Plus.net, a tale of broadband, bags and ho’s

December 25, 2011 – 8:04 pm

Good Honest Broadband from Yorkshire

If your considering joining Plus.net as a new broadband customer or moving from an existing provider to Plus.net as I did, then please read on and discover why you should avoid this company at all costs.

My voyage of digital discovery (aka my worst nightmare) with Plus.net started on the 27th October 2011, when I migrated my landline phone and broadband service from Sky to Plus.net. At this point, I would just like to clarify that the only reason I decided to leave Sky, is that Plus.net was simply £5 per month cheaper and included 0870 and 0845 calls in its calling package. I was with Sky for over 18 months, without any issues on my line, and received a stable 6Mbps connection throughout the whole 18 month period.

Looking back, I can see now, that I made a terrible decision to leave Sky, all for the sake of £5 (or in modern terms, the price of a Starbucks coffee,….a pint of lager,…..or a really bad whore)!

Ever since that fateful day, when I plugged in my cheap router from Plus.net, I have had constant problems with the router keeping constant connection, actual connection speeds, wireless LAN speeds, and the rash on my balls from the stress of it all.

I must also point out, that these are not one-off issues with my router, as there are many other disgruntled  customers voicing their concerns in the Plus.net community forums. I have managed to resolve my wireless problems myself, by freeing my internet connection from the shackles from this vile cruel beast of a crap Thomson router (as supplied by Plus.net), and using my own Netgear router. Unfortunately however, I was still left with a bitter taste in my mouth…the Netgear router didn’t resolve the constant disconnection issues.

Nearly every day for the first week, when I came to my PC in the morning, I was presented with no connection to the internet.

This is something I am not familiar with, as my previous ISP’s such as Sky, BE and O2 all had stable connections. I have found myself constantly having to reboot the router to get an internet connection. And what makes it worse, is every time I have called Plus.net, I am told by some banana chomping, script monkey (and I believe this is verbatim)…

“Dont reboot the router, this will affect the connection speed!”

Well Plus.net, without sounding stupid, how am I to use my broadband connection when it’s down everyday? It only comes back on, once I reboot it! Plus.net seem to think that just leaving it for days will magically resolve the situation. That’s quite hard to do when you work from home and your PC is your work tool!  But maybe the little Plus.net leprechauns will magically appear and wave their magic dust over the router to make it work!

(For the record, I hate leprechauns – filthy little bastards – and if I see one in my room, I will put it in my microwave, and blow it up….like a gremlin!).

Not only have I had to face constant disconnections, but the speeds have been terrible! My connection speed with Sky and O2 has always been around 6Mbps. When plus.net first came on, I was seeing speeds of around 5.5Mbps which I was willing to accept, I have no need for high speeds as I only use my PC for work. However, the speeds are quite simply horrendous and fluctuate by the hour. I constantly find my speeds now below 2Mbps which BT claim is not acceptable for my line, yet Plus.net continue to do nothing to resolve. I have even posed numerous screen shots on the Plus.net forum of my speeds, some which are as low as 0.5Mbps (It would actually be quicker for me to drive to my local library, download this month’s video edition of Busty Asian Ho’s, and drive back home, than try to download my own personal filth over this connection!) .

I have telephoned Plus.net around 20 times since this nightmare began, and each time I am presented with what I can only describe as “robots” reading from generic scripts who have no interest in me, my connection problem, or the rash on my bald scrotum.

On the third week of Plus.net Hell, I rang Plus.net and asked to speak to a manager, thinking if the “robots” can`t help, then maybe a manager could. Well, let me tell you, don`t bother! I was greeted by what I can only describe as an arsehole (or as the French would say….le arsehole!) who continued to repeat himself over and over, stating that I should escalate my issue with the faults department. I tried to explain to him that I had done this on numerous occasions, and this was now my third week with a wholly sub-standard service, but his ears simply would not take in the information and he continued to sing the same bullshit about escalating the fault.

After a whole 34 minutes of listening to his constant dribble, I firmly asked to be connected to a higher manager, as I felt like the conversation was on a road to nowhere, to which he abruptly put me back in the queue to speak to faults! I then had to wait a further 15 minutes, just to tell someone all the information that I had already told the last arsehole.

