Plusnet or Talk Talk?

[djswivel]

Another happy TalkTalk customer here. 

 

Only supplier that didn't lie to me about the speeds and I never phone them, I do all customer service through the website - which isn't an issue cos I've never had an outage in 6 years and two addresses!

 

Also, no issue with traffic shaping or management - I'm allowed what I want when I want and I'm just left alone to do it!

[Dean-]

I have had some experience with Plusnet - my parents signed up with them .

 

(We were both using identical NetGear DGN2000 routers).

 

My parents are on the same exchange as I am, and are about 200 meters closer - I know where the cables run as BT had to replace them all after a major snafu by British Gas about 7 years ago.

 

My knackered old 1960's phone line was giving me 5.5Mbps, and a replacement line upped that to 6.5Mbps - with my old ISP.

 

They had a brand new line fitted after major rebuilding work - and were getting 2.2Mbps - PN were claiming the exchange was over crowded, something the local OR engineer said was BS.

 

Their line stats were in EVERY WAY better than mine, so they should have been getting nearer 8Mbps.

 

BT then did a 21st Century upgrade to prepare for Fibre, I noticed an immediate improvement to 7Mbps down and my uploads improved from 250Kbps to 900Kbps.

 

My parents saw no improvement.

 

Please explain this as anything but PN line throttling.

 

There are two factors when purchasing Broadband.

 

1, Line, Including BT infrastructure

2, ISP

 

Lets start with the line, I have seen many cases in the past where both neighbours living next door to each other use the same ISP however one is getting 7mbps and the other 3mbps (Would you believe BT use aluminium in some cases to "link" one pole to another and it maybe neighbour number one is on the "Main" pole and neighbour number two is on another pole feeding from the first pole) We need to also factor how weathered one line could be etc.

 

The second is of course the ISP, how they run the service (throttling etc) and also how populated the "feed" that is proving the broadband to customers is. I once worked for a company that sold broadband and gave it free when purchasing a line which soon became a problem. Customers would call in complaining of slow speeds and this were simply because the broadband we had purchased from Griffin to re-sell we had not purchased enough bandwidth. This also plays a massive role on speeds.. Imagine sitting on the end of the phone hearing a business broadband customer complain about poor speeds and not being able to own up it is due to the broadband service we provide.. :/

 

The way the company tried to combat this were any users that had downloaded over 100GB a month were moved out of that "Pipe" and put into a Super slow contented pipe known as quarantine. This would prompt the user to raise a slow speed fault issue which we would then tell the customer they were in quarantine due to high usage, which would then start the "Well this is a unlimited service conversation" to which we would state the Fair usage Policy.

 

So much to factor in when purchasing broadband.... People heavily use the internet now adays and that is what has prompted the big boys like Virgin Media etc to enrol traffic throttling etc.

[Toxicvrs]

I'm with John Lewis (Plusnet) good price for unlimited but god it's slow! I found BT to be much faster however a substantial amount more expensive

[GentleGiant]

BT still deny ever using Alu cables (I know - we have a whole estate of houses near Malvern wired up with the stuff)

 

Parents house was fitted with a new line in 2008, so no Alu used, the old line went to part of the house that was demolished.

[Defenderben]

When I first moved to my house a few years ago we had talk talk, totally crap with admin/billing the actual service was OK.

Moved to Orange and for £19.95 I get broadband upto 20mbs, inclusive calls internationally, 500 mins to any mobile network and my line rental!

Awesome for less than £20!

Get sensible speeds around 12mbs, no option of fibre on Dartmoor :(

[Macdemon]

 

And on top of this, to be told that it'll cost me £275 to cancel a contract that they are in breach of - well that's just taking the mickey.

 

 

Have you tried contacting OFCOM????

 

If they have breached the contract, then you have every legal right to 'walk away' free of charge.

[D15VRS]

Another Talk Talk customer here, also been with them since Screaming. net, totally satisfied and never had a problem, my neighbour is on Infinity and struggles with Downloads, Sky keeps knocking S,I,Law off. I just signed up again with Fibre and very happy, here --- Download Speed: 37551 kbps (4693.9 KB/sec )   Upload Speed: 1862 kbps (232.8 KB/sec )

[2SkodaFamily]

Have you tried contacting OFCOM????

 

If they have breached the contract, then you have every legal right to 'walk away' free of charge.

I should, shouldn't i?

[Macdemon]

Yes, they can help you sort the issues out for you.

[GentleGiant]

Another Talk Talk customer here, also been with them since Screaming. net, totally satisfied and never had a problem, my neighbour is on Infinity and struggles with Downloads, Sky keeps knocking S,I,Law off. I just signed up again with Fibre and very happy, here --- Download Speed: 37551 kbps (4693.9 KB/sec )   Upload Speed: 1862 kbps (232.8 KB/sec )

 

 

Is that all?? I get an average of 72Mbps to the router, although the wifi limitations mean that the furthest PC from the router (sods law means its mine!!), only gets 45-55Mbps.

