PlusNet cf Poopex?

Right, now I've some time at home I'mm intending to change ISPs - yippee!
Got fed up of Pipex, but would like BB, 'phone and rental in one package.

Looked at TalkTalk, 'phoned 'customer service' and really couldn't make
myself understood (I think it was that way round). Also TT's T&Cs seem a
bit weird.

PlusNet looks OK, but I'm aware that there have been some criticisms in
this group, so is it bad or reasonable?
Also, what happens if there's a promble with the 'phone side of it?

Thanks.
--
Peter.
If you can do it today, you didn't put off enough yesterday.

PeterC wrote:
> Right, now I've some time at home I'mm intending to change ISPs - yippee!
> Got fed up of Pipex, but would like BB, 'phone and rental in one package.
>
> Looked at TalkTalk, 'phoned 'customer service' and really couldn't make
> myself understood (I think it was that way round). Also TT's T&Cs seem a
> bit weird.
>
> PlusNet looks OK, but I'm aware that there have been some criticisms in
> this group, so is it bad or reasonable?
> Also, what happens if there's a promble with the 'phone side of it?
>
> Thanks.

Hi Peter,

I have been a customer of Plusnet for the last ten years or so. I
wouldn't deny that they have had problems during that time. But, on
balance they have been pretty good. Very little down time, that was
their responsibility, and pretty good service from the support guys.

Given some of the experiences reported in this group and in Plusnet's
own newsgroups, there will no doubt be a number of people who will not
share my view of them. I guess this is the same for any of the ISPs. I
personally wouldn't choose Tiscali base on the experiences of some of my
friends. However, two of my colleagues swear by them.

Not sure what happens with the phone side of things. I guess you have
the option to raise on online help request, or call the support team via
another phone.

Best Regards,
Matt

Matthew Leah wrote:
> PeterC wrote:
>> Right, now I've some time at home I'mm intending to change ISPs -
>> yippee! Got fed up of Pipex, but would like BB, 'phone and rental
>> in one package. Looked at TalkTalk, 'phoned 'customer service' and
>> really couldn't
>> make myself understood (I think it was that way round). Also TT's
>> T&Cs seem a bit weird.
>>
>> PlusNet looks OK, but I'm aware that there have been some
>> criticisms in this group, so is it bad or reasonable?
>> Also, what happens if there's a promble with the 'phone side of it?
>>
>> Thanks.
>
> Hi Peter,
>
> I have been a customer of Plusnet for the last ten years or so. I
> wouldn't deny that they have had problems during that time. But, on
> balance they have been pretty good. Very little down time, that was
> their responsibility, and pretty good service from the support guys.
>
> Given some of the experiences reported in this group and in
> Plusnet's own newsgroups, there will no doubt be a number of people
> who will not share my view of them. I guess this is the same for
> any of the ISPs. I personally wouldn't choose Tiscali base on the
> experiences of some of my friends. However, two of my colleagues
> swear by them.
> Not sure what happens with the phone side of things. I guess you
> have the option to raise on online help request, or call the
> support team via another phone.
>
> Best Regards,
> Matt

Do not forget that PN is now owned by BT, so it may well pay you to
look at both sets of packages to find the right one for you (directed
at the OP)

"PeterC" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:1aq1o79kay1iw$.8dht2p05twr7$.(E-Mail Removed).. .
> Right, now I've some time at home I'mm intending to change ISPs - yippee!
> Got fed up of Pipex, but would like BB, 'phone and rental in one package.
>
> Looked at TalkTalk, 'phoned 'customer service' and really couldn't make
> myself understood (I think it was that way round). Also TT's T&Cs seem a
> bit weird.
>
> PlusNet looks OK, but I'm aware that there have been some criticisms in
> this group, so is it bad or reasonable?
> Also, what happens if there's a promble with the 'phone side of it?
>
> Thanks.
> --
> Peter.
> If you can do it today, you didn't put off enough yesterday.

Not sure about the "complete works" myself - I'm of the belt & braces type,
preferring to keep my telephone with BT, "just in case"... but I am still
with Plusnet as my ISP.
Plusnet have improved greatly over the past few months, since BT bought them
out and started pouring money into the company - they had to really, I
suppose! Last year was a complete nightmare and this year we had the webmail
fiasco, where spammers "stole" the email addresses of all users who had ever
used the webmail server. That's all in the past though (I hope).
They've now added some more BT Centrals and added a new webmail service with
a spam-filter, which is better than what they had before (spam tagging).
However, all their new tariffs are throttled (or "traffic-shaped") in one
way or another - see http://usergroup.plus.net/070425_bbywcomp2.php for
comparison of tariffs with restrictions. If any of that bothers you - then
enough said.
If not, then they're reasonably cheap and they are (once again) tech-savvy
and user-friendly, almost to the point of masochism. If they have a problem,
users get to know about it, warts and all. Which is quite refreshing, I
suppose...
To be perfectly honest, if I had to change ISPs now (with my relatively low
usage - about 2 Gig a month), I'd go with a Brightview reseller (Globalnet,
Waitrose, Madasafish). They're getting very good brownie points at the
moment.
Hope that helps,

George

"Matthew Leah" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:46801670$0$8730$(E-Mail Removed)...
> PeterC wrote:
> I have been a customer of Plusnet for the last ten years or so. I
> wouldn't deny that they have had problems during that time. But, on
> balance they have been pretty good. Very little down time, that was their
> responsibility, and pretty good service from the support guys.

