Looking for successor to Metronet

I never used to believe the seemingly over-the-top complaints by some
Plusnet users in this newsgroup, but since Metronet was taken over by
Plusnet, it's starting to look as though many of those complaints are
all too valid..

Back in the day, I'd once been a perfectly satisfied dialup customer of
Plusnet and couldn't believe that the complaints were anything other
than sour grapes from 'industrial' downloaders going beyond the realms
of fair use..

I'd been with Metronet for almost a year before Plusnet took over, with
absolutely no cause for complaint whatsoever. However, subsequently, I
almost can't believe the range of problems I've experienced: the icing
on the cake of which has been that my ADSL connectivity has been
extremely intermittent for the past three days, and now seems to have
given up entirely - I seemingly can't get my router to lock-on to the
ADSL signal at all.

Now, to be fair to Metronet++, I'm fairly confident that this is a BT
problem, rather than theirs, as I can't even get the ADSL signal, let
alone worry about authentication. The usual tricks such as trying a
different phone socket/line filter, and bt_test@startup_domain, and even
frequent reboots and power-cycling of the router, all seem to make no
difference whatsover.

But whereas pre-takeover, Metronet support responses, on the very few
occasions I ever needed to use them, were very quick, I've had
absolutely no acknowledgement of my support ticket with Metronet++
whatsoever. It may be unrealistic to expect an instant resolution to a
fault, but it certainly merits at least acknowledgement in far less than
3 days. Sadly, from scanning the Metronet++ forums, it appears that I'm
far from being the only user who has been bitterly disappointed with the
level of service since the takeover.

I've now had enough, and have decided (unless, as seems rather unlikely,
Metronet++ are able to resolve the problem and provide an explanation by
tomorrow) that I now have no option but, with regret, to migrate to a
different ADSL provider.


As well as their reputation for good service, what particularly
attracted me to Metronet originally was their PAYG pricing structure,
with a reasonable amount of bundled bandwidth included, and additional
usage reasonably priced (I tend to use about 3 - 6GB a month, not
exactly heavy use, but more than many of the most basic accounts).
Metronet's PayGoExtra500, with 15 GB bundle (at a very reasonable
price) is therefore pretty much ideal for my needs.

Options that I'm now considering are:

IDNet
NewNet
UKFSN

Does anybody have any comments on and experience of the above, or any
other options that I should look into? My usage almost always exceeds
3 GB, which seems to be more than the "minimum" bundle of most
providers, yet for many, the next step up is a relatively large price
increase for far more bandwidth than I'll ever use.

It's a shame that there doesn't seem to be anybody else with either the
generous minimum bundle of Metronet and the fine-grained additional-use
pricing that they offer. But if Plusnet's level of service has
plummetted as much as it seems to have, then sadly I have no option but
to look elsewhere.

--
David M. -- Edinburgh, Scotland.--[en, fr, (de)]--[reply-to valid <365d]
> Please trim quotes & interleave reply for readability, don't be lazy <
> Please feel free to help me by correcting my foreign language errors <
>>>>>>> 11 days to go. <http://www.clearingtheairscotland.org/> <<<<<<<

David M wrote:

>
> It's a shame that there doesn't seem to be anybody else with either the
> generous minimum bundle of Metronet and the fine-grained additional-use
> pricing that they offer. But if Plusnet's level of service has
> plummetted as much as it seems to have, then sadly I have no option but
> to look elsewhere.
>

Yup, me too. Hopefully it'll be service back to normal tomorrow when I
get my new connection with Eclipse:

http://www.eclipse.net.uk/

Eclipse are owned by Kingston and if you sign up before the end of March
you can subscribe to Talkmore, providing free anytime geographical
phonecalls for £5.99/month instead of the usual £12.99 monthly charge.

I also looked at Entanet, but they wouldn't provide multiple static IP's
free of charge to a home user.

http://www.enta.net/

You can't buy direct, you ring them and they give you contact phone
number of a reseller.

David M wrote

> I never used to believe the seemingly over-the-top complaints by some
> Plusnet users in this newsgroup, but since Metronet was taken over by
> Plusnet, it's starting to look as though many of those complaints are
> all too valid..
>

What about the pussnet apologists?


> Back in the day, I'd once been a perfectly satisfied dialup customer of
> Plusnet and couldn't believe that the complaints were anything other
> than sour grapes from 'industrial' downloaders going beyond the realms
> of fair use..
>
> I'd been with Metronet for almost a year before Plusnet took over, with
> absolutely no cause for complaint whatsoever. However, subsequently, I
> almost can't believe the range of problems I've experienced: the icing
> on the cake of which has been that my ADSL connectivity has been
> extremely intermittent for the past three days, and now seems to have
> given up entirely - I seemingly can't get my router to lock-on to the
> ADSL signal at all.
>
> Now, to be fair to Metronet++, I'm fairly confident that this is a BT
> problem, rather than theirs, as I can't even get the ADSL signal, let
> alone worry about authentication. The usual tricks such as trying a
> different phone socket/line filter, and bt_test@startup_domain, and even
> frequent reboots and power-cycling of the router, all seem to make no
> difference whatsover.
>
> But whereas pre-takeover, Metronet support responses, on the very few
> occasions I ever needed to use them, were very quick, I've had
> absolutely no acknowledgement of my support ticket with Metronet++
> whatsoever. It may be unrealistic to expect an instant resolution to a
> fault, but it certainly merits at least acknowledgement in far less than
> 3 days. Sadly, from scanning the Metronet++ forums, it appears that I'm
> far from being the only user who has been bitterly disappointed with the
> level of service since the takeover.
>
> I've now had enough, and have decided (unless, as seems rather unlikely,
> Metronet++ are able to resolve the problem and provide an explanation by
> tomorrow) that I now have no option but, with regret, to migrate to a
> different ADSL provider.
>
>
> As well as their reputation for good service, what particularly
> attracted me to Metronet originally was their PAYG pricing structure,
> with a reasonable amount of bundled bandwidth included, and additional
> usage reasonably priced (I tend to use about 3 - 6GB a month, not
> exactly heavy use, but more than many of the most basic accounts).
> Metronet's PayGoExtra500, with 15 GB bundle (at a very reasonable
> price) is therefore pretty much ideal for my needs.
>
> Options that I'm now considering are:
>
> IDNet
> NewNet
> UKFSN
>
> Does anybody have any comments on and experience of the above, or any
> other options that I should look into? My usage almost always exceeds
> 3 GB, which seems to be more than the "minimum" bundle of most
> providers, yet for many, the next step up is a relatively large price
> increase for far more bandwidth than I'll ever use.


You'll get what you pay for. £25 a month with Zen will get you an ISP
that doesn't fuck around, with a more than reasonable download limit on
an 8Mb pipe. If you're not after speed, under £20 for a 256 connection.


> It's a shame that there doesn't seem to be anybody else with either the
> generous minimum bundle of Metronet and the fine-grained additional-use
> pricing that they offer. But if Plusnet's level of service has
> plummetted as much as it seems to have, then sadly I have no option but
> to look elsewhere.
>
>