New Plusnet Fibre Packages

[#1]

There is a very interesting article over at ISPreview about the two new Fibre packages that PN will launch next month.
http://www.ispreview.co.uk/story/2011/03/29/uk-isp-plusnet-launches-low-cost-40mbps-fttc-fibre-broad...
More info about the packages here
https://www.plus.net/fibre/
One of the key questions for me is how heavy traffic management will be used?
Regards
Mike

[#2]

Quote from: ITWorks

One of the key questions for me is how heavy traffic management will be used?

There will be rate limits akin to the current Value and Extra ones, although they will be less aggressive for customers taking Fibre. There will also be a 'Pro-like' experience available so watch this space!

[#3]

Obviously both the fibre page and the FAQ are just introductions, but one obvious bit of information missing is the uplink speed.
My guess would be that the Value package would run at 2Mbps, and Extra at 10Mbps, but its possible that the 10Mbps is being reserved for "Pro-like".

[#4]

Why the 18month contract?
Is that an initial 18month contract reverting to a 1month contract afterwards?

[#5]

Quote

Free Plusnet Fibre activation when taking Home Phone You'll save £50 on the usual installation charge.

Thats not my definition of free and considering the 18 month contract, why isn't the installation fee waived unless the customer leaves before 18 months?

[#6]

Quote from: Gus

Thats not my definition of free.

The FAQ page says:
[quote=https://www.plus.net/fibre/faq.shtml]If you're a new customer
It costs £50 to install fibre broadband. However, if you add our Home Phone service to your package, you'll get fibre installed for free until the end of June 2011.
If you're already a customer
It costs £25 to install fibre broadband. However, if you already have our Home Phone service, or add Home Phone to your package, you'll get fibre installed for free until the end of June 2011.
Do those meet your definition? £50 - £50 = £0 seems free to me, without any indication of it being re-applied if you leave within the notice period.

[#7]

To get the Free option shouldn't mean I have to change from BT for my phone line.  Having watched the forum for the last year about using PN's homephone, I wouldn't as its proven to be a problem too many times for too many customers.  I have had zero issues with BT providing my phone line other than price but PN's is hardly much better.

[#8]

Current users get free installation until the end of June. OK - nice. However, that's not much use to those of us connected to cabinets that aren't due to get FTTC until after June. How about changing the rule to something like 'until the end of June or within three months of your cabinet being connected'?
Yes - I realise that this would be more complicated. But if the idea is to encourage existing users to change, why limit the encouragement to only users who live in early connection areas? (A simpler way could be to make it free for existing users who register interest by the end of June.)
Graham (cabinet due for connection by 1st July - but the date has been put back by BT twice already)

[#9]

Quote from: Gus

Having watched the forum for the last year about using PN's homephone, I wouldn't as its proven to be a problem too many times for too many customers..

I am not being rude toward you but you cant judge plusnets home phone based on this forum, You will only see no end to problems If your basing your judgement like that, As a plusnet home phone customer for more than a year I can honestly tell you the service has been faultless, Yes that's correct " Faultless"

[#10]

Will the Plusnet fibre product be available to anyone connected to an FTTC enabled cabinet, or will there be line speed/signal loss restrictions? I see that BT now have a product (BT Option 3 with fibre)  for customers who can't get 15mbps. 
There is 5km of cable between my house and the cabinet which serves me. As this is less than the 6.1km distance from my house to the exchange, FTTC would be an improvement and I would be willing to pay the very small additional cost. 

[#11]

I've been a customer since 2003 and the service has been good but not convinced by the new packages, but I do want the speed, FTTC is predicting x8 on download and that is too good to miss, plus the upload.
When I see BTs 300GB and free open zone, the 120GB doesn't look good but there are a few details which might change my mind.
1,  On the Extra packages , is it 2Mb/s upload or 10 Mb/s ?
    It needs to be 10Mb/s from my perspective.
2,  What does the Pro packages give ? 
      Given Fibre is so fast I'm not sure prioritised traffic helps, a bigger allowance would be good.  If the Pro is 10Mb/s but has a lower allowance than the extra, which would fit the current positioning, then the Pro wouldn't be much use in my view.  So if value and extra are 2 Mb/s and Pro has a lower data allowance than the Extra, I will have to move.
3.  Can we retain domains, webspace, etc from the old packages ?
Before suggesting the out of hours is unlimited, doesn't help my usage which is predominantly iplayer, browser and a bit of working at home, so its the 8am to midnight slot which counts.
I don't really want to migrate but I'm not convinced you are going to produce a package that fits my needs.
Chris

[#12]

Quote from: machare

There is 5km of cable between my house and the cabinet which serves me. As this is less than the 6.1km distance from my house to the exchange, FTTC would be an improvement and I would be willing to pay the very small additional cost.

I suspect that 5km is too much for the VDSL2 protocol to handle. Even if it weren't, you're likely to be under the threshold considered by BT Openreach as the minimum (5Mbps, otherwise they undo the installation).
There's a couple of posts by someone who had problems with a 4.2km line. However, we don't see whether it worked or not...
-  Anyone got FTTC to work at 4.2km from cabinet?
- 40/10 vs 10/2 with FTTC

[#13]

Quote from: cja

Given Fibre is so fast I'm not sure prioritised traffic helps ...

this comment means you may not have understood the means of the traffic prioritisation. Look at the traffic types which are rate limited by PN on the tables shown as http://www.kitz.co.uk/isp/plusnet_shaping.htm on those listed as 'NR - Not Restricted' will go as fast as the FTTC connection will allow, look at how rate limited things are on Value at peak times of the day ... you will get this on FTTC too.

[#14]

Well I think I do understand, the quote earlier from Bob was "There will be rate limits akin to the current Value and Extra ones, although they will be less aggressive for customers taking Fibre.", given I don't have issue on my current slow line, I can't see that improved traffic prioritisation is an advantage ... for me, as I said my main use is iplayer and browser which are NR.
Relatively speaking a faster connection will have less issues. assuming its relative traffic prioritisation and not absolute speeds.  I note the newer broadband packages have more absolute speeds than my older package, but in most cases I don't use p2p, usenet, FTP, etc.
I accept some people will find Pro useful but with if your personal bottleneck is the Local Loop, then increased priority in plusnet's central network isn't really a strong sales point.
Chris

[#15]

Will there be knock on increase to usage allowance for those on 21cn but not on fibre. Like many others I'm on pro at 16.49 I see the new package for the same price the usage allowance is 40Gb as opposed to 20Gb will the current pro on 21cn remain with 20gb or increase.
Sadly the fibre roll out in Scotland appears to be much slower than elsewhere 😞
I think there are only a handful of exchanges going live this year. (less than 10)
Modification make that 8 this year to give a grand total of 20 by march 2012