PlusNet

Hello everyone
Been some pretty damning remarks about PlusNet on here in the recent past -
have things stabilised for an "Average" downloader / user?
Can anybody recommend them - other than to "save a few pence?"
Still bemused by they banter over ISP's and wonder how they seem to get away
with "One way" contracts - one's they can wriggle out of but you seem to be
held to unmercifully!
I am considering the "standard" - £14.99/month service.
Constructive advice welcome for an average user who will "max" at 512k at
present.
Thanks
Hew.




Hew Moore

"Hew Moore" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:dmadr7$sak$(E-Mail Removed)...
<snip>
> Constructive advice welcome for an average user who will "max" at
512k at
> present.

Does this mean you intend to shift 150+ GBytes/month ?
If not what does it mean ?

Eric

--
Remove the dross to contact me directly

Hew Moore wrote:
> Hello everyone
> Been some pretty damning remarks about PlusNet on here in the recent past -
> have things stabilised for an "Average" downloader / user?
> Can anybody recommend them - other than to "save a few pence?"
> Still bemused by they banter over ISP's and wonder how they seem to get away
> with "One way" contracts - one's they can wriggle out of but you seem to be
> held to unmercifully!
> I am considering the "standard" - £14.99/month service.
> Constructive advice welcome for an average user who will "max" at 512k at
> present.

I'm on Plusnet and I don't really have any complaints about the service
as I experience it. I'm not altogether comfortable with the seemingly
constant game of mobile goalpoats but so far it hasn't really affected
me, and since I signed up for the "free" startup package (which isn't so
much free as much as it is a buyback scheme where they pay off your
startup fee debt over 5 years) I'm not going to bug out just yet. I
expect that when the time comes to move house next, I will reevaluate my
options depending on what I end up doing post-PhD - if I get a job in
Germany or the US I definitely won't be sticking with Plus, but
otherwise I could yet be convinced to, if they start being a little more
open about their sustainable use policy instead of hiding behind the
legalese in the T&Cs.

--
Phil

http://www.usefilm.com/photographer/31307.html

Phil Newnham wrote:
> I'm on Plusnet and I don't really have any complaints about the service
> as I experience it. I'm not altogether comfortable with the seemingly
> constant game of mobile goalpoats but so far it hasn't really affected
> me, and since I signed up for the "free" startup package (which isn't so
> much free as much as it is a buyback scheme where they pay off your
> startup fee debt over 5 years) I'm not going to bug out just yet. I
> expect that when the time comes to move house next, I will reevaluate my
> options depending on what I end up doing post-PhD - if I get a job in
> Germany or the US I definitely won't be sticking with Plus, but
> otherwise I could yet be convinced to, if they start being a little more
> open about their sustainable use policy instead of hiding behind the
> legalese in the T&Cs.

Forgot to mention, I'm on the Premier account, the Plus user experience
may be different.

--
Phil

http://www.usefilm.com/photographer/31307.html

Hew Moore wrote:
> Hello everyone
> Been some pretty damning remarks about PlusNet on here in the recent
> past - have things stabilised for an "Average" downloader / user?
> Can anybody recommend them - other than to "save a few pence?"
> Still bemused by they banter over ISP's and wonder how they seem to
> get away with "One way" contracts - one's they can wriggle out of but
> you seem to be held to unmercifully!
> I am considering the "standard" - £14.99/month service.
> Constructive advice welcome for an average user who will "max" at
> 512k at present.

Do you wish to use usenet. You might find that a bit difficult on that
account, like it is available in theory but unuseable. Contrary to previous
statements PN are now saying that the plus accounts were not designed for
usenet. Even on the "Premier" account it is throttled and capped at 15GB
per month.

Your choice. If you use the account only a little you might be happy. If
you use it a lot you may not be happy.

--
Old Codger
e-mail use reply to field

What matters in politics is not what happens, but what you can make people
believe has happened. [Janet Daley 27/8/2003]

> Do you wish to use usenet. You might find that a bit difficult on that
> account, like it is available in theory but unuseable. Contrary to
> previous statements PN are now saying that the plus accounts were not
> designed for usenet. Even on the "Premier" account it is throttled and
> capped at 15GB per month.
>
> Your choice. If you use the account only a little you might be happy. If
> you use it a lot you may not be happy.


Not the full story is it? In fact if you use the text only newsgroup server
there is no problem. It is only the binary NG server or huge downloads that
are a problem. If you are one of the 99% who don't use binary NGS etc then
they are fine.

Peter Crosland

On 26 Nov 2005 19:43, "Hew Moore" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

>Been some pretty damning remarks about PlusNet on here in the recent past -
>have things stabilised for an "Average" downloader / user?

To Plus.Net the 'average' user might download less than 7 GB in a month, so I
would suggest not using any term like 'average' as it will vary in spec from
one person's view to the next.

>Can anybody recommend them - other than to "save a few pence?"

