8 things…

A long time ago in a galaxy far, …err, sorry, back in September, we kicked off a little competition to win an iPod, linked in with our first big advertising campaign in t’Big Smoke. For those of you that haven’t yet become completely bored with the ‘London Calling’ blog entry that’s been lingering on here for weeks, you can refresh your memory here.

The competition has now closed, and a winner has been picked. We had some great entries, as well as a handful of efforts that would make even Jedward blush, but the judges were able to reach a verdict without deferring to the public vote. Congratulations are therefore in order for Sarah Smith and her list of 8 fun things she’d recommend that you do before you die, reproduced here for you to draw inspiration from:

• Join a flash mob- Flash mobs have become a worldwide phenomena in which a large group of unrelated, essentially random, people all converge in one place, perform an unusual action for a short time, and disburse again. Flash Mobs were invented in 2003 in Manhattan, but they can now be found in almost every city in the world. In 2006 the London Underground was overtaken by 4,000 people who all silently danced to their iPods. More recently T-mobile featured one in their ad campaign. Absolutely awesome, wholesome, fun! Join up here.
• Be a nude model- This one may be a little risky, but it is worth it for the story you can tell your friends (and possibly your family!) afterwards… Look up your local art class (or possibly an art class in the next town or city if you are really scared!) and offer your services. Then simply turn, up, strip and bare! Very liberating, and you will even get paid for it J
• Go to a film premiere- This one is an easy task for most people living in California, but not so easy for people in the UK, outside of London! But I would say it is even worth the airfare to get to a premiere if you can afford it. I recently met Tom Cruise (seriously! And even managed a brief chat with him. The spend was worth it for the subsequent kudos and Facebook status updates (with pics!))…… Who knows, maybe a superstar will see you and fall in love with you (that didn’t happen to me, alas).
• Invent something- We live in a fast paced society where gadgets exist for virtually every task –occasionally you might have a Eureka! Moment where you think of that genius idea, which nobody has yet invented. Don’t just let the thought go, why not try your hand at inventing it? Just remember, as soon as you have completed your invention, patent it and give it a fab name. Who knows, if you don’t make a mint out if it, you might still make it onto Dragon’s Den!
• Stay in the best suite- This is something you have to do at least once in your life. Save up your mullah and book a night at the poshest hotel in your city – or better still, go to a different/bigger city, and book the most expensive suite. While you are there make sure you saved enough cash to tip well (it gives you a sense of enormous well-being, as per Blur’s Parklife!) and to enjoy all of the benefits of the hotel – like fabulous food, massages, pool, and spa. There is nothing grander than waking up in a magnificent penthouse suite with a hangover. Just remember, if you steal the bath towels or dressing gown you may find an unexpected bill turning up on your credit card the following month J
• Participate in a police lineup- Volunteer at your local cop shop to participate in a lineup. It’s a bit of fun, if you like that sort of thing, and you sometimes get a free lunch as well as your fee for taking part… of course, when offering your services – make sure you didn’t commit the crime! For added ‘lol’ value, wear something fun like a T-shirt that says ‘I did it’ and be sure to look shifty. A novel experience.
• Invent a cocktail- Who doesn’t love a good cocktail? There are thousands of spirits, liqueurs and other alcoholic concoctions, out there for the tasting – so go to an off-license, stock up, and try as many variations as you can! Make a night of it with some friends, you are bound to stumble upon a masterpiece to showcase next time you have a party. Remember to keep a bucket handy – after a night of tasting cocktails you will need it.
• Do a skydive- Jumping out of a plane sounds like something you might actually die whilst doing, doesn’t it?! Better make it last on the list then! Seriously though, with a proper instructor, preferably in a scenic place, this will be something you will want to repeat again and again….If you do decide to give it a go, I would recommend that you shave off any facial hair you may have for extra speed J

Thanks to all entrants for taking the time to put together your lists. Here’s a handful of the best ones:

