Unlimited Broadband - The myth becomes reality

[#1]

If we said your broadband was unlimited and meant it, what would you say? If you've been a Plusnet customer for a while now, then there's a good chance that you'll be familiar with our thoughts on 'unlimited broadband' and our opinion of 'unlimited' with hidden fair usage policies.  We're still very passionate about this and we're of the firm opinion that customers should be told exactly what product they're buying and what they're going to get for their money. Because we have explained before that a service provider has to have a sustainable product and because we've gone into some considerable detail about the commercial realities of the ISP industry, some of you are going to be a bit surprised that we've just launched an unlimited broadband product. Yes, you read that right. Plusnet Unlimited Broadband.  Yes, really! Before you start thinking we've lost the plot let's take a look at where we were a couple of years ago and where we are now. The market and the economics have changed significantly since our last residential product revision, and we believe that now, at long last, we can deliver a truly unlimited product.  We know that a lot of new and existing customers are looking for broadband with no caps or 'fair usage limits'.  In an extremely competitive and maturing market (a 'switchers' market the marketing people call it), we've been able to design an unlimited broadband product that is sustainable and at a realistic price for the cost-conscious. And you know that we're open and more transparent than most companies.  So when we put 'unlimited' in a table of competitor products you know that we mean it. How do we intend doing that? Smart traffic management is how. Most ISPs tend to shy away from the subject of traffic management. Not so Plusnet. We've explained how we use traffic management to identify and prioritise traffic on our network. We've done this for several years now, and through intelligent product design we've always used our traffic management platform to ensure that the experience our customers get is as good as it can be. This involves prioritising time-sensitive activities like VoIP and gaming traffic, whilst ensuring that bandwidth-hungry protocols like Peer to Peer are not allowed to harm the performance of the network. With our expertise in the area, we know that we can continue to deliver to our customers the quality experience they expect from us. The unlimited product will be managed accordingly to ensure that time-sensitive applications like web-browsing, streaming and VoIP continue to run at an optimum level alongside the more bandwidth- intensive activities like Peer to Peer and binary newsgroup downloads. How it works

Plusnet Unlimited expected maximum downstream speeds

	2am to 12pm	12pm to 2pm	2pm to 4pm	4pm to 6pm	6pm to 8pm	8pm to 10pm	10pm to 11pm	11pm to 12am	12am to 2am
Peer-to-Peer	Line speed	512Kbps	256Kbps	164Kbps	128Kbps	128Kbps	256Kbps	512Kbps	Line speed
Binary USENET	Line speed	512Kbps	256Kbps	164Kbps	128Kbps	128Kbps	256Kbps	512Kbps	Line speed
External FTP	Line speed	512Kbps	256Kbps	256Kbps	256Kbps	164Kbps	256Kbps	512Kbps	Line speed
VPN	2Mbps	2Mbps	2Mbps	2Mbps	2Mbps	2Mbps	2Mbps	2Mbps	2Mbps
Download sites	Line speed	1Mbps	1Mbps	512Kbps	256Kbps	256Kbps	256Kbps	512Kbps	Line speed
Download servers	Line speed	2Mbps	2Mbps	1Mbps	756Kbps	512Kbps	756Kbps	1Mbps	Line speed
Gaming*	2Mbps	2Mbps	2Mbps	2Mbps	2Mbps	2Mbps	2Mbps	2Mbps	2Mbps

* Most games need low latency which is why we prioritise gaming traffic. If a game needs more than 2Mb of bandwith, we can address these games on an individual basis, so performance should not be affected.

