I had an email from Plusnet a few weeks ago suggesting I might want to change my product to there unlimited package. We were on extra (up to 60gb) for £11.49 - this was fine for us although in recent months we have been getting close, around 55 to 58 gb. The new package was £9.99 so that sounded great. I decided to phone Plusnet as I originally paid a bit extra to have a no contract option as I don't like to be tied into things in case the service deteriorated. In the end I thought that as I've been a happy customer with them for 9 years I should go ahead anyway.
Plusnet offered me the free Technicolor router which I declined. After I put the phone down I thought that was silly really as I'm now contracted for 12 mths anyway I should of had it as a spare and to compare with my existing router, as I would only have to pay for the postage. So I called them back and they agreed to send one out for £5.99. The router hadn't arrived after a fortnight so I raised a ticket and a replacement was sent out, this arrived within 2 days.
In the meantime I read a few reviews on the Technicolor router, most were not favourable with comments such as "poor wireless" and "not even worth the postage", I started to regret bothering but thought that surely Plusnet wouldn't send out poor quality routers as their reputation would fall rapidly.
A few things to mention before I get to the point ! :
A few years ago we purchased a Nintendo Wii but we struggled to get connected to the Internet, it took us about 3 days of error messages, in the end we could only connect using WEP security not WPA2 which it is capable of.
I bought an Apple TV a couple of years back however I could never get the Airplay feature to work which is what I had bought it for. It only worked intermittently and after posting on many support sites etc. I had no joy and gave up in the end.
Ive downloaded many free apps that should enable wireless media streaming through my PS3. Everyone says they are easy to use but I could never get them to work.
We frequently drop Internet connection, have done for years. Sometimes a few times a night and have to unplug and reconnect, presumably not helping my line speed. Recently following a windows update whenever my wife's PC connects or disconnects to the net on power up/down we lose the wireless connection.
I read that using WEP wireless is prone to disconnections so tried loads of times to use WPA or WPA2 but found I then couldn't access certain popular sites such as Facebook when set to this. I posted on the Belkin router tech support site but no decent help was forthcoming.
I've suspected the router could be at the heart of a lot of these problems for ages so was keen to try the Technicolor.
My point.....
The new router set up was so simple, plug in, wait a few mins, enter password, done.
My PS3, wii, Apple TV, laptops, iPods and iPads all connected in about a minute each and all worked first time.
Now AirPlay works every time, the media apps all work as they should, we have faster Internet on the Apple products as they run on N not G, we have a better wireless range, we have not lost connection once, we have unlimited data download and we have WPA2 security on all devices. Im now just waiting to see if the line speed increases further after not having to disconnect for a few days, fingers crossed. The router is also more energy efficient and runs a lot cooler than the Belkin which got really hot (normal for them I'm told) but you could have fried an egg on it.
I cant say just how much I am impressed with this router, it has solved so many problems and made us realise actually what a poor broadband experience we have had over the last few years. All this and we saved £18 per year and having been made redundant again last year we need every penny.
Thanks Plusnet, much appreciated !
