Plusnet pricing

[#1]

Just a moan about non "low-cost" areas really.

I'm bombarded with adverts for Plusnet broadband (online, printed, and TV) offering competitively priced broadband.

However, I'm in a "hugely-inflated-cost area", so instead of Unlimited Broadband for £18.99 I can get ADSL Max for £36.48, or after contacting support I can get a special £9.99 off for a 12 month contract, making it "only" £26.49. That is 40% extra with discount or 92% extra without.

However, in order to get a half-usable upload rate I have to pay an extra £7.80 for ADSL Max Premium.

Now I don't mind paying extra for better speeds (especially upload) - I'm probably going down the leased line route, so my costs will rise significantly (more than an order of magnitude), but I'll get a usable connection.

My moan is that Plusnet's adverts are like a restaurant with an advert for juicy steak dinner for £18.99, but when I go in they say sorry YOU can't have the steak dinner, but as a special offer you can have a stale cheese sandwich for £26, and if you want pickle on that it will be an extra £7.80.

Not very appetizing is it?

[#2]

I agree , PN and BT should do away with non low cost area,s and have one simple price no matter where you live !!

[#3]

It's an Ofcom pricing model.  Go complain to Sharon White.

[#4]

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@rongtw wrote:

I agree , PN and BT should do away with non low cost area,s and have one simple price no matter where you live !!

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i'm not sure i agree.
why should someone who lives in a heavily populated area with infrastructure all over the place pay the same as someone who lives in the middle of a field with nothing around them for miles?

the cost to supply and maintain the service to that field is clearly more than the heavily populated area.

[#5]

@chenks76  yes but why should someone who lives in the countryside be penalised

[#6]

it's not being penalised if the cost to supply the service is more.
it's only being penalised if you are being charged more than what it actaully costs to supply the service.

and my suggestions is that it does cost more to supply the service to there, thus you pay more.

[#7]

Look at it this way - in some areas the price is discounted.

[#8]

if you look at Gas and Electricity as a analogy  , they don't charge more for rural supplies even though the pipes and wires are longer ,  neither do they discount prices for city's .

[#9]

my suggestions is that it does cost more to supply the service to there, thus you pay more.

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I'm not at all convinced it does cost more. ADSL Max has been installed since 2006, so the cost should have been amortized by now. The lines don't need much in the way of maintenance - I've had one outage in 3 years, which was caused by an OR engineer disconnecting my line at the exchange.

I do accept that Plusnet have to pay the Ofcom decreed wholesale price, but they also have costs in low-cost areas which they choose to ignore when offering low cost broadband in those areas. In the low cost areas Plusnet have made an investment in their network - in the non-low cost areas they haven't invested a penny.

[#10]

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@rongtw wrote:

if you look at Gas and Electricity as a analogy  , they don't charge more for rural supplies even though the pipes and wires are longer ,  neither do they discount prices for city's .

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ask them to install gas to your property in the middle of nowhere though and see what they charge you to install.

[#11]

I think you will find that energy (and water) prices do vary across the country according to geography, only the different costs are spread over a much wider area.

[#12]

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@Townman wrote:

It's an Ofcom pricing model.  Go complain to Sharon White.

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I think the price controls only apply to 20CN ADSL1.

I think Plusnet have no excuse for charging different prices for FTTC in different areas.

[#13]

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I think Plusnet have no excuse for charging different prices for FTTC in different areas.

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I suspect that Plusnet would justify the extra cost by the fact that they have no infrastructure of their own in non low-cost areas so they have to pay BTW for backhaul.

My view of that is that they have chosen not to make any investment in the high-cost areas, so although their ongoing costs are higher they have no capital outlay to recover. So they pass their costs on to the customers, comfortable in the knowledge that they will never have to invest a penny, and they can blame Ofcom for the price they charge.

The Ofcom model is intended to ensure that it is profitable for ISPs to make an investment to add their own LLU/backhaul. But it is obvious that that will never happen in the remaining high-cost areas, and the Ofcom pricing is reinforcing the ISPs reluctance to invest. The BDUK spending model is actually making it worse - by only tackling the most "profitable" areas, making the remaining not-spots even less interesting for commercial companies.

[#14]

Plusnet don't have any infrastructure of their own so that point isn't relevant

[#15]

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Plusnet don't have any infrastructure of their own

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Which maybe makes it even worse - Plusnet have to pay wholesale costs in low-cost areas, but choose not to charge those to customers, while they do charge their wholesale costs to customers in non-low-cost areas.