Yes, on balance I would recommend PlusNet - or at least the Force 9 part of
PlusNet.

They have had problems with email and web servers over the years: they once
lost their email servers and any email that people hadn't downloaded, and
similarly on another occasion their web servers got wiped. And they have had
days when either their POP email servers have been inaccessible or else
there's been no new email coming into them, but these things get righted
with no loss of email (just delays).

But all ISPs have their off days. Tiscali was reported to be having
horrendous problems a few weeks ago. At least PlusNet seem to be good at
keeping people informed about problems, with progress reports and ETAs for
fixing. They have a totally transparent fault-tracking system which allows
you to raise a "ticket" and see all the reports as it is investigated - none
of this situation with certain ISPs where you phone up and raise a call, and
then find when you phone back for a progress report that there's no trace of
it ever having been logged (I had several bad experiences with a certain ISP
beginning with W).

When I had a weird broadband disconnection problem the other month, they
seemed keen to help me get to the bottom of it an suggested lots of things
to try when a simple line test came up OK. They were also open and up-front
about the possible charge that BT would make if they investigated and
coulln't find a fault. A senior support guy phoned me on a Sunday afternoon
for a long discussion about the problem and the symptoms - I was impressed.

Their spam blocking is very good: over the past few months I think every
single email that it's labelled as spam has been (no false positives) and
very few spam emails have got through (few false negatives).

They are ok for general web browsing.

If your into downloading, Usenet, and P2P then you going to have real issues
with Plusnet's throttling system.

But don't listen to any of us here, look at the Plusnet forum on think
broadband website and decide.

http://bbs.adslguide.org.uk/postlist...&Board=plusnet




"PeterC" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:1aq1o79kay1iw$.8dht2p05twr7$.(E-Mail Removed).. .
> Right, now I've some time at home I'mm intending to change ISPs - yippee!
> Got fed up of Pipex, but would like BB, 'phone and rental in one package.
>
> Looked at TalkTalk, 'phoned 'customer service' and really couldn't make
> myself understood (I think it was that way round). Also TT's T&Cs seem a
> bit weird.
>
> PlusNet looks OK, but I'm aware that there have been some criticisms in
> this group, so is it bad or reasonable?
> Also, what happens if there's a promble with the 'phone side of it?
>
> Thanks.
> --
> Peter.
> If you can do it today, you didn't put off enough yesterday.

On Mon, 25 Jun 2007 20:24:33 +0100, Matthew Leah wrote:

> PeterC wrote:
>> Right, now I've some time at home I'mm intending to change ISPs - yippee!
>> Got fed up of Pipex, but would like BB, 'phone and rental in one package.
>>
>> Looked at TalkTalk, 'phoned 'customer service' and really couldn't make
>> myself understood (I think it was that way round). Also TT's T&Cs seem a
>> bit weird.
>>
>> PlusNet looks OK, but I'm aware that there have been some criticisms in
>> this group, so is it bad or reasonable?
>> Also, what happens if there's a promble with the 'phone side of it?
>>
>> Thanks.
>
> Hi Peter,
>
> I have been a customer of Plusnet for the last ten years or so. I
> wouldn't deny that they have had problems during that time. But, on
> balance they have been pretty good. Very little down time, that was
> their responsibility, and pretty good service from the support guys.
>
> Given some of the experiences reported in this group and in Plusnet's
> own newsgroups, there will no doubt be a number of people who will not
> share my view of them. I guess this is the same for any of the ISPs. I
> personally wouldn't choose Tiscali base on the experiences of some of my
> friends. However, two of my colleagues swear by them.
>
> Not sure what happens with the phone side of things. I guess you have
> the option to raise on online help request, or call the support team via
> another phone.
>
> Best Regards,
> Matt

Thanks Matt.
I'd got an impression that PN was 'open' on CS and that's good. Not sure
about the rest.
--
Peter.
If you can do it today, you didn't put off enough yesterday.

On Mon, 25 Jun 2007 20:34:01 +0100, Kraftee wrote:

> Do not forget that PN is now owned by BT, so it may well pay you to
> look at both sets of packages to find the right one for you (directed
> at the OP)

Ouch. Will BT ruin PN, one wonders.
--
Peter.
If you can do it today, you didn't put off enough yesterday.

On Mon, 25 Jun 2007 20:40:38 +0100, Mortimer wrote:

> Yes, on balance I would recommend PlusNet - or at least the Force 9 part of
> PlusNet.

Just looked at F9's wibble - v. similar to PN's ;-)

There are certain attractions to their set up.
--
Peter.
If you can do it today, you didn't put off enough yesterday.

PeterC wrote:
> On Mon, 25 Jun 2007 20:34:01 +0100, Kraftee wrote:
>
>> Do not forget that PN is now owned by BT, so it may well pay you to
>> look at both sets of packages to find the right one for you (directed
>> at the OP)
>
> Ouch. Will BT ruin PN, one wonders.

As an (now) outsider looking in I get the impression that, if anything,
the takeover by BT might already have slightly improved PN.

--
Old Codger
e-mail use reply to field

What matters in politics is not what happens, but what you can make
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