Of course, not everyone needs or wants to pay for unlimited usage.  That's why we're also launching Plusnet Value and Plusnet Pro.  Value is cheaper than the other two accounts and offers 10GB per month - that's plenty for many people. Pro gives you 15GB of line-speed usage at all times. Average usage When designing products we calculate a usage allowance, which is arrived at by deducting the supply costs, tax, support costs, systems costs (mail, billing etc) and profit (we are a business after all!) from the product price. We also base this allowance on the usage habits of customers, some will use it a lot and some won't. All of this data is factored in and the products we are launching today are the result of all of that analysis.  With defined usage products, it's very straightforward to forecast usage trends, and whilst it's not always the case, they're fairly easy to predict alongside costing. With an unlimited product we have to make a judgement as to the amount of bandwidth that customers will use, and the effect that this has on the performance of the network. Bearing this in mind, it's important to get our forecasts right as this directly affects the amount of capacity we need to add to the network. Having the right forecasting and capacity planning means we can be sure that we are offering a service that you'll want to use and recommend to your friends and family. Geographical Pricing Some broadband providers offer prices dependent on where you live. So far this has tended to be those with an LLU presence in the busier telephone exchanges (Sky, O2, Orange, Tiscali and TalkTalk have done this for some time). For providers who use the BT Wholesale network to supply broadband (like ourselves), the pricing has largely been the same regardless of where you live. The telecommunications regulator Ofcom has recently announced the removal of certain regulatory obligations that applied to the broadband market. This deregulation means that we benefit from reduced supply costs in these areas (also known as 'Market 3' exchanges - see below) and allows us to compete more actively with LLU providers like the ones mentioned above. It also means that our customers get to benefit from lower baseline pricing.   Market Pricing Under Ofcom regulations introduced in May 2008, telephone exchanges are graded in one of four categories.

• Market 1 - BT Wholesale are the only broadband provider
• Market 2 - Broadband is available from 2 or 3 providers (including BT)
• Market 3 - Broadband is available from 4 or more providers (including BT)
• Hull Area - Exchanges that are served exclusively by Kingston Communications

If an exchange is scheduled to offer broadband from 4 or more providers in the future then it'll be Market 2 if it serves less than 10,000 lines and Market 3 if it serves more than 10,000. Not everyone will be able to benefit from these price cuts (take a look on the Ofcom map). However, we're confident that we'll be able to offer our customers the best value broadband in their area.   21CN Much has been said about the next generation of BT Wholesale products and BT's new 21CN network. If you've not heard anything about this (where have you been?), then you can bring yourself up to speed by reading the blog posts here and here. These products will allow us to offer ADSL2+ to our customers. The nationwide rollout is currently ongoing, and we've been running a trial for customers in the areas that have already been upgraded. You may wonder how this helps us to provide an unlimited product, given that faster speeds mean customers can download more, right? The main advantage for us here is that the price per Mbps of data is lower on 21CN, meaning you get a heck of a lot more bandwidth for your money. This on top of other savings lets us offer more bandwidth at lower prices than we've been able to in the past. We're very excited about our new broadband products and what they mean for our customers and for Plusnet. If you'd like to discuss our new products with us, then please head over to our forums where you'll find our customer community and Plusnet staff, who'll be only too happy to welcome you and answer your questions. More information about the design and expected speeds of our Value, Unlimited and Pro products can be found here. see also: Residential Broadband Products FAQ Plusnet Unlimited FAQ

[#2]

@Capvermell, as we've explained in the blog the BT Wholesale pricing *is* different in Market 3, following the deregulation from OfCom. 21CN will come to all exchanges eventually but naturally they're starting with the biggest/busiest ones. Regarding the 0845/0870 numbers - yes we are part of BT, but we have separate products. To make 0845/0870 calls free would mean a price increase elsewhere, and we don't feel that's the most beneficial for our customers.

[#3]

@Mand I feel your marketing for your throttled unlimited service is deliberately dishonest though because it attempts to imply it is truly unlimited. But anyone downloading enough to want a truly unlimited package will not be able to live with the acute kinds of throttling to be imposed by Plusnet at all peak times on this product. I can live with the 2Mb ALT throttle imposed by Entanet in their peak periods but not this kind of throttling. I ask again what is so special about your throttled product when a large number of your competitors offer their "unlimited" throttled products in "Market One" areas for less money. Given that 15Gb Broadband Your Way Pro only costs £20 per month for an unthrottled service surely anyone content with a massively throttled service in a Market One area will surelt not want to pay more than £15 per month? And if they really need to download 70Gb per month then your "unlimited" service clearly won't suit their needs as they will have to wait forever for it to download. OK sure its supposed to be "unlimited" instead of 15Gb but the teenagers of any adults who gets locked in to a 12 month contract on your supposedly "unlimited" service only to find their kids cannot download what they want to for hours are going to end up being very unhappy. Those kind of people would be much better off with the high download allowance madasadish products in the Plusnet stable that receive the same priority as Broadband Your Way Pro. Also why did you test out pricing for your capped 10Gb service for your Broadband Option 1 Your Way service in December and January that was the same in Market 1, 2 and 3 areas only to introduce pricing that was completely different in each area in February. Also why has the £15 cashback if you don't need a router been withdrawn. Loads of customers don't now need a router so this is environmentally unfriendly.