Susie Chambers likes to dial it up all the way to 11, even on a school night:

• Sleeping under the stars because as you doze off it’s like looking at the biggest screen in the world!
• Not scheduling in more than one trip out on weekend days because otherwise you don’t get any “you time”.
• Watching the film ‘Spinal Tap’ because it’s a classic and to start with you don’t know whether it’s a spoof or not.
• Visiting Disneyland before you die because all of us want to be kids forever deep down!
• Learning to play a musical instrument because it’s great therapy if you’re feeling down.
• Telling your children, if you have any, that you love them because so many people forget to just come out and say it and it matters so much for children to know they’re loved.
• Warn people you go out drinking with whether you’re a person (like me!) to get carried away with the music and end up randomly dancing on your own on the dance floor because it’s important to remember to head home before 3am, especially if you’ve got work the next day!
• Always look for opportunities to learn because we’re so blessed to have these opportunities in our society whereas in other areas of the world people just don’t get the chance.

Phil Darling has some unorthodox efficiency savings to offer to help get through the credit crunch:

• Go Bald – I can recommend this as all the ladies love a baldy, and if all else fails you can do an impression of a walnut every time you look up.
• Don’t eat anything brown – Most things brown are poisonous, and the things that aren’t are probably not very good for you.
• Never answer the phone after 7.00pm – it will be a nice gentleman that insists you need new windows or that your life insurance isn’t up to date
• Never polish your car – it is a proven fact that if you polish your car it will rain within the hour. Also a shiny car is more attractive to a thief
• Put your socks on while sitting on the toilet – can save valuable time in the morning if you hit the snooze button once too often
• Eat at least one curry a week (as long as its not brown, see (2))- helps the digestive tract deal with the rigors of life
• Don’t howl at the moon – it worries the neighbours and isn’t clever.
• Expectant fathers watch the Simpsons – provides valuable parental advice for fathers. Just follow Homers example, I have and my kids are great.

Daniel doesn’t like Mondays, but clearly loves his ergonomic management style keyboard, given that ‘suck-up’ final recommendation:

• Peep Show. It’s back, it’s British and it’s still the funniest thing on TV. Proof that everything is more entertaining in the first person.
• Tuesdays. They give you the longest period of time until the next Monday.
• The Nintendo Wii. Trust good old Nintendo to make computer games sociable, popular and even healthy in one swoop. Plus no more repetitive strain in my thumb (and only a little tennis elbow!)
• Lolcats. Funny pictures of cats. Needz Iz say morre?
• http://www.saynoto0870.com. A great money saver, this lists a free alternative to almost any expensive 0870 number you can think of.
• Google Earth. You’d never wondered what a bird’s eye view of your house would look like but now it’s been invented I bet you really want to see it!
• The Nectar card keyring tag. Not just a regular Nectar card but if you lose your keys, the finder can send them back to the free Nectar address and the nice people there will return them to you. Peace of mind and points for my shopping.
• Your nice cheap value broadband. Call me a suck up if you like but it’s cheap, it’s fast, it has a decent download limit and it works. I use it and who are you to say I’m wrong?!

Sonja is never knowingly undersold:

• Mytholm mist beer – because it is gorgeously smooth and refreshing.
• Dishwasher – a Bosch one because they are very energy efficient and quiet and who in this day and age actually wants to wash up?
• Ebuyer – Great products at fantastic prices, most products are reviewed and they even include bad reviews if they are appropriate. Also they are based in Sheffield and you can talk to a real person if you want.
• Goosedown duvet – so warm and snuggly and lightweight if you buy an expensive one.
• Hotel Chocolat – once you’ve tried them you will not want to go back to cheap chocolate. A small piece goes a long way.
• Sockies – saves hours matching up socks especially good in a household of 4 when you all have black socks – they mean that your socks stay together as a pair through the wash and tumble drier and each person has their own colour of sockie so they can be easily sorted. Unfortunately I haven’t been able to track any down for a while, they used to have them in Asda and Lakeland.
• Lakeland Ltd – Fantastic cookware and innovative products. Their staff are second to none and if you haven’t managed to get what you visited the store for they will send it on to you. They also offer a money back guarantee if you are not happy with anything you have bought no matter how long ago you bought it – amazing!
• John Lewis – they have seemingly happy, well trained and knowledgeable staff and it shows. A shopping trip to any John Lewis store is always a pleasure as the shops are well laid out, clean and have no clutter.