I decided to leave it a few more days under advice from the faults department, who assured me the line would become stable. It didn’t. I rang Plus.net back around 4 to 5 days later to ask for a MAC to move my service back to Sky. I spent over 30 minutes on hold and then after explaining all the reasons why they had failed to provide me with a service, I was then told I could leave….but I would be subject to all the usual termination fees!

I quite simply cannot believe, that a company owned by BT can leave a customer with no service for nearly a month, and then have the sheer audacity to charge the customer to leave! I advised the cretin that I was speaking to, that I was only leaving due to THEIR poor service and the fact that it was completely unusable, but he simply kept repeating “You agreed to the terms at the start of your contract”. Yes I did, on the provision that I received an adequate service, which you have not provided.

No, according to Plus.net, once you sign that contract, your signing away your soul, and you’ll be paying for that connection, whether they provide you with a service or not. This is a company with no morals, standards, or rash cream.

Any decent company would have apologised and said ‘Fair enough, we have been unable to resolve the problems, so on this occasion, we will release you without charge’. But no, not Plus.net. 

Their slogan which is currently doing the rounds on TV is “Good Honest Broadband from Yorkshire”.

Good Honest Broadband, my hairless ballbags!

If you looking for a Broadband provider, I would recommend Sky Broadband or O2 Home Broadband.

The views in this article are those of the author and are not those of Go Gadget News and it’s affiliates.

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Virgin Media to beef up mobile-data backhaul

September 7, 2011 – 1:28 pm

Three, Orange, T-Mobile ink £100m deal for extra grunt

Three, T-Mobile and Orange customers will find it quicker to use the internet on their phones thanks to a new deal between the operators and Virgin Media Business. But the effects may take a couple of years to kick in.

Virgin Media has sold use of its UK-wide network of cables to the three carriers in an eight-year £100m deal. Virgin will also build 14 regional datacentres to boost bandwidth to Three, T-Mobile and Orange.

Under the new deal, Virgin Media will provide bandwidth to the phone masts at a rate of 1 gigabit per second. We’re still stuck with the 3G network for the second stage of the process: getting internet content from mast to phone aerial. So while the new Ethernet backhaul removes some bottlenecks from the process, others remain.

The new Ethernet system will also lay groundwork for the faster, more efficient 4G network, which will bring in speeds of 100Mb/s to end users, compared to the 1-3Mb/s available on 3G. But don’t hold your breath for 4G internet, it’s not coming to the UK for several more years.

Virgin Media said in a press release:

“With mobile data traffic set to increase by 33 times over the next decade all mobile operators are under increasing pressure to deal with the surge in mobile data. The mobile backhaul network will unlock capacity for the future.”

Article: RSS via The Register

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Orange juggles broadband price plans

September 5, 2011 – 5:07 pm

 

Claims UK’s cheapest rate – with caveats

Orange has tweaked its set of broadband packages, claiming the move makes it the cheapest ISP in the UK.

Maybe, but only if you’re also an Orange mobile phone customer, which qualifies you for a £5 discount.

That takes the price of the three packages to £5, £10 and £12.75, respectively. All of them incorporate “unlimited” broadband of up to 20Mb/s. The first also includes off-peak calls, the second all-day calls.

The third package, Simply Broadband, is designed to operate alongside call packages from other provides. So it doesn’t include the £12.75 line rental Orange will bill you for the other two packages.

And to all three offerings “an additional £10 a month applies for customers living outside of the Orange network area”.

Full details of the three broadband packages at Orange’s website.

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Are fixed-line broadband days numbered?

August 23, 2011 – 5:46 pm

Fixed-line broadband could be numbered, at least in Germany, where Vodafone is considering moving its fixed line DSL broadband customers on to (Long Term Evolution) LTE after the company said that it is costing a fortune in line rental to Deutsche Telekom through local loop unbundling (LLU). The move would be seen as quite a radical change as other areas of the market seem to be moving toward using more fixed-line services to help supplement mobile ones.