[#4]

Im still on the old freeserve 2GB peak (4pm to 12am) unlimited off. Plusnet slightly changed this with a 30GB off limit. I have been looking for unlimited, this looked good, but the throttle level will look way too slow when 20mbs arives. Granted you can still surf and do other stuff at the full line speed (this is also throttled depending on time), it will be the download servers that will suffer. By doing this pusnet are actually applying a physical cap level, slowing the speed will limit the amount that can be downloaded in a period of time. A sort of stealth limit on a unlimited product. I think unlimited and faster speeds do not go hand in hand, obviously a faster download speed will mean people downloading more material, costing +net more money. On demand in this model does not work, unless you pre manage what you want to watch the day before and download after midnight, so a sort of on demand the day after you wanted to watch or play it. If and when 20mbs comes it will not improve the on demand there and then speeds. I can see +net putting a limit on the 12am to 12pm model as well, possibly to 4mbs so unlimited will become capped, (restricting the bandwith restricts the amount of download possible) or to keep the unlimited brand allow full speed for 1 hr at the lowest peak time say 4am. For me I dont as yet download much but the level is rising and need a bit more bandwith. But I dont want to have slow downloads on the large files.

[#5]

I'm glad I read this thread before committing to a new unlimited package. Just to confirm I've got this right - I'm currently on the Option 2 15Gb package and having to pay for either 2 or 4 additional Gb's each month (kids streaming TV) so £18-19 per month on average. I thought it easier to just get the unlimited package and pay the £19.99 (as I'm in the wrong market space). Given the comments in this thread it looks like the unlimited package comes with some serious throttling; effectively making it not fit for purpose? I have to say, in the past few weeks I've been experiencing some extremely long download times - especially for software packages etc. Is this related to other service changes?

[#6]

It will be intresting to see what happens in terms of traffic increases when iTunes start offering their online streaming service (which is rumoured to be not very far away) Plus Net currently identify iTunes download traffic as P2P which will have a big impact on streaming when it's launched if you on the unlimited package.

[#7]

The £5.99 value pricing with the small print of 'first three months' is a spin on openess and honesty IMO. And yes, why could Plusnet not balance out the payments so that ALL it's customers benefit? Although an admin overhead for PN quite possibly, it would show good intent to it's loyal customers (like me). As a rural dweller why should I subsidise some merchant banker ponce in London who has helped screw up the economy and cost me £5k already in salary reductions this year alone - and he gets a faster speed as he lives closer to the exchange! And mugs like us have to pay an increase of £2.75 a month over current Option 1 package for a mere 8 GB increase after the initial 3 months '£5.99 special offer for rural peasants' is up. Not good Plusnet, not good at all. No wonder you didn't send me an email to publicise this 'deal'.

[#8]

Can anyone recommend an alternative to plusNet?

[#9]

Having the first three mouths as the headline price is wrong. I am surprised the ASA allows it.

[#10]

The key word in the advertising is the word 'from' - that one single word gets most suppliers out of sticker advertising complaints

[#11]

You could say this is an 'unlimited' marketing clanger. For years, Plusnet (and I go back to the Free-online days) has been telling its loyal customers that unlimited broadband is a myth and slagging off those providers who use weasel words and small print to promise to provide such. Now isn't this exactly what we are now offered? A complicated pricing structure - worse than a railway ticket - long contracts, throttled speeds and extremely small print. Where are you going, Plusnet?