Paul Bennett is no doubt making the most of our Twitter feed:

• http://www.twitter.com a fun, easy to use, positive (so far!) and amazingly powerful social network site- get feedback / mass action on a query / complaint etc, often from the main man/woman in charge!  Loads of celebs use it too, and reply to their fans’ messages too- way cool!
• http://www.saynoto0870.com find cheaper landline numbers for a lot of UK firms that use (and retain a slice of the call costs) a higher rate phone number, just to call them- that’s before you even get to buy something you want!
• Automated phone banking- None of this press 1 for some unhelpful oik, or queuing for ages, etc- just call up, verify ID etc, get balance, transfer money, etc..
• http://www.freecycle.org Give a new lease of life to your unwanted items, instead of throwing them away, which means they eventually end up in nasty, overfull landfill sites.. everything is free- you offer, someone local collects! You can also find some great items, too- most towns/cities have their own collective, on yahoo groups.
• http://www.google.com/maps Quickly find a destination (AND the easist way there from another point, by car / public transport, or even walking!)
• http://www.funkylunch.com Some great pics, of inspiring food ideas!
• http://inter.scoutnet.nl/morse/morseform.html A free, fun (and probably useful too!) morse code translator. useful for sending secret messages that you dont want people to realise.. unless they know morse code of course).
• http://www.mathsisfun.com/games/ Some great online games- try the devilish connect4!)

Naturally, I couldn’t close without a shameless plug for our own products. If you’re with Plusnet for Home Phone, you won’t really need ‘Say No To 0870’, as 0845 and 0870 calls are now bundled in the inclusive call time for both our talk plans. Find out more here.

Boring legal bit – please note that whilst I’ve checked the links and everything looks above board, ultimately Plusnet are not responsible for the content of external sites.

Over 12,000 UK broadband customers took part in the survey. The results saw Plusnet keep top spot for Quality of Connection, which we are extremely proud of and hope to win it again next year.

Although Plusnet didn’t keep 1st place for overall customer satisfaction, our score actually increased by 2% compared to last year. It was a similar story in the best deal category with a 9% increase not quite enough to keep the crown.

Similar to our results last year, O2 won 9 out of 11 this time around, with Plusnet coming in 2nd place in 5 categories and 3rd place in 4 more. We want our titles back O2! Just wait until next year…

The results do make good reading, especially when you consider we are the only provider across the top 3 in all categories that don’t provide broadband over an LLU service.

So the target has been set to win back some of the titles next year. You can be sure we’ll be trying our hardest to make this happen.

You can read more about the awards, including the full list of categories on this page.

Thanks for reading.

Chris

The faults team are in place to handle connection problems from a second and third line point of view after the initial diagnostics have been completed.

After every fault has been closed with us, we send our customers a survey to see how their fault experience was and if we can improve in any way. Usually this would be reviewed every 3 months and the results posted on a blog like this one.

This time the survey actually covers a 6 month period.
The previous results were:

• 47% were kept updated by SMS
• 29% were not aware of 0808 free dialup access
• 74% rated the process as above average
• 53% were very or extremely satisfied overall
• 16% felt we did not understand their problem.

This period the results are as follows:

• 42% were kept updated via SMS – down by 5%
• 28% were not aware of the 0808 access – down by 1%
• 76% thought the process was above average – up by 2%
• 59% were very or extremely satisfied overall – up by 6%
• 9% felt we did not understand their problem – down 7%

The above results have shown an increase in our customer satisfaction, whilst at the same time also showing a decrease in customer dissatisfaction. Both of these are pleasing results which is showing that the overall faults process seems to be improving and customers are generally happier in the way that we handle their fault.

