. keeps the excesive bandwidth hoggers away, remember adsl is sold as contended - technically if you have an 8mb line you only get 1/50th of it as your slice over the BT Centrals...
 
One thing i think ISP's should do is get away with fixed price connection and charge for bandwidth, 75p a gig say and see how much people download then.

Quite a few isps already have this, namesco i know on their 10gb included packages charge £1 per gb over your included lot. like mobile phone minutes really. eclipse do similar.

where you need to be careful is how the isp's define the usage some (eclipse, plusnet, pipex) - count both uploads AND downloads as your usage; others eg: Namesco only count downloads - that difference can make a huge difference to your monthly fee...

eg on a 1mb line you have 1mb down and 256k up - ie you would pay 25% more for your bandwidth charges on an isp that counts both uploads and downlaods in the usage.

thats more important small print than a FUP...
 
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It costs a ISP roughly 8 quid for the BT charges then even if a ping goes outside of your router/modem it costs the isp so if it was in you paying what the ISP does it would cost you 10 quid before you are allowed to ping outide of your own home without the 10 gig thrown in.
(the 2 quid is allowing for costs to the isp for all overheads)
 
To the original poster, I will say Welcome to you, as nobody else has bothered..;)

Sorry I am not in a position to advise of any alternatives, only to say that I am also on Plusnet Premier, have been for 11 months and never knowingly had any speed issues.

I just wonder if the speed issues are solely down to your Plusnet connection, are there other issues involved?

If you migrate to Zen or another ISP and your speed issues persist because of other factors, you will be back to square one surely.

Hope you resolve the speed problem soon.
 
Zen is a good choice, you pay a bit more than other ISPs but they are one of last few ISPs that still dont have a download cap.
 
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