[#12]

I'm now annoyed enough to move - but is it a case of frying pan and fire? I moved from pipex (after they sold out to Tiscali) to plusnet; anyone recommend a decent, open, honest, customer focused provider?

[#13]

Ive just read nearly all these entries and im impressed with all the extra info thats supplied by all the customers etc. Though im not impressed with 'the company line'thats trotted out in response! Also Why cant the 'officials'CLEARLY identifiy themselves as employees rather than myself having to work things out via - wow thats an indepth answer - oh its an 'official'?! Also a few things could be clearer- such as whats BBYN? i got and understood most if not all of the comments on apart from that. Definately looking elsewhere than a BT subsidary (again not clearly idnetified!)

[#14]

@Roger - we've been completely open about how our traffic management works and how we're using it to provide a product that offers unlimited downloads. We've also been open about how we've changed our stance on unlimited - hence the blog. We've got the new products because we know our customers want to buy them. If anything the new products have a much simplified pricing structure compared to BBYW and its deferred payment options. If traffic management isn't for you then we have the Broadband Pro product of course. @Stuart - If you're finding your Option 2 package doesn't suit your needs now why not give us a call and we can try to find a package that does suit you? All we're doing with the new products is making sure that Plusnet remains amongst the most competitively-priced providers, and that we continue to provide good value. Existing customers can continue on their BBYW products.

[#15]

@Peter Jackson on being open about how traf management works - I can't find the traffic management explanation tables for BBYW products anymore. I assume it's just hard to find or will be back shortly? As for the Market 1-3 stuff; not directly Plusnet's fault, but it further expands the differentiation between broadband in rural and urban areas. The rural speeds are already much lower due to a lower density of DSLAM sites leading to longer lines. Now we pay £4 a month more for a much lower speed. My MP has an interest in this topic, and has said he is of a mind to propose regulation of broadband on the terms of public utility - I think this could provide a useful wedge to that aim. The choice has to be made between everything as 'market forces', or, like telephones, a public utility, availability for all (and that's not just a rural-urban issue, of course).

[#16]

Can someone clarify the difference between Download sites, download servers and P2P? Maybe give examples, it all sounds the same to me, downloading data. As for the argument over pricing areas, I think its unfair, but is it not Ofcom's, rather than Plusnet's fault? At least Plusnet have told us about it, not pocketed the difference. The speed restrictions are a bit lower in some areas than BBYW, but then if we max out at those speeds it might not be so bad. The worst affected like binary Usenet is something I have never used. I dont like 18 month contracts, its holding me off ordering at present. At least it will be better than life with TalkTalk.

[#17]

@Derek The old BBYW info pages have been moved into the archive area. a Search of the website will bring it up but you can navigate there from the support pages: http://www.plus.net/support/broadband/products/archive/bbyw/speed.shtml

[#18]

This is all very nice and dandy but when are you going to do something for business users who can't even get an inclusive package with more than 2GB* and pay more than domestic users for the privilage 8 other than business pro which just ignores the issue and doesn't say what's included

[#19]

While were at it, amidst all this talk of "completely open" (Mr Jackson), when is plusnet goint to drop the Up to 8MB tagline when the not so small print makes it quite clear that 7MB is the absolute max?

[#20]

As a user who mainly uses broadband for web browsing, email and occasional downloads the Value package looks like good value. The thing I am not entirely happy about (as an existing customer) is the 18 month contract. Also, the FAQ says that if you already have web space, CGI or domain names then you will keep them. Is hosting no longer available to new customers? If so, it is going to impossible to recommend Plus Net to anyone in future. I do think that the term "post-code lottery" is utterly meaningless. Remember, it was made up by one bunch of weasels to abuse another! Is the fact that a house in the East End is cheaper than one in the West End a "post-code lottery"? No, just market forces. Where you live affects how much you pay for housing, food, petrol and everything else. Some will be cheaper and some more expensive.