We have seen a drop in the amount of customers using our SMS service which we feel will get a great deal of our attention now. With the ability to use our two-way text systems we feel it allows customers to communicate with us with more ease rather than having to call.  This is essential in making lives easier for our customers who struggle to get on-line.

In more recent months we have found that we are ever more on top of faults work and that we’re providing updates on a more frequent basis. Plans are now being put in place to try and improve how fast we handle faults and to get initial diagnostics completed sooner so we can have engineers out faster and therefore clear line faults in more timely fashion.

There has been a decrease in the amount of people using our 0808 (FRIACO dialup) access but as we get further and further away from the years of dial up access then this is understandable as more customers don’t own dial up modems any more.

Currently we’re trialling our ADSL2+ service and how we will handle the faults process when we move to the new network. This is still very much a trial for both ourselves and BT and progress is being made.  We hope to move this from being a trial to a standard service we offer very soon. You can join the trial here.

Thanks for reading and if you have any questions or comments please feel free to leave them below.

The trial has now been running for several months with a number of customers being invited via our Community forums. To take part you need to be in an area of the country where ADSL2+ is available. You can read more in the dedicated ADSL2+ trial forum.

ADSL2+ is the next generation of broadband..
You can find out about the basics of ADSL2+ at our website.

More technical information can be found at Wikipedia and how it is being deployed in this country. It uses a new BT network called 21CN. If you don’t fancy wading through the Wikipedia articles there’s also a blog we wrote late last year when we first started the trial.

If you’re interested, and we do hope you will be, you can reserve your place on the trial by raising us a ticket at http://trials.plus.net – you’ll need to confirm that you have an ADSL2+ capable modem or router, we have a list of compatible hardware on our website. Alternatively you could check the literature or box that your hardware came in as this should state whether it is compatible with ADSL2+ or not.

If you don’t have one already, don’t worry – we’ll be able to supply one for £29.99 plus £6.99 postage, alternatively if you aren’t already in any contract we’ll be able to send you one for free if you’re happy to stay with us for 12 months (you’ll still need to pay for the postage though). If you need one of these please request it on the ticket you raise when applying for the trial.

Before we go into detail about how to apply we must stress that this is a trial and as such there may be teething issues with the service. We’ll be able to get any issues resolved for you in the same way as we would for regular ADSL services (i.e. by raising a fault to our supplier) and these processes have worked well thus far. As this is a trial however, there may still be ‘bugs’ in the systems. We’d also ask that you initially report any service affecting issues to our discussion forums. This will ensure a response from an agent trained in dealing with the 21CN platform.

If you are interested after reading all that, you can reserve your place by raising us a ticket at http://trials.plus.net. If you’re still not sure and would like some more information we have a couple more blogs from us at the start of the trial and an update on how things are going from September. There’s also a blog from Neil Armstrong, about his trial line and how that’s going.

If you have any questions regarding the trial that you would like answered before making any decisions, please feel free to ask them in our forum. You can also check if your exchange has been enabled for 21CN on our exchange checker. At the time of writing 267 exchanges across the country have been enabled and we expect around 40% coverage by the end of March.

Terms and conditions for the trial have been posted separately.

Many thanks for reading, we hope to be supplying you with next generation broadband in the very near future.

Dave Tomlinson

Plusnet Product Team

Over the years we’ve received a lot of feedback from businesses and resellers trying to manage multiple accounts via the Plusnet website. Whilst functional, it was a bit of a pain. We’ve had many requests to provide a reseller or partner programme which allows centralised billing, account management, dedicated tech support and online provisioning, in fact all the tools and facilities needed to manage multiple accounts.
It took us a while but we’re nearly there. Plusnet Partner, for Corporates, SME’s, Channel Resellers and ISPs is on its way.

