A happy customer!
Prior to my PN migration, I was cautiously hopeful, but wasn't exactly filled with optimism. Two people at work, two friends who live in MK and many threads online were reporting problems with moves, installations or migrations to PN. I know you become hyper sensitive to any reported problems when you move to a new ISP, but I was willing to give it a go - my ADSL2+ speed was about 3 Mbps usable.
I moved from Post Office Home Phone and Sky Broadband (the old BE Pro LLU package) to PN for both landline and FTTC Extra. Migration was arranged over the phone and confirmed by email. I had a couple of follow-up questions which were answered efficiently and helpfully.
I wanted to pay upfront for the line rental saver using a different method than my recurring payments (DD); this was sorted over the phone when I ordered. Simples.
Come installation day - which I was notified about by email and text - a busy but friendly Kelly engineer duly showed up, having earlier called me to let me know when he'd be there. He put a new Mk. 3 faceplate on (previously had an ADSL2+ BTO faceplate), we set up the ECI modem and I hooked up the Sagem. Everything blinked into life, no hassle. Everything worked first time, full sync rate. I jumped online that evening and ordered the Static IP on the Portal - good price, easy to do - and took effect almost instantaneously, as the portal advised. Cool.
I also hooked up my old Linksys WRT54GL (running Tomato) in PPPoE, following the PN setup documentation - again, worked first time. Hilariously, its fairly slow CPU became the limiting factor -- I wasn't able to get the line's full rate throughput on ethernet! A problem I'm happy to have for once. This was just the age of the Linksys and is a well discussed topic, nothing to do with PN at all.
The PN Sagem router isn't bad, although the mickey mouse web admin interface is a bit condescending. For an effectively free device it's compact, looks alright on the table and most importantly seems stable - and hasn't caused any issues so far with SSH, VPN or so forth.
Puzzlingly whilst ethernet speeds through the Sagem are superb, as expected - but through my phone (which can happily handle 5 GHz 802.11ac and 802.11n-2009 through a WiBE I use at work), using the same speedtest servers as on the desktop, it always tops out at 40 Mbps downstream. The phone reports the wireless connection is always operating at max of 72 Mbps. An issue with wireless bands / wifi chipset or an artificial limit in the firmware?
Not that I can really complain about 40 Mbps download speeds on the phone!
My line's latency is decently low - 10 ms compared to my old ADSL2+'s 40 ms - and throughput in both directions seems stable. I have a feeling I'm one of the first, if not the first, on my local cabinet (the Openreach Superfast checker's had three-times-daily visits from me for the past six months), but my exchange has been FTTC enabled for about a year now so I can't be the first customer. Thumbs up so far to service quality.
I've requested my static IP's vanity rDNS change which I'm waiting on, I'm still waiting but that's small potatoes given its obvious low priority.
The only real snag with the order - and take this with a pinch of salt, because in hindsight it's inadvertently solved a problem - was that when the PN order was put through, however it was processed, it didn't correctly include my existing telephone number in the order. As a result, it was put through as a house move / customer change, and I was assigned a new telephone number. As the only people that ever called my old number were robodialers and fax machines (the latter usually between 11pm and 1am on weekends) I'm not really fussed about this. A web chat after receiving the PN 'new customer' letter with my new number explained why I was getting a new number - the rep was helpful and knowledgeable.
Whilst I absolutely acknowledge there's people having problems with their orders (and are rightly posting on here to discuss) -- as they say, satisfied customers hardly ever complain! Hopefully this positive report of a pretty seamless combined PSTN switch, ISP migration and FTTC activation should hopefully provide some cheer for anyone with a forthcoming install.
Just make sure, if you're migrating and you want to keep your number, that the migration order includes your current telephone number.
I moved from Post Office Home Phone and Sky Broadband (the old BE Pro LLU package) to PN for both landline and FTTC Extra. Migration was arranged over the phone and confirmed by email. I had a couple of follow-up questions which were answered efficiently and helpfully.
I wanted to pay upfront for the line rental saver using a different method than my recurring payments (DD); this was sorted over the phone when I ordered. Simples.
Come installation day - which I was notified about by email and text - a busy but friendly Kelly engineer duly showed up, having earlier called me to let me know when he'd be there. He put a new Mk. 3 faceplate on (previously had an ADSL2+ BTO faceplate), we set up the ECI modem and I hooked up the Sagem. Everything blinked into life, no hassle. Everything worked first time, full sync rate. I jumped online that evening and ordered the Static IP on the Portal - good price, easy to do - and took effect almost instantaneously, as the portal advised. Cool.
I also hooked up my old Linksys WRT54GL (running Tomato) in PPPoE, following the PN setup documentation - again, worked first time. Hilariously, its fairly slow CPU became the limiting factor -- I wasn't able to get the line's full rate throughput on ethernet! A problem I'm happy to have for once. This was just the age of the Linksys and is a well discussed topic, nothing to do with PN at all.
The PN Sagem router isn't bad, although the mickey mouse web admin interface is a bit condescending. For an effectively free device it's compact, looks alright on the table and most importantly seems stable - and hasn't caused any issues so far with SSH, VPN or so forth.
Puzzlingly whilst ethernet speeds through the Sagem are superb, as expected - but through my phone (which can happily handle 5 GHz 802.11ac and 802.11n-2009 through a WiBE I use at work), using the same speedtest servers as on the desktop, it always tops out at 40 Mbps downstream. The phone reports the wireless connection is always operating at max of 72 Mbps. An issue with wireless bands / wifi chipset or an artificial limit in the firmware?
Not that I can really complain about 40 Mbps download speeds on the phone!
My line's latency is decently low - 10 ms compared to my old ADSL2+'s 40 ms - and throughput in both directions seems stable. I have a feeling I'm one of the first, if not the first, on my local cabinet (the Openreach Superfast checker's had three-times-daily visits from me for the past six months), but my exchange has been FTTC enabled for about a year now so I can't be the first customer. Thumbs up so far to service quality.
I've requested my static IP's vanity rDNS change which I'm waiting on, I'm still waiting but that's small potatoes given its obvious low priority.
The only real snag with the order - and take this with a pinch of salt, because in hindsight it's inadvertently solved a problem - was that when the PN order was put through, however it was processed, it didn't correctly include my existing telephone number in the order. As a result, it was put through as a house move / customer change, and I was assigned a new telephone number. As the only people that ever called my old number were robodialers and fax machines (the latter usually between 11pm and 1am on weekends) I'm not really fussed about this. A web chat after receiving the PN 'new customer' letter with my new number explained why I was getting a new number - the rep was helpful and knowledgeable.
Whilst I absolutely acknowledge there's people having problems with their orders (and are rightly posting on here to discuss) -- as they say, satisfied customers hardly ever complain! Hopefully this positive report of a pretty seamless combined PSTN switch, ISP migration and FTTC activation should hopefully provide some cheer for anyone with a forthcoming install.
Just make sure, if you're migrating and you want to keep your number, that the migration order includes your current telephone number.