[#21]

@ Des - "Am I the only one who can't believe the speed caps that are being imposed?" -- I agree and think likewise. Countries are announcing increasing BB speeds but what we have here is a limitation on our current speeds. So much for MAX broadband - looks like there is one step forward and two back. Of course we can move to 'Pro' but that isn't Unlimited and not the same Pro that BBYW had with the bells and whistles. So that leaves marketing hype and the Devil certainly is in the detail. Once the Market Exchanges are examined all that glitters is, indeed, not gold unlike a large part of our traffic used to be. Why didn't PN leave the existing BBYW products active for new customers and then they would see exactly what sells. I have a strong suspicion that BBYW would win.

[#22]

Following your feedback asking us to look again at the contract length for existing customers, we're pleased to confirm that existing customers (whose current products were launched prior to the refresh) can now move to the new products with a 12-month contract. You will be able to take advantage of the 3-month lead price, however this offer does not include the hardware. If you wish to take up this offer please raise a ticket on your account stating your wish to take a 12-month contract option on one of the new products. Please do note that this offer does not include product changes within the new family of broadband products and applies to current customers on old products only.

[#23]

[quote]I'm now annoyed enough to move - but is it a case of frying pan and fire? I moved from pipex (after they sold out to Tiscali) to plusnet; anyone recommend a decent, open, honest, customer focused provider?[/quote] It depends a little how much you download per month and what you can afford to pay. However there are only three home broadband suppliers who can guarantee you full line speed at all times with no throttling (ever) and who also only have one month contracts. These are www.newnet.co.uk, www.idnet.co.uk and www.zen.co.uk None of them vary their charges between large and small exchanges and none of them use LLU. Of these Newnet and IDnet are the best bet if you can live with a smaller download cap (either 1Gb or 3b options at Newnet or 5Gb at IDNet) but if you need 20Gb to 30Gb per month there is not much to choose between them as they all do services between £20 and £25 per month. None are as cheap as the Plusnet Market 1 area deals are but then those deals offer a very limited heavily throttled service. This is contrary to the quite unspeakable Plusnet lies about the nature of their so called "unlimited" product perpetrated at the top of this blog. I fail to see why anyone even vaguely in their right mind wanting an unthrottled broadband service would ever migrate in to Plusnet Broabdand Pro at £20 per month with only a 15Gb allowance and an eighteen month contract as these three independents are offering up to another 10Gb per month more for less than £5 per month with only a one month contract. It is inexcusable that existing customers who wish to change their Plusnet broadband product should be on any more than a one month contract but this is the inevitable consequence of offering artificially low monthly rental prices in the first three months to try and deceive new customers about the long term price of the product (a very longstanding strategy of Plusnet's now overly domineering parent - BT). Existing Plusnet customers should be allowed to switch Plusnet products and keep only one month's notice to migrate elsewhere provided they are willing to forgo the artificially discounted product prices for the first 3 months. It should be noted that apart from BT that TalkTalk is the only other broadband supplier in the marketplace to require an 18 month contract. So it says a lot about where Plusnet is now heading that it chooses to follow the example of the two broadband suppliers with probably the worst reputations for product quality in the entire broadband marketplace!

[#24]

Capvermell - much appreciated and your point is very well put. Off to look at the 'competition' now.

[#25]

@ Stuart Are you unhappy with your broadband product? Do you want to move to one of the new products and aren't sure of your options? Give us a call or raise a ticket on your account and we'll be happy to look at the options available to you.

[#26]

Peter - my 15Gb allowance is not enough (three comps on the go at home and kids streaming TV so paying for 2/4 Gb's extra per month). Initially the unlimited package looks like a 'no brainer' but the 'small print' in terms of speed and 12 month contract is just not attractive enough to make the switch. Just had a look at the competitors sites suggested by Capermell and I have to say IdNet is looking pretty attractive for not much more - £24 per month 30Gb download (no throttling)- 0800 customer service and ONE month contract. Even their phone deal is cheaper than what I'm paying you guys. It's not looking good for plusNet - is it?

[#27]

I have to add that I'm not in the 'right' market space so would pay the higher price for the new PlusNet service. Again, not very attractive.

[#28]

Fao:Mand Beckett You responded to a short blog I wrote on the Convergence Conversation. I needed a point of clarification. If I am wrong, happy to change the blog. On the new unlimited it shows you restrict downloads from servers to less than 512Kbps. In my opinion even if iPlayer traffic is prioritised, it needs in excess of 600Kbps to run smoothly.

