@Protech wrote:
... it would be helpful to everyone... if Plusnet could publish its timescales for the sunsetting of its remaining legacy services .
Yes that would be helpful, but unlikely that they'd do it, when so far Plusnet apparently haven't made any effort to inform customers of services ending when the product end of life timescales ARE ALREADY widely known !
As most here know, the analogue PSTN landline phone service will be withdrawn at the end of 2025, yet Plusnet landline phone customers can still call support and renew "as is" their broadband with phone contracts for another 18 months, possibly with the customer being unaware that the contract can't be honoured beyond 2025, and being left with the impression that there's nothing that needs doing to keep their landline phone number working from 2026 !.
Wouldn't it be better to inform customers who's phone contracts are ending, the options of -
- Consider giving up their landline number, and save money by 'upgrading' FTTC to SoGEA or FTTP.
- Moving without penalty to BT/EE to continue landline number via "Digital Voice"
- 'upgrading' FTTC to SoGEA or FTTP, and migrating landline number to a VoIP supplier.
- Do nothing, but stay "out of contract" until forced to do one of the above options.
Allowing customers to renew 'as is' is just delaying the inevitable, and compressing the window for action to the weeks leading up until Christmas - when ISPs and VoIP suppliers often have reduced staff coverage or extended holiday periods.
The above is even worse for customers who can currently ONLY get ADSL, because whether they have a landline phone or not, when the voice component is removed from the ADSL by the end of 2025, the line becomes SoADSL, which Plusnet apparently have no plans to supply, so the customer will lose their Plusnet broadband, and will have to find one of the very few and typically expensive ISPs who offer SoADSL, and lose their Plusnet email, referrals, webspace, etc, in the process.
Currently Plusnet support are telling ADSL with landline phone customers (who ask) to move to BT/EE for "Digital Voice", but when followed up it appears that neither BT or EE support "Digital Voice" over ADSL (and even if they did, "Digital Voice" isn't likely to work particularly well due to the very low upload bandwidth of SoADSL, and the BT/EE routers not supporting bandwidth QoS or VoIP traffic prioritisation).
Plusnet should be providing additional guidance for any customers on ADSL only lines, as they will lose everything this year !
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