Well, I recommend them (and Eclipse, and Metronet, and know users of Zen, and
Bulldog, Pipex and even Tiscali, and all are happy). However I have certainly
recommended various Plus.Net accounts, not primarily because of any 'saving'
but because in general they are good valur for money, and whether someone is
going to pop up and call me some name doesn't really bother me much, they're
happy with whomever they use, and I am still (after opening an account back
in March 2003) using Plus.Net.

>I am considering the "standard" - £14.99/month service.

It is not considered 'standard' by Plus.Net any more, as they describe it as
a good introduction to broadband. I have seen access to some (binary) news
servers drop to being so slow as to be almost unusable (even at 3, 4, 5 am
I get a connection and ten minutes later it will probably timeout, before
completing the download of a set of headers from just one binary group I
have used for a few years... access to external news services is also as
slow, and while I don't use any peer-to-peer, I understand those users see
slow speeds, ie 'traffic calmed' to a standstill, like USENET, 24x7 on the
Broadband Plus account. However, I do find webcams and streaming services
work well. My traffic so far this month has exceeded an average of 1.5 GB
a day (it's a 2000 kbps connection) and today with downloading some films,
and doing other things, the traffic has exceeded 5 GB, so much depends on
what you plan to do. Browsing, e-mail, (text) newsgroups, streaming audio
and video should all be fine. VoIP and gaming too. peer-to-peer and any
binary newsgroup access really seems to require a Premier account though.

Peter Morgan. (yes, I have a link, but of course if the service was poor,
even if it was costing me nothing, I would move to some other ISP like the
next person, and I would never know whether you clicked the link or not as
I don't know half the 350 + who have clicked the link - since the cookie it
sets is only valid for 10 days, it means many more have clicked than have
ever become customers and actually saved me anything, and some accounts
are ineligible for commission/savings anyway... and of course, there's
no need to click a link, so there's no way to know of those who dismiss
any of my views/experience because of the link being present)...

--

UK ADSL <http://tinyurl.com/5jpa4>... Saving with Plus.Net.
50+ GB of traffic last month, on Broadband Plus at only 14.99.
Unsuitable for heavy downloaders, fine for video/audio streaming.

On 26 Nov 2005 22:36, "Peter Crosland" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

>Not the full story is it? In fact if you use the text only newsgroup server
>there is no problem. It is only the binary NG server or huge downloads that
>are a problem. If you are one of the 99% who don't use binary NGS etc then
>they are fine.

Indeed, fine if you don't use any binary newsgroups... Unfortunately Plus.Net
seems to have decided to put binary groups on 'possible but unlikely' footing
wrt users on Broadband Plus, on the assumption that they will download 100s
of GB, which means that there's currently such slow speeds as to make them
unusable, even for someone wanting 10 to 100 MB a week (or month) rather
than 10+ GB. It's still worth pointing out, because the questioner did
suggest using the 14.99 account (I have to assume Broadband Plus) and
if they just want to get the headers or group list from usenet.plus.net
they will find there are likely to be timeout problems anytime within a 24h
period. If someone wants only text groups, text.usenet.plus.net is working
*fine* as far as I can tell, especially compared with 3 months ago, when it
was rate restricted to about 15 kB/s during the day and about 30 kB/s off-
peak from 01:00 to around 08:00... So for text groups, BB Plus should be
fine. So now you know, the 'rest' of the story, from a BB Plus customer.

--

UK ADSL <http://tinyurl.com/dghgq> - Happy to save cash with Plus.Net!

Unsuitable for heavy downloaders, but fine for video/audio streaming.

In article <(E-Mail Removed) us.net>,
Peter M says...
> Peter Morgan. (yes, I have a link, but of course if the service was poor,
> even if it was costing me nothing, I would move to some other ISP like the
> next person, and I would never know whether you clicked the link or not as
> I don't know half the 350 + who have clicked the link - since the cookie it
> sets is only valid for 10 days, it means many more have clicked than have
> ever become customers and actually saved me anything, and some accounts
> are ineligible for commission/savings anyway... and of course, there's
> no need to click a link, so there's no way to know of those who dismiss
> any of my views/experience because of the link being present)...
>

which is still no excuse for spamming and breaking the PlusNet AUP

Hi,
right I've found the "missing" messages and replies - thanks all - some
interesting stuff, still leaves me a little unsure!
In reply to Eric's comment ..
>Does this mean you intend to shift 150+ GBytes/month ?
>If not what does it mean ?
Sorry - I live fairly much in the country and BT say the best I can achieve
is 512Kb service and may need an engineer to set it up.
My downloading in fairly minimal - few computer programmes, no films, no
games mainly mail and posting a few pictures to the web & some to family. I
do use a "monitoring service" which I am logged into quite a lot with
minimal data download / upload but needs to be on, ideally several hours in
the day without interruption. I guess that I will need to make them aware
of this if I choose the PN route so that I don't get "chopped off" with
their "no use disconnection policy".
Thanks again all
Hew