Plusnet for me!

[#1]

I was with BT Broadband for almost 2 years, firstly on Home Broadband, and then on Business Broadband. Being new to broadband, and living around 5km from the exchange (non-LLU), I thought myself lucky to get a service, albeit with speeds ranging from 500kbps on a good day, to 80kbps at others. Tho BT did respond quite quickly to any problems I raised, there was very little explanation..."do this....do that....now wait for 3 days" and they never asked about router stats - still, I got a dependable but slow connection. I assumed that 500kbps was my limit.
When I retired a couple of years ago, I moved to Plusnet, and WOW, what a difference......within a week they identified likely problems, helped and explained the issues and corrections, and the help on the Forum was great, too. Within a couple of weeks, the norm became 1000kbps  - double the BT rate. Reading and study brought my broadband knowledge up to speed, and doing some work on best wiring/practise/routers, and curing a major outside-interference source, has eventually brought the norm up to 2000.
Being with Plusnet has made an enormous positive difference to my broadband experience, and at jolly good value too. I can see that there have been recent issues with the network that have caused others problems, and I've seen a few DNS-related instances, but I believe that PN are doing well in tackling those issues. From what I read on the Forum, the majority of speed/performance issues are still likely to be home and home<>exchange problems, with poor home phone wiring probably the top problem. The difference in router quality can be very significant, especially on long lines; the poorest performer on my line can have a top speed of 800kbps, whereas the best can be 2300kbps.
Plusnet is the one for me; I think they're great......my only grumble is that submitting a ticket often gives a forecast wait time way beyond actuality - the most recent ticket indicated a 46 hour wait, whereas I actually had a response within 2 hours.
Thanks Plusnet....I really do appreciate your service.
Jack

[#2]

Yeah I agree, been with these for years now, I love them! I know what you mean about the tickets, they used to say wait time a couple hours though but I guess there just overloaded with tickets lately due to the problems recently. but yeah they really are top notch

[#3]

oh an btw jack, ever since i stumbled upon these forums a few months ago, i rarely ever use the ticket support anymore, the help on these forums is always much better tbh

[#4]

@jack,
My router is currently 'less than perfect', I'd like to know what your experience is regarding the 'best' performing router as I'm thinking of changing mine and would like as many recomendations as possible (particularly from anyone who has had problems and found one that really helps).
Thanks in advance,
Alastair

[#5]

Hi Alastair,
I've just recently put an update into    http://community.plus.net/forum/index.php/topic,81129.0.html about my choice of router for my long, 68+db line.
My choice for this particular and specific line depends on 3 scenarios:
1. Default target SNRM  at 12 or above and likely to remain so :  choice is a Billion Bipac 7300 (second is a Billion 5200)
2. Default target SNRM  at 9 and likely to remain so : choice is  Billion 7300, and  Netgear DG834G V4 or DG834GT in joint second place
3. Default target SNRM at 6 : choice is 2700HGV, with the above Netgears in second place
Note that using the Billions, whilst giving the best peformance, does entail regular monitoring to check they don't go too fast for the line.
Jack

[#6]

Thanks for the information, much appreciated.
-  Alastair