Feedback

[#1]

I would like to feedback on the support I have received from Plusnet since joining them 5 days ago. I swapped to Plusnet from Talk Talk because my neighbours both have BT Home Hub 4's (they have BT broadband) and their wireless signals interfered with the Talk Talk router quite often. When my Talk Talk contract was finished I was going to sign up with BT, but we were with Plusnet about 7 years ago (in a different house) and they were genuinely excellent so when I saw the offer on TV I thought it was incredibly cheap for what I knew to be an excellent service provider. My service finally switched over from Talkk Talk to Plusnet last Wednesday and I have had problems with the wireless signal from day 1.
I thought I would give it a couple of days to "settle down", but after a frustrating weekend of dropped connections and devices not being able to connect to the router unless they were in the same room I contacted Plusnet support (via the online chat thing) and spoke to Lee. After a bit of trouble shooting he explained that Plusnet had a new router available that was better at channel management than the technicolour one that had been supplied to me and that this would hopefully solve the problem. Lee explained  that I would need to phone Plusnet support as he was unable to authorise sending out a new one. I thought it was a bit odd that Lee couldn't just send out the different router and slightly annoying that I would have to phone but I accepted what he said and went to bed.
This morning I phoned Plusnet support and explained the issue all over again. I explained what Lee had told me and asked to exchange the technicolour router for one of the "better" ones.
I was told that I would be "better off" buying my own router from ebay as the ones supplied by Plusnet weren't a "premium router like the BT Home Hub 4's". I was told this was because Plusnet were a "budget provider". 
I said I didn't remember Plusnet being a "budget" provider had been mentioned in the advertising nor in the sign up process, and there was definitely no mention that the router supplied by Plusnet was so rubbish that I would be better off buying my own -  If any of that had been mentioned I would certainly have decided to sign up with BT instead.
While I was on the phone to the support chap I received a text informing me that another router was on it's way, but when I asked about this the support chap explained that this wouldn't be one of the new ones - it would be a like for like replacement for the technicolour one - which he had just described to me as "unable to compete with the BT Home Hub 4's".
So as things now stand. I have a replacement router that I have already been told "cannot compete" with both my neighbours BT Home Hubs. I have an entire year of Plusnets "budget service" to look forward to  and I am left deeply regretting my decision to join Plusnet.

Lesson learned. Feedback given.

[#2]

Hi Gerv,
Thanks for telling us of your experience. I'm sorry to hear about the issues that you've had. I'm a little disappointed in the way that we responded to your queries, regardless of the router specifications.
I should be able to send you one of our newer models of router if you are still interested.
Let me know and I'll sort it out for you.
Matty

[#3]

Hi Matty
I would still be interested in the newer model so if you can get me a newer model I would be very grateful as this technicolour one seems either incredibly feeble or unable to cope with the interference from my neighbours home hubs. I'm not sure who to believe - the online chat support chap told me the new router would be "far better" but the phone support chap told me it "wouldn't make much difference" but at least if I could try it out I would know whether or not I needed to purchase my own router from ebay!
Anyway - I will wait to hear from you.
Thanks for replying - and so promptly. Some faith restored.
dick:quote

[#4]

No worries.
I've dispatched it for you now. We're supposed to say 3-5 working days for an ETA but in my experience it's usually a little sooner than that. You ok to keep me posted?
Matty

[#5]

Well that's rather taken the wind out of my sails Matty. I.... wasn't expecting that.  Thank you and yes - I will happily keep you posted. 

[#6]

Hi Gerv
FYI
I had the same problem with the signal dropping with the technicolour router so I bought myself another (Belkin) plugged it in and have had no problems since but I did change the broadcast channel from the default 6

[#7]

Hi
Have you changed wireless channels? This can sort out the interference from the other hubs.
If you want to you can use a BT Hub 2/3/4/5 on your Plusnet service by following this guide
The guide was created by me in order to use a BT Hub on a Plusnet ADSL/Fibre connection.
All the best
NE

[#8]

Thanks for the reply's - The only other router I have is the Talk Talk one and that wasn't great (although nowhere near as bad as the Technicolour). I did change from "automatic" to "manual" channel selection on the technicolour router and it seemed to be better for a few hours but then it went back to drop outs and poor signal again and past experience with the Talk Talk router seems to suggest that the BT Home Hubs switch channels quite regularly (and seemingly without cause) so I was relieved to hear from the online Plusnet support chap that the new model router was far better at the channel selection thing than the technicolour router is. Hopefully this new model router will sort the problems out ! In any case I'm very relieved to have discovered this forum - I was a little grumpy about the whole thing (ahem) before I posted my feedback but feel much better (and a bit sheepish) after Matty's helpful intervention.

