Anyone with Plusnet?

[starfish4]

We're looking at transferring to PlusNet. If anyone is with them, are you happy? Did the transfer from your old supplier to PlusNet go okay? If you've had any problems, how were they at sorting them out?

I am, and I really rate them. Their customer service is exceptional.

I could save more if I went to bt or sky but I'm really happy with plusnet fibre.

My Mother is with Plusnet and their help line seems to have virtually infinite patience.

A few years ago now... Was with O2, changed to Plusnet. Product at the time was ADSL. Changed to Plusnet Fibre.
Only problem I had was that the router was not delivered in time for the fibre install. Not a huge issue for me, as Plusnet gave me login details so I could direct connect via Ethernet. Router turned up the following day, so guess it got delayed in the post. This was late Jan 2012.
Fibre was upgraded, Plusnet contacted me (via email) to let me know a new product was available (this was Aug 2012) and a quick phone call resulted in them upgrading my package, which also resulted in lower cost and a new router as it had to be changed to support the faster connection.

I think I called support once when the line went down, they quickly acknowledged that there was a fault - think it was with some authorisation server somewhere - and gave details of how to kick the router into trying a new connection.

So no major issues with Plusnet. Have phone with them as well, with annual line rental (helps reduce the cost).

Plusnet are fab, fab, fab. Transfer to them was super easy and that was about 5 years ago. Then moved house a couple of months ago and taking Plusnet with me was seamless. I was with Virgin Media before PN and I'm sooo glad I moved to them.

Been with them 12 years now. Happy to recommend them, though with the growth in customer numbers (and their tempting deals for new customers), I have seen a number of complaints (on Broadband Choices I think mostly)

1. about problems with installation (not directly under PN's control - Openreach can be sluggish, or do daft things... (*) The delays have gone down since 2013/14 when getting a new business line might have had a lead time of 6 weeks.

2. Customer Service lines are slow to answer. They've opened a second call centre in Leeds, but whenever they take on extra CS staff, it takes some of their existing staff to do the training, and that in turn puts a strain on the service and answering speed. Also a few comments only have suggested staff being rude or unhelpful and putting the phone down.

While I'm sure it may happen in a minority of instances, the people I've come across have been very helpful and friendly, but from the forum on Thinkbroadband (where PN staff do come online and respond to questions) I know that incidents of rudeness etc are chased, and staff retrained or given P45.

As with many "reviews" websites, you'll see people online mostly giving their horror stories, but remember PN has around 750,000 customers (and no doubt growing) so if only 1% had problems, they can make a lot of noise.

I only spotted your thread late in the day (I work nights), but pleased to see ringing endorsements for Plus.Net. I'm about to promote PN online (hopefully, one day, the commission will not just cover my PN bill but pay me £1K a month :) )

() Sorry saga of my line problems: nothing the ISPs could do (I use Plus.Net and Post Office)... In March I had no use of my second phone line (voice or broadband, from Post Office) for approx 7 days ( twice* - once at start of month then again at end).

Then the day after service restored second time, my first phone line (Plus.Net) went dead (that was Tuesday before Easter, and no engineer until Tuesday after Easter - and then the new guy was not allowed to work underground until end of April, so spent 90 minutes checking back to the green cabinet and then a few hours later someone else came along to fix it).

Openreach needs to replace the Aluminium wiring (with lots of breaks between the roads near me and the green BT cabinet), and it matters not which ISP you use, the wiring is the same, from BT/Openreach.

I have two lines as I am involved with websites and support for clients so if broadband is down, the second line is my fast (10 Mbps) backup and if both lines are down, I can still use my mobile on Three from a laptop.

I changed from BT about three years ago, managing to connect router myself from their leaflet (still a real non-tech newbie), and apart from one sudden, unexplained usage increase, have had no problems.
Change of password at this time took nearly two days to become effective, but all the various call centre people were amazingly patient and helpful, and I'd still recommend them.

We had plusnet for nearly 3 years. We moved because we wanted bt infinity and Bt sport but I'd say they were very, very good.

I don't like BT (indian call centres and no straight answer to anything e.g. what does a 0844 call cost?). However, plusnet were really good with clear billing and a very good online account system.

Plusnet are ownee by BT, i think. However, the service is night and day.

