Plusnet Fibre Trials Update

[#1]

The FTTC (Fibre to the Cabinet) trial is now closed for residential customers. Residential customers requiring an FTTC connection should visit www.plus.net/fibre for our new fibre products.  FTTC Business trials are still ongoing. Following the post we made at the beginning of the month we are now closing the first phase of our FTTC trial. We now have over 600 customers on FTTC and just over 100 orders in progress or requests waiting to go on. We also have a further 70 customers on FTTP. We would like to thank everyone that has taken part in the trial so far, the feedback we've had has been very helpful and is very much appreciated. We are currently working out all of the commercial details for launching a full fibre product later in the year and so want to begin the beta phase of our trial. This beta phase will be a commercial trial of FTTC so that we can prepare for the launch and ensure that all of our processes and training are correct. The Fibre Beta Trial will be available on Value, Extra, Pro and all Business ADSL products and will cost an additional £12 (inc VAT) per month on top of the standard subscription cost. The Beta Trial is open to existing residential customers on one of our older products, however they would need to change to Value, Extra or Pro to take part in the Fibre Beta Trial. We would recommend that customers select Extra because of the higher usage allowance. We have seen that on average people use about 40% more usage by going to FTTC. This is likely down to people using the Internet more and using richer content like iPlayer in HD. Every customer that is currently on FTTC or has already applied to get FTTC and it is available to them will be able to stay on their current product at the existing price for as long as they like. Should they wish to change product then they can do to any of the products we have on sale but from April they would only be able to change to a Plusnet Fibre product. We are very pleased at the overall performance of FTTC, we made a few internal changes yesterday to resolve a few small bugs in the system (for example, customers should shortly see the speed showing as 37Mbps on our website instead of 20Mbps) and have been busily training some of our support team. If you would like to take part in our Fibre Beta Trial then please go to http://trials.plus.net and raise a ticket with the answers to the questions there and we'll process your request. If you have any questions or comments then please feel free to take a look at our Fibre Trials forum here. Dave Tomlinson Plusnet plc

[#2]

"The Beta Trial is open to *both* existing residential customers" :-D You only have two customers on older products?! I think you probably meant to say it's open to existing residential customers on older products if they change to a current product... and then you probably also meant to say it's also open to customers already using a current product. You may also have meant to say if it's open to new customers?

[#3]

Hi Martin, looks like Dave might already have amended the copy following your comment.

[#4]

Wouldn't it be wonderful to be able to take part in an FTTC trial - but on a Market 1 Exchange with only 1300 residential lines - not a snowball's chance in hell!! We are rapidly falling back onto the wrong side of the "digital divide"!!!

[#5]

Not necessarily, this exchange has only 2000 lines and has FTTC: http://www.samknows.com/broadband/exchange/NIAR and this one has just over 1000 and is just being enabled now: http://www.samknows.com/broadband/exchange/WWTHRE These have been done because the areas (Northern Ireland and Cornwall) have had some EU money to get the areas enabled. There are other areas being looked at so it's not going to be impossible, maybe feeding back to local councils and point them to what's happening in Northern Ireland and Cornwall and see if they can go down the same route.

[#6]

Nice idea Dave --- but unfortunately our exchange sits geographically between two larger "towns" which are both in the middle of FTTC rollout - and as our area is a relatively affluent residential area - can't see the Vale of Glamorgan Council being interested as there wouldn't be any grant money associated.

[#7]

We are haveing a similar problem, our exchange will probably never be upgraded despite coming 35th in the race to infinity. On top of this we get a poor service from ISP's. I currently get an average of 0.25Mbps. I have previously been able to get 0.7Mbps but this dropped at the end of last year. When I done some checks, I found out that I can get adsl max, upto 1Mbps at this property. Why the slow speeds then? I'll tell you why, After a phone call to other ISP's, I found out that Plusnet have capped my speed at 0.576Mbps. I asked them about this and they insist that they have not done this and 0.25Mbps is the most I can get (despite being able to get nearly 3 times this last year). Why wont they just admit that they have capped my speed or uncap it? My contract is now over with Plusnet (thank god) and I am looking for a new provider who will give me the max speed I can get for my money, not charge full price for a quater of the speed I should get. Overall, I have had a very poor service from Plusnet and will not be returning. Award winning phone and broadband? The wooden spoon maybe.