[#29]

What about the 20MB ADSL which they advertise is coming soon. Do you expect these to be higher rate packages or is everyone going to be upgraded from the current 8MB speed? I'm concerned that if I join the unlimited package which is currently upto 8Mbs for a minimum contract of 18 months that I won't be able to switch to the 20MB service until 18 months

[#30]

@Mike K. iPlayer Traffic is categorised as streaming and given Gold prioritisaton on our network. See http://www.plus.net/support/broadband/quality_broadband/traffic_prioritisation.shtml for more details. There shouldn't be any reason why iPlayer wouldn't run smoothly.

[#31]

OK - resolved. MAC code requested and received now moving else where.

[#32]

I have to echo what others are saying here. PlusNet's service is good, but we all know how quickly things can change at an ISP, and a 12 or 18 month lock in just isn't acceptable to me - so if that's the way forward for PN, I'm locked in to a 'legacy' service now. I'm also becoming a bit concerned about the traffic shaping. I can't get Skype to work reliably here, and I've been waiting weeks to have a VoIP application called Mumble prioritised properly. I appreciate your being open about traffic shaping policies but I don't feel that imposing them so extensively is the right way to develop the service. Another reason I wouldn't want a 12 month contract.

[#33]

@ William Lees I've just had a quick chat with one of our Network guys here. We made a change to "Mumble" yesterday. Can you see if you have noticed an improvement in service?

[#34]

@William Blog comments aren't the best forum to raise tech support queries and for us to help you. If you're having trouble with Skype why not raise the issue over in the forums? (Apologies if you have alreday done so). http://community.plus.net/forum/index.php/board,39.0.html

[#35]

I've had the chance to review the new products and the trafficd shaped unlimited appears unsutable and the Pro looked good until I ssaw the download capping.

[#36]

Unlimited means limited. It's severely throttled.

[#37]

What made me ask for a MAC code was the customer service adviser - she stated that I will still have my 8Mb download limit if I switched to the unlimited package; NO MENTION of a 12 month contract, NO MENTION of limited download speeds. Indeed, I had to explain to her the REALITY for long standing, loyal and knowledgeable customers. Oooh...I'll get you the MAC code. Need I say anymore? I did expect a bit of a haggle to retain my custom and, to be fair, was prepared to consider reasonable offers. At the end of the day it's all a hassle so any reasonable compromise would have been considered but there we have it. I'll leave you all to come to your own conclusions as to where plusNet's strategy is heading.

[#38]

Many thanks for the followups to my post, which I wasn't expecting but are appreciated. I mentioned the things I did as an example of why I feel it is a mistake from the customer point of view to move away from monthly contracts and to focus on traffic shaping as such a fundamental part of the service, not because I was looking for help with them specifically. In answer to your question James, there has indeed been a change to the way Mumble traffic is prioritised - it's now correctly prioritised provided the server is configured to send on one particular port. This is only a partial solution at best, but having said that it's better than nothing. I've logged this in the support ticket I opened in mid Jan. I haven't had time to look into the skype issues in any detail but when I do I will reach out for help as you suggest Peter. But I'd much rather not have to factor in traffic shaping as one of the things to worry about.

[#39]

I am very disappointed by plusNet's complete about face here. Unlimited broadband is like virginity; neither can be conditional.

[#40]

I do not know how I stand. I am paying 9.99 for 2GB and now see that newcomers can get 10GB for 5.99. Surely I should be automatically upgraded to 10GB. I always felt that when BT took over plusnet it would quickly deteriorate and become a cash cow for BT and it appears that i am right no doubt the standards of service will now go down hill and all the poor staff at plusnet will carry the can and take the brunt of angry customers but will that worry BT i doubt it. They have had years of upsetting customers and are experts at it. That is why thousands of people dropped BT telephone service because of poor service the main reason why their shares are languishing at 80p when they used to be in pounds. BT have always had one of the lowest rating for customer service and have always been at the top of my hate list (now of course they are second bankers have No 1 spot at the moment) Gordon

[#41]

tgr - no one in their right-mind would want to be automatically upgraded to the new product range! You should look at the throttling and also what Market exchange your broadband connection is on. You need to ask if you use the 2GB because if not then why move to 'unlimited'? Don't know what extras you have at present but I doubt you have an 18month contract to think about.

