How are things back at PlusNet these days..?

[#1]

I was fortunate enough to get FTTP a couple of years ago just before PN started offering it mainstream.  So I had to move and was moved to EE to avoid early termination charges... however that was two years ago and after 2 x CPI+3/9% price increases I want to move from EE.

A lot of people say things aren't as good at PN since BT took ownership and I notice a number of the PN techies now seem to do support on EE as well as PN.  I can imagine where BT might want them to put their priorities.

However I am thinking of coming back to PN, I am only interested in a full fibre product and don't care about "land line", email, webspace etc...

Not sure if this is a good place to ask (as a lot of people will come here if they have problems) but are PN customers on here generally happy with with the support and value for money....  I am hoping PN will follow EE and BT and soon move to a fixed £ yearly increase.....  I hope it might also drive ISPs back to 1 year contracts as standard.

So please let me know if you're happy with PN (or not?)

[#2]

However I am thinking of coming back to PN, I am only interested in a full fibre product and don't care about "land line", email, webspace etc...

@Ian06 TBH that's exactly where PN seem to be heading, a no-frills broadband only scenario.

[#3]

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@Ian06 wrote:

I notice a number of the PN techies now seem to do support on EE as well as PN.  I can imagine where BT might want them to put their priorities.

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Taking a quick look, the only two names I recognised were @bobpullen and Sean_D (Plusnet Staff) and @Mustrum and (Community member).  Sean has left the business.

Bob has been credited with a number of solutions out of just 200+ posts in two years, so not exactly a diversion of effort away from Plusnet to EE.

Mustrum is the second highest solution provider on BB and seems very active.

Which staff names did you find?

On perusing the EE forum ... I find that I like it much less than this space!

[#4]

@Townman - Bobpullen was the one that stuck out to me as he has always be very good on this forum over the years.  I had noticed mustrum was there too... but it was an impression rather than a count as not many of the names are that familiar to me.

It also seemed like there was less activity from staff on PN forum - but just an impression and perhaps I added 2 and 2 to get 5..!

Yes that EE forum is pretty useless from a technical perspective, seems to be a lot of moaning about the EE web portals and the difficulty distinguishing between Broadband and Mobile accounts (or linking the 2) very little of technical interest.

I like the PN forum and have found it very helpful and interesting over the years. The PN forum segmentation of topics works pretty well on the whole and avoids you having to wade through a lot of the not technical - on the whole.

[#5]

@Ian06 At a guess, Bob is BT Consumer Division staff these days, so will appear on all the Division boards, and I suspect Mustrum is now an EE customer, as he was never staff on here.

There is less 'staff' activity on here, but again only a suspicion, that is possibly because PN is only a BT Consumer Division brand, and from what little of the BT Broadband forum I have seen, it appears they don't have much staff response on there, unlike the PN of old, so the same 'principles are now applied to the PN forum.

[#6]

The forum aside ....  Are you (all forum users) still Plusnet customers and happy with PN or have you moved on for one reason or another like I did for FTTP...?   I am trying to decide if to come back to PN or try another ISP, any views from PN forum users would help me decide.  Thanks.

[#7]

I'm no longer with PN as a customer, and my reasons for leaving were (I think - it's a while ago 😀 ) were based on what I observed in the way the product was being 'stripped back' and to a lesser extent, the way the staff responses on here were being 'BTified' - i.e. blame the customer for everything and drag out issues for as long as possible.

[#8]

@Ian06 

I'm still a residential customer.  Regrettably we had to end the business account last week ... all thanks to bully-boy BT telling Plusnet it can no longer offer their services to business users.

For both services performance and reliability are solely down to the same for the BT Openreach infrastructure, something so few people seem to understand.  If you've got a good line, the connection should be similar with any ISP.  What might be different is issue handling and general customer service.

Yes there are some issues with support on legacy services (such as email) but given that is not offered anymore, that is not an issue a new customer will encounter.