[#9]

There's no difference in terms of WiFi between the new model router and the router you currently have,  The only difference is the design, more power efficient and slightly faster processing.
The WiFi would be the same and not much difference.
I would look into getting a second hand BT Hub 4 (around £20-£30) and that would get rid of any interference automatically - like your neighbour's hub.  Here is one on eBay for £26.99 The Hub 4R can be used on Plusnet - don't forget that even a normal BT hub 4 will work on Plusnet.
My Plusnet router hasn't even come out of the box because I never intend to use it due to having a BT Hub 5.
NE

[#10]

Hi NE - Thanks for your interest. You aren't the first one to have suggested buying a BT Home Hub and I'm curious as to why BT seem to manage to provide a router that everyone regards so highly and yet other providers routers seem more or less unfit for purpose? Could you describe the differences between what a BT Home Hub does and a Plusnet one? Does it all come down to signal strength or are the other things that the BT Hubs do that make them so much better than the Plusnnet routers? If it turns out that the new Plusnet router doesn't fix my problem I would like as much info as possible in order to make a decision about which router to buy as I would be bitterly disappointed if I spent money on a new router but the problems continued!!!
Thanks again

[#11]

I think the internal antenna design is different between the Technicolor 582n and the Sagemcom 2704N. The 582n only appears to have small areas on the circuit board as the antennae. The 2704N seems to have some lengths of wire inside the case which are probably the antennae (based on the internal photos from its FCC application).
I didn't have any problem with the wireless signal from my 582n, it had about the same, maybe slightly better, signal strength and coverage than an old 11g netgear router. The 582n did not detect as many neighbouring networks as a TP-Link router with 3 large external antennae could. Positioned downstairs by a telephone socket, the 582n quite often didn't seem to detect any neighbouring wireless networks at all. The 582n does have automatic channel selection, but it will only be able to choose a channel based on what its own wireless can detect.
It would be interesting to know if the 2704N works better for you. It's not about "blasting out" a stronger signal than all the other wireless networks, but it should help to output a signal that's strong enough so that other wireless routers can detect its presence.

[#12]

Hi ejs
Sorry for sounding stupid but how did you know whether the Technicolor could detect other wireless networks? I've had a look at the gateway settings and I can't see anything that indicates whether it can detect any other wireless networks. I think your theory about the technicolor not being able to detect the competing networks sounds very credible but we only live in a small terraced house and when I have a cup of tea with my neighbour on one side of he house my cheap android tablet can detect the wifi signal from the neighbour on the other side of the house - but that's not to say there may not be a fault with the aerial in the technicolor that interferes with it's ability to detect other wireless networks - the theory still sounds good to me!
Sticking with the theme of sounding stupid - I had a quick look on Amazon and found two different TP-Link routers with three aerials! The TP-LINK TD-W8970 (with three different configuration options available) and the TP-LINK TD-W9980 which is twice the price - is the more expensive one twice as good or am I being really stupid?
It sounds like I am being pessimistic about the ability of this new model Plusnet router to sort the problem out but I'm not - I am just genuinely interested to try to learn what the issues are / were.

[#13]

The TP-LINK TD-W8970 does not have a built-in VDSL modem, but does have an ADSL one. One of its Ethernet ports doubles as a WAN port for connecting to an external VDSL or  Cable modem.
As such, you then only have 3 Ethernet ports for your LAN, although you can add a switch if you need more.
If you don't have FTTC, or no hope of getting it in the near future, this is probably a very capable device.
The TP-LINK TD-W9980 does have a built-in VDSL modem, so doesn't need the Openreach modem for FTTC use.
I run one of these, and while the available stats are somewhat sparse, and Telnet access is minimal, I find it generally very stable, with my connection staying up for weeks at a time.
Here's a TBB speed test I ran a few minutes ago:

I'm on a longish line, and the synch is marginally better than the OR modem. I have a fair amount of TP-Link kit, and generally have no issues with it.

[#14]

I would believe that high end TP Links are for extremely demanding users.
I believe at the end of the day - it's a wireless router that's providing wireless signal throughout the house.
The BT Hub 5 works for me in a quite large modern home and full signal strength.
The BT Hub 5 basically does everything what the TP Link W9980 does and the Hub 4 does everything the TD W8970 does.
You are paying for the brand IMHO and the BT Hubs are just as great as TP Link.  However the BT Hub is much better than Plusnet supplied router. 
Many people who join PN dispose their supplied router and get a better model.  I've had a member on here who bought the hub 5 off me and said it was like a 1000 X better.
NE

[#15]

The information on what other networks the 582n can detect can probably be found with the telnet command wireless acs scanreport, which I expect would need automatic channel selection to be enabled. The 10.2.5.2 firmware also has http://192.168.1.254/WIFI_Analyzer.lp but that firmware is only intended for FTTC and models with a USB port, it's not in the ADSL 10.2.2.B firmware.
It wasn't really a recommendation, it was more for comparison, but yes it was a TD-W8970 v1 - and so far I've not really used it for anything besides a few weeks using it as a wireless bridge. My laptop can probably usually detect one or two more networks than the 582n. An old 11g PCI adapter can detect fewer neighbouring networks, and a couple of old 11g USB adapters were pretty pathetic (unable to detect any other networks, and poor at transmitting through walls and other obstacles).
I just don't think that a better channel selection procedure would solve the 582n's problems - its automatic channel selection is already supposed to take into account more than just a count the number of other networks on each channel.