Product Information and Choice

[#1]

Just a few thoughts...
Residential
Please, do us a favour and follow K.I.S.S?
Rather like the Business section, it ought to have a list of the product types so we can see the options we have as customers...
As much as the residential page looks nice its sloppy in its layout.
Instead of having a less appealing Bruadband and Phone section that poorly attemps to slog PlusNet Pro with it....
Surely you would be better off listing these side by side: Valve, Premium and Pro.
Infact you could list nothing about the product features at that stage and it would be more informative of the "choice" customers may have and it would be far easier to use. This also means that you can create pages which will allow a customer to make an informed choice based on the product details.
Product Information
In each product would it not make sense to also list some more features and list all the features that it does and does not have? such as:

• Upload speed: (448k or 832k)
  
• Contention: (50:1 or 20:1)
  
• ...
  

I am left to infere from what I know of old from PlusNet (or otherwise absorb the knowledge somehow by osmosis magically) that all rediential products are put at 50:1 contention and 448k? or has that all changed?
Please, PlusNet do not follow BT's well oiled model of regressing service and product information for customers, that makes them pleanty of sales and pleanty of somewhat unsatisfied customers who've been missled.
I say this because, If I were to soley rely on the information PlusNet currently provides and I knew nothing about braudband I'd have already switched contract 3 years ago. But I would fear it would be at the cost of the excellent quality of the existing service I receive:

• frequent disconnects ( I can only go by all the complaints in the forums of years gone by for not switching )
  
• a little more shaping at peak times ( not of great importance issue for what I require )
  

Since I would be changed from a 20:1 rack to a 50:1 that is probably not maintained as well and recieves a higher load - thus more problmes.
I am currently still paying (as far as I can guess) for: 20:1 contention, "unlmited" and 832k upload with my current product.
Since we do not use PlusNet for VoIP phone or home Phone, it doesn't make a lot of sense to pay extra for reduced limit in PlusNet Pro becuase I cannot differentiate between that and Premium for the 5 real features that it does list. As far as I can see it's an expensive AIO (All-in-one).
An example of some non-features listed:
"Access to our gaming servers" - Everyone has access to the gaming servers as a client non-PlusNet users can "access" our game servers, only those who may administrators which have SSH and (S-)FTP accces.
So please clarify what this "feature" is?
If this is to continue as a "feature" of Pro in January,
How are you going to fulfill that when you're being forced to close the game servers by BT?
[I am one of the customer adminsitrators for a range of these servers]
The "More Information" button is a good idea, but you get an extended explanation of what is told to you in the title for each feature anyway.
I think if people need definitions they should be listed in links to explain them because it's a waste of space where you colud list the true features and merits of the packages.
I hope this is taken as constructive criticism and makes some sense.
Jim,

[#2]

I`m sure your ideas are perfectly reasonable, and an "outside" view may well be quite helpful...... however, you may be batting on a losing wicket, so do not be too hopeful of a good response.....
I invite you to have a look at
http://community.plus.net/forum/index.php/topic,80676.0.html
in particular reply no8..... and then follow it through and see how much response you are likely to get, for "being helpful"...
Regretfully, even after so long, the issues are still the same, and the responses from Customer Service are still "automated"...... I am not sure there is really anyone "in the office" where the tickets actually go, since so many get the "automated replies"....

[#3]

So often there is so little the person at the other end can do to actually help anyway other than follow the red-tape and paper trail road - not helped because of being bound to BT...
The other thing is switching products, as we had done before, the way it worked last time (I believe) we sheduled it to all go through for the end of our billing month (more or less) so it didn't clash. Since we didn't change to a limited product there was no issue over bandwidth and payment as such.
I have always had a personal response from staff memebers who appeared to view these forums with some frequency,
so I have been very lucky, be it a query about the game servers, domain setup or a general braudband fault.
If there has been a problem with a response (mainly with servers/website things),
I have checked with another contact (yes within PlusNet) and another long standing PlusNet member who I help with website administration if he has had any similar experience.
I generally have 0 problems with service other than the general issues which has affected all service or is at least common, IE:
> DNS timeouts and no-response -> fixed by using another public name server 4.2.2.1 (which is level3 networks' DNS).
Which if I am not mistaken PlusNet have some kind of contact with because I always have good speeds accross that network.
> Odd disconnects sometimes gateway (or forced timeout between 600hrs and 1000hrs or even 2000hrs of conectivity) other times completely random (maybe that's BT having fun checking the lines at silly-o-clock in the morning)
I'm not an outsider I am a PlusNet customer.
There is no legal obligation for them to specifically state what the standard service entails in great detail - no other ISP does anymore you always had to find a review site which had researched like dslreports - but rather you now get the modern short list of what the market expects to see that primarily influence the decision to buy or switch and nothing more.
As far as an average user is concerned Uploading doesn't exist to them and your data speed is guaranteed and not shared between which ever 50/20 residents in your locality you happen to be contending with.
Jim,