Moved from Infinity to Plusnet, and it was a huge mistake

[#1]

Having been with Infinity for a year and a half where I got a solid 60mbit down and 20mbit up, I thought Plusnet would be identical sans the high BT prices. Well I guess you get what you pay for, as now I get a highly erratic connection running between 5 to 20mbit. 

I tried speaking to Plusnet about it via chat (I haven't managed to call them yet as the opening hours are so short) the guy was incredibly unhelpful. He demanded I plug my PC into the router via Ethernet, which I can't do as the PC is a giant desktop and on a different floor. With the conversation at an impasse he said connecting the PC wasn't Plusnet's problem and that was the end of the chat. 

Apalling cusfomer service and a broken connection. Can I now cancel and go back to BT? There's no possibility of me staying with Plusnet, but if they try to sting me with a fee I'll be extremely displeased. For all BT's faults, and they are many, Plusnet are infinitely worse. 

[#2]

Did you change over to Plusnet's router when you switched? If it is a wireless issue rather than a connection issue, you could revert back to the BT HomeHub (if that's what you used with BT) and just change your username and password to your Plusnet login details. Have a look at this post.

[#3]

Yes I switched to the Plusnet router. It's the same hardware as the BT router though, so I assumed it would work as well. 

The Wifi is beyond horrible. 2.4hghz is virtually non functional, sites just time out. 5ghz is better but still extremely erratic. I've tried every channel for both frequencies. The only wired test I've done was to the speedtest.net app on an Apple TV 4. Results were better than wifi but still only around 40mbit, and fluctuating dramatically throughout the test.

I considered trying to get my BT Hub working but I've already wasted too much time trying to get this useless service to work. I'll be on the phone first thing on Saturday to cancel the service. It's truly awful.

[#4]

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@Moroboshi wrote:

I considered trying to get my BT Hub working but I've already wasted too much time trying to get this useless service to work. I'll be on the phone first thing on Saturday to cancel the service. It's truly awful.

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You are quite right that there is no reason why switching from BT to PN should impact the service. Of all the ISPs to move between those two have the most in common. The fact you have seen problems with a wired connection may just show that your router is faulty which has nothing to do with the service itself. The PN router should be thought of as an optional freebie  - after all you only pay the P&P for it. I always think it's kind of sad when people rely on ISP routers. Any time you're paying less than retail price for something you ought to know it's going to be basic. A lot of us didn't even think it was worth the P&P and chose to source our own router. At least that way we can choose something better.

I suggest to revert to your BT hub. There are guides on these forums to configure almost any router and it typically takes about ten minutes. After all you're going to be stuck on PN for the next few days you might as well spend a few minutes getting the BT hub working. It's the weekend so surely you can find half an hour to swap it over. Think of the money you'll be saving. There really is nothing wrong with the PN service so a faulty router is by far the most likely explanation.

[#5]

I also swapped from BT Infinty 2 to Plusnet Fibre Extra yesterday

On BT I had a solid connection for a year, no drops, nothing wrong (except the price).

It's as if I have gone back a year. 

On BT I had a steady 71mb connection syncing aroung the 76mb mark, on Plusnet, my router is syncing at 71mb and I am getting 64 mb.  . Going to plug the HH5 back in and change my log in details as mentioned above.

EDIT:  Strangely as I finished posting this the PN1 stopped the internet even though it claimed I was connected and with Blue light on front.  Gone back to the BT HH5, changed my names & password over and hey presto - instant increase in speed. Sadly my IP Profile hasn't changed just yet, but will see.  

[#6]

After a predictably fruitless waste of time call to customer services and technical support, it appears the next step is to raise an official complaint. It may not go anywhere, and I may have to take it to the regulator, but I won't let this lie.

Plusnet customer service is beyond terrible and their attitude towards customers stuck with barely functional service is essentially "you're on your own, tough luck".

0/10. Worse even than BT, and that's an impressive achivement.

[#7]

I'm just going to see if the IP Profile changes as there is no reason n cannot be 76mbps as that's what BT gave me, Plusnet are owned by BT but seem to loose 5mbps from the profile somewhere.  Will keep an eye on my SAM Knows Stats and see what they show,

I dreaded coming back to Plusnet, but took the bullet as BT priced themselves to high for me - I wish my salary increased the same as they hike the prices!!!

[#8]

I switched back to my old BT Hub 5 and it made very little difference. Wired or wireless speeds are far lower and more eratic than on BT. Plus net are going to fight releasing me from the contract, which is predictable if counter productive and depressing. So much for them being better than other ISPs for customer service. They're as bad if not worse. Truly terrible service on all fronts. 