 

Game of Thrones in 1080p takes less time to download than the credits take to roll at the beginning.

[moley]

I've been with TalkTalk form the very early days and apart from a **** up by their accounts department I have had no problems. Due to their accounts error they waived the £30 set up fee and paid my mobile bill for a month. They have been a bit slow in getting a fibre optic connection, but it's supposed to be ready next month.

[Dean-]

Is that all?? I get an average of 72Mbps to the router, although the wifi limitations mean that the furthest PC from the router (sods law means its mine!!), only gets 45-55Mbps.

 

Game of Thrones in 1080p takes less time to download than the credits take to roll at the beginning.

 

Again, depends what fibre your on and what fibre he is on.

 

FTTC & FTTH

 

You are more than likely on FTTH

[APJ]

I'm meant to be getting FTTC later this year - what speed increases does this bring?

[GentleGiant]

No, I am FTTC.

 

The interesting thing is that BT only offer 40Mb products around here, but Visps such as Aquiss offer 80Mb products - on exactly the same lines and equipment - go figure.

 

Due to issues with my old ISP, I had a new line installed at the same time, Aquiss passed on the BT Open Reach bill --- £50 + VAT = £60.

 

If you get a new line through BT it will cost you a minimum of £150, so another massive profit for BT!!!!

 

After reading the thread yesterday, I was reading one of the tech forums and saw that EE have had a massive spike in complaints over the last month or two, and are now rated even worse than BT for complaints per 100,000 customers -  of course TT are in first place and BT are now relegated to 3rd.

[cheezemonkhai]

Again, depends what fibre your on and what fibre he is on.

 

FTTC & FTTH

 

You are more than likely on FTTH

Shows how much you know.

FTTC is 40/10 or 80/20.

FTTH is 300/30

[2SkodaFamily]

To add some balance to the crap I've heaped on TT, we've had a problem with silent nuisance calls from a withheld number lately.

 

I was able to go onto my account via web (100 miles from home!) and block anonymous calls. You might be able to do that with other suppliers, but this was quite convenient to do.

[GentleGiant]

You could do that for £1.50 per month with my old VISP, the new one offers the service as well, but I invested £79 in a new phone system that can block or "silent call" them; the new phone offers a host of other features such as reduced ring volumes during set hours, internal calls, baby monitor and loads of other stuff.

[TheWanderer]

Plusnet for me.

 

I've had some issues with my line speed being capped at 1-1.5Mbps twice in the last couple of months (Perhaps I'm downloading too much p0rN!), but a phone call usually gets it fixed within a few minutes.

 

I would go to fibre, however I don't like being tied into an 18 month contract and when the next door neighbour is getting 55 Mbps on BT+getting BT Sport and Plusnet don't offer that (Shame on you Plusnet!) then I'll stay with my existing 30 day contract and a 7-8Mbps connection.

[Chris Coates]

Sorry?

www.plus.net/tv/btsport

Be aware that at some point TV will also be coming... But obviously you'll need fibre for that.

Edited 1 July, 2014 by Chris Coates

[Beerhunter]

A mate of mine, in a very small village 2 miles further from the exchange than me, gets the full 80mb from BT at all times. The engineer tells me that this is because BT skew the profiles so that their customers get more priority.

I can assure you that that is NOT the case.  BT Wholesale are not allowed to show favour.  Should they ever be tempted do so, the regulator would have them in colurt so fast your head would spin.  

 

BTW.  "engineer"?  As a proper (Systems) Engineer who has worked on data comms since the 1970s, I can assue that some of the so-called engineers that connect cables are not very knowledgeable on the products that they work on.  As it seems to be in this case.

Edited 1 July, 2014 by Beerhunter

[GentleGiant]

Word on the tech forums is that most of the BT OR vans you see now are actually contractors anyway, look for a small sign giving the real name of the company buggering up the local cabinet and disconnecting you for the next week.

[TheWanderer]

Sorry?

www.plus.net/tv/btsport

Be aware that at some point TV will also be coming... But obviously you'll need fibre for that.

 

Two points.

 

1. Your link doesn't work.

 

2. You need a Satellite Dish. Whilst we have an old one, it doesn't work because the trees that surround our property have blocked the line of sight to the dish, we can't cut the trees they're not on our property and we can't have the dish on the house as it's Grade 2 listed.

[KBPhoto]

Quick search on the Plus Net site gets this (full) link: https://www.plus.net/tv/btsport/

[Chris Coates]

Two points.

1. Your link doesn't work.

2. You need a Satellite Dish. Whilst we have an old one, it doesn't work because the trees that surround our property have blocked the line of sight to the dish, we can't cut the trees they're not on our property and we can't have the dish on the house as it's Grade 2 listed.

Sorry I blame Android and Tapatalk. Lol

[Beerhunter]

2. You need a Satellite Dish.

Nope.  You can have an on-line feed.