LTE offers a high bandwidth next-generation (4G) broadband solution which is usually thought of as a ‘mobile broadband’ product, but can work equally well as a replacement for a fixed-line solution. Speeds are offered at up to 50Mbps, which competes well with equivalent fixed-line services that are available in the UK.

By migrating all its customers over to LTE, Vodafone could save around €500 million a year which it currently spends on LLU with Deutsche Telekom, whose prices are higher than the equivalent here in the UK. We are unlikely to see many UK companies encouraging customers to switch in this way, as we are years behind on deploying next-generation LTE networks, mainly due to the lack of spectrum available to run this, which is hoped to become available through auction so services could go live in early 2014, although Europe is encouraging for services to be made available via other means sooner.

Article: RSS via ThinkBroadband

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New Cable Technology Promises 4.5 Gbps Download, 575 Mbps Upload Speeds

June 14, 2011 – 11:26 am

Watch out DSL providers, your fancy, schmancy fiber optic technology is about to be blown away by a cable telecommunications company from Suwanee, Georgia.

At the Cable Show 2011 conference in Chicago, ARRIS is demoing a new technology that delivers 4.5 Gbps download and 575 Mbps upload speeds over a cable connection. The system steals its bandwidth from DOCSIS cable channels, about 128 channels are pilfered for the downstream and 24 for the upstream connection.

Yes, that means you will receive 848 channels instead of 1,000, but who’s complaining. By the time this proof of concept technology makes it to your cable router, most of us will be watching all our TV on Hulu, Netflix or some other IPTV provider anyway.

Article: RSS via Gizmodo

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O2 UK and BE Decline to 669200 Broadband ISP Subscribers

May 13, 2011 – 11:09 am

Mobile operator and ISP O2 UK ( Be Broadband ) has released its latest first quarter (Q1) results to the end of March 2011, which rather disturbingly showed a worrying decline in its broadband subscriber base from 671,600 in Q4-2010 and down to 669,200 now (-2,400).

The situation is serious for O2, which has seen a sharper than expected decline in the growth of its broadband subscriber base since the end of last year. For example, O2 gained +17,600 broadband customers in Q2-2010, then +13,800 in Q3-2010 and just +7,800 in Q4-2010 before today’s fall.

Despite this the operator remains extremely well rated for the quality of its broadband internet access services and continues to receive awards. However, the problems may have more to do with their recent package and pricing changes.

It’s perhaps no coincidence that the biggest slowdown began shortly after O2 launched their revised broadband packages (here), which did away with promises of “unlimited” downloading and confusingly began promoting “download as much as you want” alongside a Fair Usage Policy (FUP). Customers still have to click around a bit just to find the FUP.

On top of that O2 then caused a high level of consternation among its existing customers by raising their prices in February 2011 (this was on top of the recent VAT rise). However, those still on the older and more popular legacy home broadband packages (e.g. the ones offering “unlimited downloads“) were hit by significantly higher rises (here).

Clearly O2′s recent changes and price hikes, despite being done in the name of wider network investment, have gone down like a lead brick. O2 has also shown no firm plan for any future superfast fixed-line broadband service (e.g. FTTC) adoption. The operator now faces a scramble to reverse its declining trend. At least it has some company, with both Orange and TalkTalk experiencing their own falls, albeit for different reasons (e.g. poor service).

On the bright side they managed to grow their fixed phone line customer base, which is often bundled alongside the related broadband packages, from 86,700 at the end of last year to 116,100 now.

Article: RSS via ISPreview

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TalkTalk launch HomeSafe Internet security system

May 9, 2011 – 2:28 pm

TalkTalk have launched their network-level Internet security product today which they are calling HomeSafe. It offers to protect users from nasties on the Internet giving warnings if web pages are infected with a virus or malware. The product has been mentioned before due to its somewhat controversial method of gathering data about what sites are infected by viruses by following users around the Internet and scanning each webpage they visit.

Other options included within this product are ‘KidSafe parental controls’ which allow the account holder to block categories of content that they don’t want their children accessing, such as pornography and gambling sites. A ‘Homework time’ option lets parents block social network and online gaming websites to ensure that children aren’t distracted from doing their homework.

