What is going on with our plusnet business accounts???????

[#1]

Are our accounts being forcilbly closed?

What happens if we don't do anything?

I really don't want to have to transfer to another supplier.

We will have to update our DNS records, deal with downtime and change our modem settings. All which are timeconsuming, risky, fiddley and entire not our our choosing. 

PS We only use a static IP address. Nothing else. No email hosting, no websites, no DNS. Just a line and a static IP. 

I am really VERY VERY VERY unhappy. 

[#2]

Hi there
Yes they are been closed, if you do nothing (no end date given yet) , your products/services will cease.

There is an faq, with info about business accounts closing.
The faq was posted towards the end of November 2022
https://www.plus.net/business/faqs/

[#3]

What? They are terminating our accounts? I have not been served a disconnection notice. 

The FAQ also explicitly states I do not need to take any action:

"Don't worry, your service will continue as normal for the time being and there's no immediate action for you to take." 

[#4]

@gck303 

PlusNet are withdrawing from the Business market - hence the closure of your accounts at some time in the future.

I would suggest the suggestion there's no immediate action to take is not quite true. You need to start planning as to where you'll go and what's required for the move when the time comes.

Brian

[#5]

I am planning to move to Andrews and Arnold. However, they are quite a lot dearer. Given that plus.net are currently providing a satisfactory service, and any transistion is a load of work, I am keen to delay a move until I am forced.

My simple question is: when are they going to be forcibly closing my account. I have not received any notification of this. 

Because until they give me a date there is a contract between us and them, and neither party have terminated it. If my service is terminated service without notification then they are in breach of contract. 

What a mess. 

Somehow i suspect that the reality is they are not taking any new customers and no longer offering discounts on renewal. But not, for a long time yet, going to forcibly terminate a service. Though, this is my peronal view and not something I have been told. 

[#6]

@gck303 

I'm guessing here but you won't be given notice until they actually decide on a closure date. You might receive some notification if your contract comes up for renewal. At worst you'll be given time to move.

Brian

[#7]

As per my first post, no end date has been given out yet for business closing, once this has been confirmed you will be given the appropriate notice period.

Given the faq (posted in November 2022) says business will be closed within the next 12 months, this November would seem to be the latest for business account closing

[#8]

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@bmc wrote:

I would suggest the suggestion there's no immediate action to take is not quite true. You need to start planning as to where you'll go and what's required for the move when the time comes.

Brian

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At the time the FAQ was written - Nov 2022 - it was quite true.

We have moved on 8 months and things have been solidified!  Business accounts have been proactively contacted by telephone by agents seeking to influence migration to BT Business.

Recently service termination notices have been issued - 5th September IIRC - with advice that there will be no ETCs due to Plusnet abandoning the contract.

Would be interesting to see if anyone with time an money can win a compensation claim for the consequential costs of the inconvenience of Plusnet breaking the contract - supplier early termination penalties!!

[#9]

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Would be interesting to see if anyone with time an money can win a compensation claim for the consequential costs of the inconvenience of Plusnet breaking the contract - supplier early termination penalties!!

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How magnanimous of them to waive the ETC.  I'm sure they will more than make up for it with out of contract penalty fees.

I only found out about the Business Account closure last week when we were reviewing subcription charges on our bank statements.  I spotted PN had been charging us the extortionate out of contract rate.  Apparently the message we received from PN when our office admin attempted to renew does not make it entirely clear what it is going on.  Our admin was under the (false) impression they could trust PN and what they charge is what it should cost.

The cost and disruption of the forced  move is going to cost my business dearly.  Somehow I need to arrange re-programming 100s of customer network devices at my own expense. 

Just what. I needed in the middle of the toughest trading conditions for 40 years after 3 years of COVID.

Thanks PN.  Thanks Ofcom.  Just thanks(!)

[#10]

Actually I think its "Thanks big bullying brother BT Business"!

I doubt Plusnet has much say in this.

It is nothing to do with Ofcom.

Even moving a single service is unwelcome, cannot begin to imagine your pain - are the IP addresses in the routers "hard coded" rather than using a URL?

[#11]

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@Townman wrote:

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Would be interesting to see if anyone with time an money can win a compensation claim for the consequential costs of the inconvenience of Plusnet breaking the contract - supplier early termination penalties!!

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Some years ago my son's broadband provider closed down - and I'd paid a year in advance to get a "special deal".  After a bit of "discussion" I received compensation to pay for a different ISP for the remaining months - which was more than I'd paid for the year in the first place. 

[#12]

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@Townman wrote:

Actually I think its "Thanks big bullying brother BT Business"!

I doubt Plusnet has much say in this.

It is nothing to do with Ofcom.

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My comment about Ofcom was born of cynacism.

BT Group were gifted market dominance when they were de-nationalisd back in the 1980s.  Ofcom are supposed to ensure the market remains competitive. One way they do that is by insisting ISPs make switching providers as seamless as possible.  For instance, pressure from Ofcom appears to be what persuaded BT to stop charging £5.00 pcm for an Oath/Yahoo email account after contracts were terminated.

One opinion is that Ofcom should never have allowed BT to acquire PN and EE.  As it is I would bet my bottom dollar that any other ISP planning to divest their business division would seek to dispose of it as a going concern.  Never say never but in 30 odd years of ISP consolidations I don't recall any of my business customers having their public subnets forcibly removed.

Whichever way you want to explain it the result is the same. PNs distinct cost and benefit is being erased and the opportunity exploited to encourage migration to a more costly BT service.  A bunch of small businesses will be incurring unplanned disruption and increased costs and there will be less choice for small businesses going forward.  That is how I believe Ofcom have failed here.

My subnet addresses are (often) hard coded to secure access at L3.  Can't use URLs when we are below the level of DNS.  In some cases it is the DNS server that is being secured - Our subnet appears in the permitted client and zone transfer lists.

[#13]

"One opinion is that Ofcom should never have allowed BT to acquire PN and EE"

Could not agree more!!!!!!

And the rest of your analysis is sound and well founded, however all of that is consequential to Ofcom having opened Pandora's box by the above failure, some time in the dim and distant past when Plusnet was seen a real danger to BT in the UK ISP market place.  If you cannot compete - buy-out and decimate seems to be BT's strategy.

Going off topic, it is perverse that BT ditched O2 when it could not compete with Orange and T-Mobile ... and now their successor EE has been subsumed into BT's clutches.