[#42]

Just a thought, but how much do other ISP's throttle speeds, and we don't know about it because they just don't tell us? I am interested if anyone has links, going to have a nosy round and see. And where did 18 months come from anyway?

[#43]

Forget unlimited why have Plus Net decided to set limits and now cut you off when you reach them. Previously they just choked the connection so it was slower (if that seems actually possible!!). Now you just get cut off completely, now thats what I call progress and service. Just awaiting my code to leave this poor service

[#44]

Hi Tony, Are you referring to the Value service? If that's the case, you're getting an extra 8GB compared to the old BBYW Option 1 package for less money (if you're on a Market 3 exchange). Not to mention that the usage allowances are only during peak hours, with no restrictions on overnight usage. It's also worth mentioning that we've made absolutely no changes to our existing products. If there's something that I've missed, please do let me know. James

[#45]

Animal farm... four legs good, two legs bad. Unlimited, no such thing. Repeat after me. Hold on! What's that? Er, two legs good, four legs bad. We do unlimited broadband!!! Ta-da! Slightly dodgy integrity here, folks. And stop hiding behind OFCOM. Long contract lock-ins, headlining discounted pricing and using small print, geographical pricing? Taken a sincerity pill from Tony Blair? Can the real PlusNet please stand up? All that stuff over the last two years about the reversion to the "honest" PlusNet following the email debacle, and now it looks like the Mad Men are in charge (v. good, watch on BBC4/ HD BTW). I was going to sign a friend up who'd never had broadband before, but the more I read, the less I like. This is very disappointing indeed.

[#46]

AS a user of one of the capped older products - I would consider moving to the uncapped products because I always have problems with my fixed 4Gb peak time allowance. The price is not the problem But I will not move because - having been with plusnet for many, many years I won't sign a 12 month contract - I have serious concerns that the new option will support my current needs and future needs - in particular with FreeSat about to support IPlayer (Q3) I need good bandwidth in the peak times - also plusnet was going to support BTVision - last year - we are still waiting So as a loyal customer of many years - there no longer seems there is an upgrade path for me - only a downgrade (for more money)

[#47]

@ njbower said: February 17th, 2009 at 11:52 am you can find an FAQ on Unlimited at: http://www.plus.net/support/broadband/products/unlimited/unlimited_faq.shtml Check point 10 - that will give you some information/further links about geographic pricing/Market areas. This has nothing to do with market pricing - link or target page screwed?

[#48]

I have to laugh when I read above that some people have 'upgraded' to unlimited. I have been trying it out for a couple of weeks and its an awful service which I have already complained about and in fact want to be moved back to the limited package ASAP. Why you may ask? well because the speeds at times when my family really need it are pathetic by any broadband standards these days. Unlimited is misleading because you wont be awake long enough to download anything of any size - its that limited in speed!! - its rubbish - I would rather spend an extra £5 to get back to where I had 5 or 6 Mbits whereas now on 'unlimited' I get less than 200K often - I rest my case.

[#49]

@AndyC - we've made the fact that we use traffic management to prioritise types of downloads very clear throughout. This page http://www.plus.net/support/broadband/quality_broadband/speed.shtml is clearly linked to from the signup page and explains what speeds you should expect for what type of download. Binary Usenet downloads, just for example, is line speed overnight, but will go down to as low as 128kbps between 6pm-10pm.

[#50]

For my usage, the new Value package looks like a good deal. But I am really unhappy about even the 12 month lock-in.

[#51]

Having read about £5.99 per month offer, I was all ready to connect my mother's phone to plusnet, her first ever, and probably lifetime, broadband connection. Only to find that plusnet are penalising the rural areas by bumping up the price after 3 months. OK, it costs more with BT, but so what? The numbers involved must be small. Now I have to go online searching for a better deal. What a waste. I am outraged!