Viewing 34 posts - 1 through 34 (of 34 total)
  • Transferring from BT to PlusNet – disastrous or not?
  • dickydownes
    Free Member

    Thinking of switching over due to sloooow Broadband from BT. Could switch to their fibre but more expensive than PlusNet which is essentially the same company so am assuming it’s the same??

    Not interested in tv really, and missus won’t entertain Sky in the house.

    Anyone switched over and regretted it?

    Or any other good alternatives??

    tragically1969
    Free Member

    Plusnet have been OK by me so far.

    They are owned by BT but not BT, if that makes sense.

    Shackleton
    Full Member

    We have plusnet and seems to be fine for everything we do. Can’t say the same about any of my encounters with BT.

    jimster01
    Full Member

    Plusnet switch over was great IMO compared to other utility switches.

    suburbanreuben
    Free Member

    A good idea in theory. I tried to switch to plusnet a couple of years ago but twice their engineers failed to turn up at the appointed time and date. They’d cancelled the appointment but didn’t bother to tell me.
    Like BT but more so…

    Pook
    Full Member

    i switched to PlusNet and they’ve been great. Only had one issue, and that was about a fortnight ago when my 20mbps link dropped to about 0.5. Phoned them up and they sorted it quickly and very effectively. You then get a text after from the guy who’d helped saying if there were any other issues with it text this number for help. Very good service. i wasn’t waiting on the phone for ages or anything.

    Plus, they’re based in sheffield so i feel like I’m contributing to the local economy a bit.

    willard
    Full Member

    Ditto here. Always had good support from the people there, both in Billing and in technical. Very easy to get through to someone that actually has a clue too. It’s why i have made the choice to stick with them for broadband now that we can get fibre and also move the phone to them. The fact that they are cheaper than BT too is an added bonus.

    Rubber_Buccaneer
    Full Member

    20mbps link dropped to about 0.5

    Similar happened to me but I’m in West Sussex and I was queued on the phone for 35 minutes. Sorted quickly when I did speak to someone.

    andyl
    Free Member

    We paid £90 to get out of our plus net contract. They were that bad.

    slowoldgit
    Free Member

    I moved to Plusnet (well John Lewis, who go through Plusnet), and was pleased with the way they handled a problem. Which was actually in my lappy, so that was nice of them.

    Betterer than BT and VM IME, both of whom caused me to move on.

    deadkenny
    Free Member

    Zero problems for me. Though I switched broadband first long ago then switched the line.

    And yes PlusNet are owned by BT anyway. Though they weren’t always, but the infrastructure exchange to house is all BT regardless. Been with PN for broadband since before the buyout and they’ve always been good. Cheap and decent customer service (hell of a lot better than bloody Virgin/formerly NTL/fomerly CableTel).

    Unlimited fibre with PN, getting pretty much bang on 76 down and 20 up (cabinet is a very short walk down the road 😀 ).

    tomd
    Free Member

    I’ve been with Plustnet for the last year. They’ve been pretty good overall. We moved house but had a month where we were in a hotel. Rather than charge us to cancel the contract they put our account on hold until we moved into our new place. Easy to deal with on the phone, I can’t imagine BT offering up a sensible solution like that. Saved me over £100, they could have just charged me for the rest of the contract term.

    simon_g
    Full Member

    No problems here with them on regular ADSL and later fibre.

    Only downside compared to BT is that on fibre you’ll get the white Openreach modem, plus a separate router/wifi box which looks ugly and needs two plugs rather than one. BT have their HomeHub 5 which will do it all together.

    No reason why you can’t just buy a HH5 off ebay and use that on Plusnet though (you just enter your login details), we do and it’s remarkably decent for ISP-supplied kit.

    gribble
    Free Member

    Also changed as it was cheaper. PlusNet seem more customer service focused. BT are terrible and only offered me a discount when I was looking to move.

    Our service is still quite slow though, but every time I have spoken to BT about fibre, I get a different answer, which does not inspire confidence.

    bigjim
    Full Member

    I have found plusnet very good over the last 7 years or so. Main problem was BT telling me my house didn’t exist…

    Northwind
    Full Member

    I’ve been with plusnet since force 9 days, they’ve been fine tbh.

    edlong
    Free Member

    The thing with sites like that is that very few satisfied customers, who either think the service is fantastic, or (more likely) think it’s perfectly adequate, will bother going on to the internet and posting about it. Peeved customers who’ve had a bad experience, however, are highly likely to want to tell the world about it.

    I’ve been with plusnet for over ten years and am more than happy (although until now I’ve not bothered telling the internet about it).

    squirrelking
    Free Member

    Been with Plusnet for over 6 years now, would only leave if Virgin laid fibre before BT.

    Occasional issues but have all been sorted quickly. Even gave me all the test numbers and stuff to save sending an engineer out to line test (yes, someone is paid to do that but I’d rather get stuff sorted sooner rather than later and it had been dragging on. Previous occupant deceased and nobody knew who owned the line connection at that point).

    If you know someone else on it they get a discount every month when they recommend it to you 😉

    eg.

    When you refer a friend via word of mouth, make sure they know how to indicate that you referred them. During signup they will be asked for referral details, in order to complete this they will need to know your username and ISP.

