Anyone using Plusnet as broadband provider?

[BridgetJonesPants]

Looking for a stand alone broadband provider for my mum (who currently has phone with BT & is tied with them for another 11 mths so can't switch at the moment). TV is freeview & she has no desire to change this.

Plusnet Essential are doing a stand alone broadband deal for £8.49 a month. This will give her a free router, up to 16mb speed & download limit of 10GB.

Mum lives on her own, unlikely to download anything other than BBC iPlayer programmes. She'll also prob facetime / iMessage family abroad. Grandchildren will prob use it when they're over a couple of times a week.

Does anyone have Plusnet as their broadband provider & if so, are they any good? Is it easy enough to set up the router they provide, and lastly will 10GB a month be enough for her?

PS - there is no cable in her area so she cannot get Virgin Media.

Thanks in advance for any advice.

They seem fine for us, although we have a bigger package than that. My ILs had a small-usage package, and ended up paying every month, as they watch a lot of forrin television online!

Does her existing provider allow her to track her internet usage?

We've used Plusnet for a while and found them really good. We had to upgrade to unlimited broadband but that was after the kids discovered youtube and minecraft videos .

Very poor experience with them, both at connection and when I switched away from them. They got a debt collection agency on to me despite the fact I owed them nothing. My personal view would be to avoid like the plague. Btw it took me five weeks to get connected.

I've had Plusnet for years and got it for my mum. The router was very easy to set up and I've never had a problem with them.

I'd add they are always top of Which? best broadband provider.

We use plusnet and find their customer service brilliant they replaced our router for free not even charging podstage when I spilt coffee in it. The router is pretty much plug in wait 15 minutes and go.

I've had no problems with plusnet and I work from home - I go for a smallish package and just pay a top up fee of £5 on the months I go over - it works out cheaper at the moment than paying more every month.

I had problems when setting up with them, a kerfuffle over whether or not I had a landline connection, and dealt with a very stroppy and rude bloke on the phone.

After I got passed to the complaints dept, they couldn't have been more helpful and were very generous in making up for the mistake.

Not had any problems at all with my connection, it's been consistently good. Overall would definitely recommend them!

I have fibre (fttc) from them and no issues.
Their web portal is good at showing usage, daily and monthly. So should be able to see how much of 10GB is being used and upgrade if required.

iPlayer files vary in size, look on website for filesize. 10GB may be enough for 14 hours of video, if watch it a lot will need more.

We have had good service from them (Moved from Thus about 18 months ago)

I have Plusnet BB - it was very easy to set up (first time it's gone without a hitch) and, when there have been problems since, the people at the call centre have been really helpful.

Thanks for all the replies, you've made the decision re broadband provider easy, will definitely go with Plusnet.

Happy Christmas everyone.

Wish I'd seen this earlier, as have recently changed to Plusnet Essentials (and phone) after trialling internet-only for about a year. To my surprise, I managed to set up router by myself, and have always found their people helpful. Happy Christmas.

I have Plusnet Unlimited, my DD has Essentials and Plusnet phone. It's fine. Router was the easiest one to set up that I've ever had, at least for wired connections (it did the basic stuff all by itself!)

I find the router very slightly less user-friendly than my old one for the advanced stuff, port forwards and so on, but perfectly doable and sounds like your Mum won't need any of that anyway.

And they are cheeeeap. A good choice for your Mum I think.

We've had them and they were fine. Someone may have already said it but they are owned by BT but are run separately.

I've been with then over a year. Never had any problems and they have a great diagnosis instruction leaflet. I got a hill that said I went over my 60gb limit. I queried it as was not something I had done in all the time I was with them. They looked at my us usage and it claimed I'd had high usage a day I was at work. They accepted this was unusual, we looked and checked all devices attached to my broadband, they disposed of the extra they tried to charge and switched me to a new package with 12 month contract which was unlimited broadband and £2.50 a month cheaper!

Also they are a free phone number and English call centre which I find much easier to deal with.

Been using them 10.5 years now - they have had some issues with customer support this year (mainly because they've done massive promotions at stupidly low prices - 2.99/month and below, for unlimited broadband {but requires line rental with them}).

Happy they have Sheffield (and in 2014 Leeds also) call centre(s), but wish they would offer some loyalty discounts for people who upgrade. Also they have an 0345 number in case you need to ring from a mobile (as 0800 still costs a lot more at present, though cost due to go down in 2015).

At start of 2013, they were offering Fibre (FTTC) service at half price for 6 months, and on top of that, around £90 cashback. That made it a saving of £150 for someone switching to their fibre service.

OK, a bit academic as fibre wasn't enabled here for 6 more months, but disappointing that as an existing customer one would get neither the discount price, nor the cashback for signup via TopCashBack or Quidco (I forget which it was).

I'm not against them wanting to attract new customers - they are taking market share by doing such discounts mostly to compete with the likes of TalkTalk, but given their price is generally low, feel the difference shouldn't be quite so massive!!

£150 off £360 (for an 18 month Fibre contract) is a lot to save compared with someone already using Plus.Net who would be expected to pay the full £360. Deals may be a bit less generous now, but still leave a rather bitter taste in my mouth...

I've been a customer of theirs for years and got a 6 month half price deal when I switched to fibre optic bb.

I'm with them and they're fine.

How many programmes does your mum watch? I find a programme seems to be about 1gb for an hour. We have unlimited now (was cheaper than the 60gb package I moved to) so not so sure now as don't check as much)

bisjo - thanks for the info. I know it's always worth asking, and I would be willing to, but on a different aspect, I've noticed that while the Chinese takeaway across the street gets an estimate of 67 Mbps, the estimate for my home is only 33.5 Mbps. We're fed from different cabinets, the one for the Chinese is about 40 feet from the back of my home (!) but the one that serves our houses is several hundred yards away, with cables serving 4 blocks of flats, too, so guess distance and 'noise' (electrical) may cause the lower speed...

As a result, since Primus is offering unlimited 38 Mbps fibre, while Plus.Net 38 Mbps fibre costs the same but has a 40 GB allowance (I used 400 GB last month on a 10 Mbps line), I'm tempted to get a free install from Primus for fibre and later on, see if I can wangle a connection from Plus.Net from the cabinet at the back of the house, and get 65+ Mbps (while paying a little more for their 78 Mbps, unlimited Fibre account).

It was the major saving I saw when taking the cashback amount into account on top of reduced rental for a period, which got to me. Also, just timing, I guess that they used to do 6 month reductions but currently limit them to 3 months, so pat yourself on the back for getting a reasonable deal

I had problems with my bb connection as I was on the edge of three exchanges so they suggested I switch to fibre optic bb and offered an incentive.