[#8]

Tony, I'm almost 100% sure we are not capping your throughout below what it should be. What other ISP's are probably trying to explain to you, is how 'IP Profiles' and BT Wholesale's 'Dynamic Line Management' systems work. The idea is to limit your throughput marginally below the rate you're actually connected to the exchange equipment at. This works reasonably well however it can cause problems on lines that drop or suffer from interference. If your line drops, and reconnects with the exchange at a poor line rate (even if it's only for a matter of seconds), then your 'IP Profile'/throughout can get drastically reduced. These reductions in your throughout are very quick to happen, although subsequent improvements can often take days to kick in. This means that there are instances where a single connection drop can leave you stuck on a sub-standard 'IP Profile'. You currently have an IP profile of 500kbps. This is because your router is only connecting to the exchange at 576kbps. Your line is *very* long with a downstream attenuation of 63db. I've gone back to October last year and the highest your IP profile has been throughout this time is 750kbps. It seems to fluctuate between this, 500kbps, 350kbps and 135kbps. This wouldn't happen unless your line was disconnecting/reconnecting. These Dynamic Line Management systems are largely outside of our control, but I'm betting it's the stability of your actual connection/physical length of your line that's leading to these problems, and nothing to do with any artificial cap at our side. Your line doesn't seem that well suited to a rate adaptive product to be honest. Have we suggested that you move to a fixed 512kbps service before as I think that would at least help bring some consistency to the speeds you see? Would be a shame to see you leave based on a situation that I don't think's going to be significantly different with another ISP Best rgds, Bob.

[#9]

I'm sorry to hi-jack this site but I'm trying to get on to the plusnet community forum. The problem is that the "Log-in" won't accept my user name/pass word and I can't find a way of retrieving them or resetting them. Also Plus Net are not answering my e-mails. Can anyone help please?

[#10]

Hi Michael, if I'm looking at the right account then your Community username is 'mypyrex'. It's different to your main account username.

[#11]

Thanks. That's right but if I try to reset my password it's not recognising my user name.

[#12]

I was really looking forward to taking part in the trial; my exchange was enabled in November/December last Year. Unfortunately my housing estate has been missed out even though neighbouring ones (with Virgin Media available too) have been. Where or who can I talk to about getting our cabinet upgraded???

[#13]

You need to incorporate the business segment too. Converting to a residential package just won't do and are not suited to business use.

[#14]

Hi Ben Drop a ticket to the Business team or give them a ring and we'll happily get you involved in the trial. Mark

[#15]

I am in Milton Keynes on Bradwell Abbey, but in one of the areas not included in the FTTP trial, nor on the exchanges being equipped with FTTC. Has Plusnet any information about the possible extension of the FTTP availability from Bradwell Abbey, or whether this exchange will roll out FTTC after the FTTP trial is completed? Couldn't find the right Forum to raise this question. Thanks

[#16]

sourceit - the current FTTC trial is available on all our business ADSL products, there's no need to switch to one of our residential products to take part on the trial. We're still working out the details of what will happen when the trial ends. michaelmann - I asked that very question a couple of weeks ago. The Bradwell Abbey FTTP is now complete and it's unlikely that any more areas will be added to the FTTP footprint (with the possible exception of new builds and flats in the existing area). What they've said is that when they get to the phase 7 and 8 rollouts round the country (early 2012) they will recheck the areas they have already done for FTTC only and FTTP only to see if they can infill any of the area with the other technology. So for Bradwell Abbey this will mean they will look to see if any of the areas they missed for FTTP will be suitable for FTTC. Whether any areas will be done or when is not yet known unfortunately.

[#17]

We're a business user and would like to be involved in any future/existing fibre trial. Unusually, we are already fibre to our cabinet (and I think to the actual exchange...). I've got two fibre optic cables coming out of the ground two feet from my desk that come from the cabinet down the street but nothing coming out of them!

[#18]

Well I feel rather miffed that the trial has ended, I have been waiting for my cabinet to be enabled for over three months now it has been and the trial has ended at the same time! In addition I have noticed that my ADSL 2+ sync speed has steadily dropped from about 2.6Mbs last autumn to 1.3-1.5Mbs now. Could this be due to BT messing about with the cables in the street box? When will the PN FTTC product appear? I can get BT Infinity NOW.

[#19]

Well I feel rather miffed that the trial has ended, I have been waiting for my cabinet to be enabled for over three months now it has been and the trial has ended at the same time! In addition I have noticed that my ADSL 2+ sync speed has steadily dropped from about 2.6Mbs last autumn to 1.3-1.5Mbs now. Could this be due to BT messing about with the cables in the street box? When will the PN FTTC product appear? I can get BT Infinity NOW.

[#20]

Hi Merlin, You can still join the fibre beta trial at http://trials.plus.net Jojo

[#21]

Hi, I'm a happy plusnet FTTC customer. I have increasing numbers of work mates getting calls from BT pushing Infinity in their areas; is there any way of getting non-PN people on board at this time? Thanks, Paul Adamson

[#22]

Hi Paul, Watch this space as it'll not be too long before new customers will be able to sign up via our website...

[#23]

tony im sick of hearing you moan about plusnet if you dont like the provider YOU CHOOSE TO GO WITH!! dont go with them simple as and if i read correctly you said you are not with plusnet now, so why do u feel the need to broadcast your ridiculous negative comments all over just do one !!

[#24]

and another thing TONY!! No Body Forced You To Join the Military, !! Just As Nobody Forced You InTo Joining Plusnet, You Made The Decision Now Deal With It, Other People Like Me And Other Members Of The Public Are Quiet Happy And Satisfied With The Provider!! You Are Just Trying To Make It Negative And To Be Quite Frank With You YOU'RE BORING ME !!