    Your username is: squirrelking

    Your ISP is: PlusNet

    *whistles nonchalantly*

    But yeah, if you know someone on it you can do them a good turn. Also check the usual cashback sites to get a few quid in your own pocket:

    http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/shopping/cashback-sites-comparison/Plusnet#cashBackResults

    (Quidco doing £50 for unlimited fibre)

    Dunno if that’s on top of the existing PlusNet cashback deal though.

    legend
    Free Member

    suburbanreuben – Member
    A good idea in theory. I tried to switch to plusnet a couple of years ago but twice their engineers failed to turn up at the appointed time and date. They’d cancelled the appointment but didn’t bother to tell me.
    Like BT but more so…

    PlusNet don’t have engineers that come out – guess which company actually let you down and didn’t bother to tell the PlusNet folk either? Once you’re past that dependency they are light years ahead of BT

    Cletus
    Free Member

    I have been with PlusNet for as long as ADSL has been available in my area and have been through three house moves with them.

    I have had very few problems and they have always been sorted out quickly.

    As another poster said the only reason I would leave is if Virgin managed to lay cable down my street – it is available two streets away (less than 100 metres) but it is “economically nonviable”

    It is economically viable however to send me leaflets on a monthly basis saying that Virgin fibre is available in my area 👿

    MrOvershoot
    Full Member

    I’ve been with Plusnet since we had BB back in 2003 so that is now coming up for 12 years, the only day of outage in all that time was when there was a big fire in a Manchester main hub that knocked out 1/2 of the NW.

    I have also got 8 family or friends set up with Plusnet who all have had a similar good experience so with my referral discount only pay £5 a month for fixed IP unlimited 15meg connection and as I’m only 117 meters from the exchange usually get 20meg 🙂

    bails
    Full Member

    Switched to them from sky. Went from ~4mb to ~80mb and it’s stayed there reliably ever since.

    iain1775
    Free Member

    No problems here, switched from BT fibre 6 months ago, cheaper and seems more stable
    Customer service as others said is streets ahead of BT
    Only slight issue I’ve had was getting the Chromecast to talk with the Plusnet Technicolour router

    Good deals on Topcashback too, or refer a friend links, email me if you want referral via either

    matt_outandabout
    Full Member

    Plus me here for two years. No issues, apart from the c*ck up that BT made on handover, and they kicked butt until resolved.
    That and all the call centre folk have lovely Sheffield accents.

    esselgruntfuttock
    Free Member

    We switched from those useless sods Talk Talk about 2 years ago to Plusnet. Simple process & never had to even speak to them since.

    woodlikesbeer
    Free Member

    I’ve been on Plus net since 2003/4. Hardly had any problems. When there have been problems its been due to BT upgrading the green boxes in the road rather than Plus net itself. I.e. every BB provider had issues.

    You have to remember to change your tarrif every 12 months or so. They seem to change the tarrifs regularly but never tell you that you could be on a cheaper one.

    I would recommend. We recently moved our phone line to them as well. It was slightly cheaper than BT but still gave us the option of using International Call Checker to call the inlaws.

    chipster
    Full Member

    We’ve been on Plusnet for about 15 months. No problems at all.

    thecaptain
    Free Member

    Plusnet were completely shit at setup for us. Didn’t turn up, then “explained” that they hadn’t even bothered to *make* the appointment that they had emailed to confirm weeks earlier. Then took another few weeks to actually do it.

    Once it’s set up though, seems to work well (also for my parents) and can’t complain at the price.

    jonnyrockymountain
    Full Member

    No problems here and like other people have customer service are easy to speak to and understand!!!!

    nsaints
    Free Member

    Moved to Plusnet from Virgin
    Once I replaced the router with something more reliable never had any issue

    Rock solid connection, and never drops

    PS – I ended the Virgin contract as they always dropped the connection within the day. They couldn’t or weren’t interested in fixing it within a 3 year contract.

    5thElefant
    Free Member

    I switched to BT from plusnet when I moved. Plusnet were crap. BT have been OK. No idea if the physical move is the explanation rather than service provider.

    aracer
    Free Member

    I’m with Plusnet and it’s fine.

    However I’d save a whole chunk of money switching to BT – would that be a really bad thing to do?

    deadkenny
    Free Member

    5thElefant – Member
    I switched to BT from plusnet when I moved. Plusnet were crap. BT have been OK. No idea if the physical move is the explanation rather than service provider.

    The two are physically the same in terms of connection to the house, and both are BT anyway. Though different house is an entirely different connection, and one house could have been just rubbish connection from the exchange and the other far better (or a modern fibre cabinet link).

    There’s a difference in routers though, but you can use a router from one with the other. Only issue PlusNet have with their supplied routers is the wifi range can be poor, but then I’ve seen that from BT Home Hubs also. It’s a general problem with integrated wifi routers with no external aerial, and more so when people have them set up in a far corner of the house.

    On the subject of physical connections, Virgin (back in the NTL/CableTel days) could never get a stable connection to my house. It would drop loads of times in an hour and have to reset the modem each time to get it back and sometimes go days with nothing. Cost me a fortune taking time off for engineer call outs, with them not turning up half the time, and they never got it right even pulling fresh new cables. Their phone support was awful too. Hence binned and went BT and then moved to PN.

    aracer – Member
    However I’d save a whole chunk of money switching to BT

    Interesting. What’s cheaper about BT? Usually the other way round.

    Although BT do give you free BT Sport subscription, whereas PlusNet don’t (even though they’re BT). Though just got an email offering it for £6 a month (and more if you want it in HD).

Viewing 34 posts - 1 through 34 (of 34 total)

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