I'll be raising a complaint with CISAS and any other viable avenue. Plus net are thieves, and I'll certainly warn all family and friends from having anything to do with them. 

[#9]

I'm in a similar boat, I was on Sky 38mb, and I got a consistant, steady 36mb.  

Now on plusnet, first couple of days it was 80mb down, then it dropped to 20mb (which CS admitted fault and corrected) but only to 50mb (on a 76-80mb estimate)   I'd happily live with this if the dissappointng 50mb was constant, but it drops to 35mb most of the time and quite often below 20mb = Which is where people chip in with comments like "are you using wifi?" and "Network traffic" and "line noise", "length of line"     While I recognise these issues can contribute surely the fact the THE VERY SAME LINE NEVER SAW THE SPEED DROP TO BELOW 36MB ON SKY suggests the problems are with Plusnet? 

Lesson learned, just got to serve my time I suppose  

[#10]

I won't be serving my time. I was mis-sold a product and I will fight this every step of the way.  Worst ISP I've ever dealt with.

[#11]

You should be getting the same speeds as you were on BT. Of course you may have more people contending for the same bandwidth in your area, but to help with diagnosis, if you could copy and paste the details of the Helpdesk tab under the Troubleshooting tab for your hub, we could at least help advise if you have a fault. Make sure you hide any personal details such as your username, password or even SSID.

[#12]

1. Product name:	Plusnet Hub
2. Serial number:	+081441+NQ61301420
3. Firmware version:	Software version 4.7.5.1.83.8.217.1.1 Last updated Unknown
4. Board version:	Plusnet Hub One
5. DSL uptime:	1 days, 00:13:48
6. Data rate:	19999 / 73394
7. Maximum data rate:	28150 / 73532
8. Noise margin:	14.9 / 6.4
9. Line attenuation:	17.2 / 15.1
10. Signal attenuation:	17.2 / 15.1
11. Data sent/received:	877.6 MB / 15.3 GB
12. Broadband username:
13. 2.4 GHz Wireless network/SSID:	PLUSNET-RH82
14. 2.4 GHz Wireless connections:	Enabled (802.11 b/g/n (up to 144 Mb/s))
15. 2.4 GHz Wireless security:	WPA2
16. 2.4 GHz Wireless channel:	Automatic (Smart Wireless)
17. 5 GHz Wireless network/SSID:	PLUSNET-RH82-5
18. 5 GHz Wireless connections:	Enabled (802.11 a/n/ac (up to 1300 Mb/s))
19. 5 GHz Wireless security:	WPA2
20. 5 GHz Wireless channel:	Automatic (Smart Wireless)
21. Firewall:	Default
22. MAC Address:
23. Modulation:	G.993.2 Annex B
24. Software variant:	AA
25. Boot loader:	1.0.0

The big difference is picked up in my SAM KNOWS Reporting - see attached

The steady line is BT Infinity2 and the messy line is Plusnet Extra.

[#13]

I binned my Samknows equipment after they added all the extra video tests earlier this year. They added four times as much traffic on my link over my normal usage, which of course made a difference to performance. They seem to have no idea what adding this extra traffic has on users performance, and don't seem to care either.

Your connection/sync speeds seem pretty good, the only way you will get consistent results is to switch off Wi-Fi, stop any other devices testing, and do the same tests from the same device.

[#14]

Sam knows makes no difference to me and I'm happy to run the reporting system. The amount of data they use doesn't cause me any issues.

Ditiching WIFI made no difference at all, it is still a PLUSNET Issue, because when I left Plusnet 13 mths ago,the download  speed increased, as did my latency, going back to Plusnet has resulted in near identical results as before.

The latency is too low and since this affects the max data speed (as I am 100m from the cabinet), which also is set toolow. There are no other local Plusnet Users in the vicinity - in fact there are more BT Infiinity users, which again points at Plusnet

I've raised a fault and wait to see what the Plusnet techs come up with.

[#15]

@Moroboshi - Sounds like you have had a poor experience with us, so apologies for this. I'll be sure to listen to the call and feed back in terms of the service.

First thing worth mentioning is that you're currently syncing at the full 60Mb, similar to what you had with BT. Fully appreciate that you have a big computer, but at this stage we really want to find out whether the wireless is causing an issue or not (also one of the reasons that we asked you to try the old router).

If you were to provide us with a speed test based on a wired connection, that's when we'd be able to go to our suppliers and tell them that there seems to be an issue.

If you're dead set on leaving us, then I'll leave that for our complaints team to investigate, though we'd much prefer the outcome of resolving the issue for you. Still hoping that we can.

All the best,

Matty