We’re really looking forward to wishing you guys a happy New Year and launching our brand new Plusnet Partner Programme.

Manage your end users, branch offices, your teleworkers or homeworkers or add another solution to your service wrap. Plusnet Partner will deliver to your needs.

If you’re like me and can’t wait that long, then drop us an email at businesssales@plus.net and one of our Partner team will get back to you for a chat.

We’ll be back with more news and a preview in the New Year. I’m really looking forward to it.

We’ve put together a FAQ to answer some of the questions we’re being asked.

What are Plusnet doing about the VAT changes?
We’ll be passing on the reduction in VAT to our customers in their regular monthly subscriptions. Some ‘one-off’ charges such as postage and packing on hardware won’t be changed.

How will this affect me?
If you are a residential customer you will see a modest reduction in your monthly subscription fees. For business customers where prices are quoted excluding VAT, the price will remain the same, but the amount of VAT paid will be 2.5% lower.

What about referrals?
Referrals for residential customers will remain as they are – we’re not making any changes for referral credits. In other words we’re not reducing the amount we give you back in referral value for residential products in line with the VAT changes. However, for business referrals where pricing is excluding VAT, the paid out value will be slightly less after VAT is calculated.

Does this affect Broadband and Home Phone/Talk?
Yes, this will lower the monthly cost all of our residential subscription services including Home Phone.

What about Home Phone top ups?
We’re not making any changes to the way that you can top up your Home Phone account, but whatever you top it up by, will go a little bit further!

What about domain pricing?
As we quote domain pricing on our website as excluding VAT, the quoted price will remain the same, but the amount of VAT payable will be reduced.

What if I’m on a product that you don’t sell any more?
Our old products (no longer for sale) will also have their subscription costs reduced accordingly. For example, Broadband Premier will be charged at £21.52 instead of £21.99.

Isn’t this a change to my Terms and Conditions?
It’s not a change to your terms and conditions as the price has not increased. We’re only required to give our customer notice of a change to their terms and conditions if there is a “detrimental change”, such as a price increase.

Can you give me more detail about what I will pay? Won’t the prices be a little odd?
If, for example, your broadband subscription is currently £9.99 and is paid on the 23^rd of every month you’ll pay less, £9.75 to be precise, on 23^rd December.

Keen mathematicians amongst you will have noticed we’ve rounded-down the reduced cost by a further 3p to make a ‘manageable’ price point. We’d find it difficult and clumsy to have products at a price point of £9.78 for example. Over the year that represents a total saving of £2.88.

If you have a question not covered here please do ask and we’ll be happy to look into it for you.

We’ve had our issues with the e-mail service in the past but these are long behind us and we have invested significantly in the platform in recent years, and continue to do so.

In fact we’re about to embark on more upgrades in the coming weeks and months, further improving our anti-spam/anti-virus solution by rolling out Ironport appliances. Then early next year we’re giving our webmail a new lick of paint and moving to Roundcube.

Those of you who’ve been around a while will remember that we upgraded our anti-spam/anti-virus solution around a year ago to a commercial product from Postini which gave us significant benefit over our in-house system. We have been working hard in the background evaluating a number of alternative systems including Postini of which Ironport was the clear leader for our environement.

The key benefits of the Ironport system are:

• Improved detection rates
• Decreased false positives
• Outbound scanning to ensure we are not blacklisted
• DKIM signed e-mail
• Quarantine notification
• Secure SMTP delivery

We’ve seen issues mentioned this year on The Register with e-mail upgrades and migrations at Sky and this week migration issues at Tiscali I want to assure you that our planned upgrades will not cause you any issues and I’m sure you’ll agree that they enhance your service.

Bob will be along shortly with a detailed post on our planned migration to Ironport with all of the technical details of what the system will offer you.

Update: Bob’s post has now been published and can be found here.

Phil Webb

Networks Director, Plusnet