Looking at a forum can give a distorted view of the world - generally people only turn to forums when the have issues, rarely do they visit to say all is OK or the service is great!  From the little that I have looked, the Plusnet forum has more staff coverage than either of BT's or EE's ... even if it might be less here than it was.

Having just moved the business to Zen, I find Plusnet's user portal far more informative and useful than Zen's.

You makes your choices and pays your money ... if it works without issue, why pay more for the same?

We used to pay £35pcm to Plusnet for Business FTTC+POTS running at the full 80/20 rock steady except when BT OR damaged a trunk cable.  We now pay Zen £48pcm for FTTP+VoIP running at 100mbps ... from a business / functionality perspective we are paying a lot more for the same service, albeit with a router on steroids!

[#9]

I was a long time PN customer, going back to the Madasfish days.

I left for two reasons.

1. Possibly a bit petty, but they wouldn't keep my price prior to an increase - you know the annual CPI + thing. Therefore, for the sake of about £2/month I decided to move elsewhere.

Combined with

2. I had an ongoing fault (months) which they confirmed. After three OR visits it still wasn't resolved. PN more or less said tough, live with it.

After moving, and reporting the fault to the new provider, it was fixed in one OR visit within a week.

The fact that three OR people couldn't resolve it wasn't PN's fault, but it was their resulting attitude that was the decider. Even the OR personnel confirmed a line fault each time. Their "fix", fit a new master socket!

The fault - a dodgy wire (replaced) from the pole to master socket affecting the speeds and the line management detecting a fault and reducing for a more stable connection.

[#10]

I'm a long time Plusnet customer (since Plusnet bought Metronet) and I would say it's still a good way to get Internet access.

Compared to newer services you get a public IP address (no NAT) and a static IP address for a small one off payment.

I took the full fibre upgrade a short while back and moved my landline to another (VoIP) provider.

While I still think the BT group's choice to not offer landlines via Plusnet was a poor decision as it just gave customers a reason to leave, for me a move to the VoIP provider enabled me to keep the landline at (what in the long term will be) a lower cost. I put it that way because it triggered a phone equipment "refresh".

[#11]

Like you I was a long time PN user after starting out with Demon!

When FTTP became available I moved to BT but at the end of contract I returned to PN last week because FTTP was now available, I no longer wanted/needed digital voice and I got a cheaper deal.

[#12]

@Ian06 I'm another fairly long-term customer and no longer need any of the add-ons, not that I really ever did.

As @markhawkin said "for me a move to the VoIP provider enabled me to keep the landline at (what in the long term will be) a lower cost. I put it that way because it triggered a phone equipment "refresh"". I was very much the same with the twist that my landline was with BT (for technical reasons that no longer apply) and ADSL with PlusNet, now FTTC/SOGEA. I overcame the migration complexity by installing a new line (in a better location) before ceasing the old one.

Despite the unpleasant annual increase they do seem to offer a decent deal, anything cheaper seemed to have potential risks, so I've stuck with them.

[#13]

I've always been satisfied with PlusNet.
Started out in 2002 at my parents place. I assisted with ADSL Max and FTTC trials, and ended up grandfathered into FTTC for what was a very competitive price for it.
I then got PlusNet in my own house in 2014, and generally had good service again.
Had to ultimately cancel the line at my parents place as their separate BT landline was getting very expensive, and the only way to get a cheaper deal was to bundle the broadband with it. It was a shame to lose that line, although the account seems to remain active and still have access to emails.

I now have FTTC at my place and it generally works well. Part of the reason for such good service in both places is because we happen to be within short distance of the exchange. Although in our place, the phone lines are post-war, so the physical lines underground (where not fibre now) are aluminium instead of copper, so we get line faults every few years. But PlusNet have always been able to get OR to fix it quickly.

Most recent issue was when we renewed our deal, and seemed to have our broadband profile drop by half. But a quick call to PlusNet and they confirmed the profile had been reset by mistake, and fixed it up within a day.