“Our customers tell us that they couldn’t imagine living without the internet now, especially given how much their children rely on it for school work and social reasons, but they still worry about the innate risks the internet brings with it. In particular they’re concerned about what sort of things their children could stumble across when they’re surfing online.

This is especially important now that children are regularly using devices like phones, and not just the main family PC, to access the internet. Our research found that 33% of children aged 12-17 use their mobile phones to surf social networking sites and 29% use it to instant message when at home.

HomeSafe is our answer to this. Of course, it’s not a silver bullet and it doesn’t absolve parents from the responsibility of knowing what their children are up to online. But our research shows parents understand this. They don’t want their ISP to control what content they can or can’t access online – they just want their ISP to give them the power to implement settings that are right for their family.”

Tristia Clarke, (Commercial Director) TalkTalk

The new HomeSafe option is free to all TalkTalk customers who can choose to adjust the settings at any time to suit their families needs. This new tool is a welcome piece of kit to a parents armoury which will allow them to better manage their children’s Internet usage. Of course, it shouldn’t be seen as a magic wand as kids are often resourceful at finding ways around restrictions, and educating children about the appropriate use of the Internet remains important.

Article: RSS via ThinkBroadband

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TalkTalk goes silent

May 6, 2011 – 1:35 pm

Integrated services, integrated failure

TalkTalk, the Lidl of telephony providers, has suffered a catastrophic network failure that has taken down its website and disrupted voice calls for customers.

The company’s sites are currently displaying an apology, and stating that while voice services were disrupted they are now back up and running, so calls should be working fine.

We’ve had no reports of interrupted broadband internet access, but the online accounts and customer service sites aren’t available and the press office is defaulting to answerphone.

TalkTalk used to be owned by Carphone Warehouse, but now stands alone following the binary fission of its parent.

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Virgin Media trial 1.5Gbps cable broadband

April 20, 2011 – 3:37 pm

Virgin Media have announced that they are to start a trial this month with four companies in Old Street, East London, to test 1.5Gbps broadband over the same cable network they use to deliver broadband to residential customers. The connections will offer customers super-fast broadband which is fifteen times faster than the current 100meg broadband that Virgin can deliver. The UK average broadband speed at the end of last year was reported by Ofcom as 6.2Mbps, but this trial will see the companies connected receive a connection 242 times faster. The upload speed of the connection will be 150Mbps.

“Demand for greater bandwidth is growing rapidly as more devices are able to connect to the internet and as more people go online simultaneously. Our growing network provides a highly competitive alternative to the fastest fibre networks of the future and, with our ongoing investment plans, we can anticipate and meet demand as it develops over time, ensuring Virgin Media business and residential customers continue to enjoy world-class broadband.”

Jon James, (Executive Director of Broadband) Virgin Media

This test by Virgin is a real step forward into next-generation broadband and goes to show the future-proof capabilities of their cable broadband network using DOCSIS 3.0. They report that it will be the worlds fastest cable broadband connection when live. This could scare BT who will be aware that they will only be able to match these speeds from Virgin through upgrades to their fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) deployments. New fibre-to-the-cabinet (FTTC) installs which BT are using for the majority of their ‘next-generation’ connections are generally limited to around 100Mbps but have been able to attain speeds of 500Mbps in trials by Ericsson, but this required bonding of 6 telephone lines together. Full fibre-to-the-home will be the only way to really compete with faster connections.

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Comcast Extreme 105 serves up 105Mbps internet speeds for home users with deep pockets

April 14, 2011 – 9:57 pm

We first caught wind of Comcast’s 105Mbps broadband plans back in May of last year, but the time since then has been filled with silence until this very moment, when the service has gone official. Neither the name nor basic concept have changed, however, with the Extreme 105 offering 105Mbps download speeds tied to 10Mbps uploads. Pricing has been tweaked a little, starting at $105 a month for the first year when taken up as part of a Triple Play bundle. Comcast claims coverage of 40 million people with its new rollout, including folks in Baltimore, Chicago, Denver, Miami, Philadelphia, Portland, San Francisco, Washington DC, and “the majority” of Boston. More markets will come “on a rolling basis.” So what say you, are 105 megabits per second worth 105 dollars per month?

Article: RSS via Engadget

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