Plusnet are to fixed line services what giffgaff is to mobile broadband and calls. (I am also a giffgaff customer!).

Just to point out that you can use Fibre from Plus.Net now, and get BT Sport (assuming you have a Sky box)... So while I cannot vouch for the T Sport, and don't have FTTC {get annoyed when I see great deals for new customers only}

Fantastic Recommended

aaargh - should have hit preview again!

don't have them to vouch for them, but such things are possible (and all with their Yorkshire based CS - incidentally, it appears CS staff will increase from 200 to 450 in Leeds, while Sheffield has 850 CS staff.

Terrible service from Plusnet my partner has been waiting for 7 months for them to install a line in the new house in Brecon Beacons. Appalling service constantly passing the buck

fairbalance - re delay in install - the engineers are fromOpenreach (part of BT) and outside Plus.Net's control...

As I mentioned in my earlier post - it wasn't Plus.Net or Primus (which rents the line to me) that sent the new engineer to me on the Tuesday after Easter, the one who was so new he was not allowed to work on the 'underground plant' - and all the wiring on our estate is underground, but Openreach sent him anyway, and some hours later, a guy with 20 years at BT came because he was allowed to open the manholes...

Clearly Openreach didn't know their left from their right, and should have sent the more experienced engineer first time. The young new engineer was pretty cross too, after being on the job for 90 minutes, that he'd have to report back that it needed an engineer for the underground plant. (In fact he was fuming they had sent him on this job, knowing full well that he could not touch the underground wiring, but he was polite and friendly to me... I could quite understand his frustration, though, under the circumstances.)

The ISPs and telecom firms have been blamed time and again, but the delays, missed appointments and poor handling of jobs is not in their control, it's nearly always down to Openreach.

Ofcom ran a review because of the complaints and problems and Openreach promised to hire an extra 1,000 engineers, within the last few months. A year or two ago, I was trying to get business phone lines ordered, not in a rural area, but central Chester, and they were quoting a lead time of 3 months.

I know it's much less than 7 months and agree that is appalling, but have to defend Plus.Net if the problems are not caused by their staff, but by Openreach in the Brecon Beacons area.

I am with them, have found the product supplied equal to Sky and Talk Talk previously. Transfer wasn't very smooth though. Broadband transfer was delayed because they wanted a MAC code, but I wasn't told this on sign up online. And they didn't bother to email me either. When I eventually queried this they told me they needed MAC code, and blamed 'human error' when I wanted to know why they didn't bother to ask for it before. Transfer to phoneline was further delayed because they said my address didn't exist - has never been a problem before with any other transfer of service. Because of these delays I ended up spending far more on 2 extra months of service with the previous provider.

TLDR - product is good, customer service is awful. I am fearful if anything goes wrong and I need customer service to do anything. I will transfer back to a company with good customer service next year.

Been with them 11 years!

No problems.

KC - they have certainly had CS problems over the past 18 months or so (expansion in customer numbers and lots of cheap broadband deals with TV ads etc - I see even Money Saving Expert reporting broadband and phone line for total under 90 quid for a year {based on getting 100 quid voucher as a 'thank you' and user must pay line rental for full year, up front}), but they also still come out high for customer satisfaction in comparisons, year after year.

I guess there will always be someone in the 0.5% who has major problems.

Puzzled over the request for a MAC - if you were with Sky or TalkTalk in the first place, then I'd have expected the switch of voice to be first, with broadband the same day or within 72 hours of switching the voice.

Up until the voice has been switched, the line would come under the LLU (local loop unbundling) scheme, where another network (Sky, EE, TalkTalk) takes over the voice and data connections at the exchange, and in that situation, there's no need for a MAC (as that's for a transfer from one ISP renting service from Openreach, to a similar ISP, that also gets service from Openreach.

In my case one line is rented from Primus and the ISP is Plus.Net, so I'd only need a MAC if moving from Plus.Net to another ISP that uses Openreach. An LLU service such as one of the major players would not use the MAC, but be able to connect both data and voice once they were in control of the line.

It was all very odd, I was with Sky before. We are rural so no idea how the exchange works, but it was different with Plusnet than with any other change. I didn't mind the MAC request, it was the fact they didn't bother to tell me and I had to contact them to find out. Then the 2 weeks it took to be sent it!