Best wishes to all our customers this festive season. We hope to find you well and looking forward to the joys offered by this time of year.

In this month’s newsletter we’ve got some Christmas ideas and we take a closer look at our online support systems. There’s also some good news for resellers of our service, information about a change in management and some details of what we have done regarding the recent fall in VAT.

Best wishes for a prosperous Eid, Happy Hanukkah and a very Merry Christmas to you all.
Carol Axe
(Customer Support Director and Plus Editor)

Contents

1. ‘Tis the season to be jolly
2. What does the VAT reduction mean to me?
3. Convenient and quick self-service
4. Changes at the top
5. One step closer to next generation broadband
6. Upgraded spam protection
7. Interested in reselling Plusnet broadband?

That’s right! The season of goodwill and shopping is now well and truly upon us. Over at the Community website we’ve got some ideas for your festive fayre and last minute Christmas presents. Why not reduce your carbon footprint this year by sending some e-cards?

Whether you’re doing all your shopping online or are braving the high street in person, we wish you all the best for the season and the New Year. Most of all though, thank you for being with Plusnet.

Read the full blog here.

2. What does the VAT reduction mean to me?

As most of the country that hasn’t been living at the bottom of a deep dark hole without any means of contacting the outside world will know, the VAT rate has now been dropped from 17.5% to 15%. What you may not know is what we have been doing about this. The good news is that this is being passed on across all of our Broadband packages, all of our Home Phone packages and all other services we currently offer.

Read the full article and FAQ here.

Did you know that our website is far more than just a place to buy broadband? We’d hope we can improve your online experience and maybe even make your life a little bit easier. Look after all parts of your service and check your usage in the My Account section. Check out how to set up everything from broadband routers to email software in the Support Pages or if you’re stuck for an answer, ask for help in the Help Assistant.

If you have a query or a minor fault or just want some information, it’s all here. The Help Assistant is the place to raise a question to our support team when it doesn’t have to be answered immediately. We use Help Assistant instead of email and it means you can get on with life while we sort out your problem. We’ll let you know when it’s ready by sending you an email alert or text message. You can then pick up your ‘ticket’ in My Questions at the website.

The Service Status page is always worth a look if something looks like it’s not working. All issues that could affect service are posted here and updated when we have further information or when resolved. Don’t forget also Usertools, our Community forums and of course our Webmail. Send and receive your email from any internet connection on the planet. You’ll never miss an ebay auction again.

Some changes to report here at Plusnet HQ in Sheffield. We’ve of course been very sad to say goodbye to Neil Laycock, our previous CEO, who leaves us to go on to new pastures. Neil’s successor is Anthony Vollmer who joins us from BT where he was previously General Manager of Voice Propositions in BT Retail’s consumer division.

A warm welcome then for Anthony and our very best wishes go with Neil.

Read the full article.

Dave Tomlinson has posted another blog telling us how the next generation trial is going. In summary – very well indeed! You can also see how our Marketing Director, Neil Armstrong is getting on with his trial line.

Read Dave’s blog here.

The move of our anti-spam solution from Postini to Ironport has now finished and the difference is definitely noticeable. You can read more about how the migration went and what our further plans are at the FAQ.

There’s more information in the FAQ, here.

7. Interested in reselling Plusnet broadband?

It’s been a long time coming, but as of the New Year we’ll be able to offer a preview of our Partner programme. While it has been possible for business account holders with multiple accounts to administer these, the Partner programme will bring all this together and make the whole process a great deal easier.

Along with a dedicated support team, centralised billing and the provision for signing up and ordering broadband for new accounts all in one place, this really will deliver everything the small business or SME needs to look after multiple accounts.

Sounds good? If you’d like to know more and it isn’t detailed in the blog article then drop us a line at businesssales@plus.net.

Plusnetplc Registered Office: Internet House, 2 Tenter Street, Sheffield, S1 4BY
Registered in England no: 3279013

Welcome to the latest edition of Plus, the Plusnet newsletter.

We’ve got some great news this month if you run your own website. There’s also faster upload speeds, new routers, and a redesign for the Community Forums.

As ever there’s exciting stuff in the pipeline that we’d love you to be a part of. Nearly everything we do comes from discussions with customers on our community site – come and join us and tell us what you’d like to happen.

Carol Axe
(Customer Support Director and Plus Editor)

Contents

1. Boost your upload speed for £8 a month
2. New kit makes it easy to connect
3. Important news for Webmasters
4. More recommendations for Plusnet!
5. Help us reorganise our community forums
6. Other news

If you’re a photographer, creative type, host your own website or regularly upload files you know that upload speed can be just as important as download. Now, for just £8 a month extra you can boost your upload speed with Max Premium.

The typical upload speed for broadband is 448kb/s, which works out at about 45kB a second. If you’re finding this too slow, Max Premium will increase the upload speed to a maximum of 832kb/s which will have your uploads done in half the time.

There’s more detail in the blog, if you’d like to request the upgrade you can do so at http://trials.plus.net.

2. New kit makes it easy to connect

Customers signing up for Broadband Your Way options 2, 3 or Pro now get the option of a Thomson 585v7 4-port wireless router. It’s a very solid piece of hardware that has proven to be more likely to hold a connection on long or noisy lines and it’s really easy to set up.

Don’t worry though, this isn’t just for new customers – there’s an offer in the pipeline for existing customers to be able to get their hands on one of these too.

The great thing about the Thomson 585 is that it supports TR-069. This isn’t some kind of a terminator-style killer robot or the latest two wheeled offering from a Japanese motorcycle company. TR-069 means that in the not-too-distant future the router will set itself up as soon as you plug it in. How about that? No more messing about with setting it up with usernames and passwords, it’ll sort itself out and connect to us as soon as it powers up.

Not only that but our customer support staff will be able to connect directly and securely to your router if you have a problem. This is good news for all of you who actively refer new customers to Plusnet.

For more information please read the blog entry.

We were amongst the very first UK ISPs to provide quality web hosting with our connections. Our homepages, FrontPage and CGI servers offer everything you need to create a website – whether you’re just starting out or already a web guru. Further development of these servers is limited and we’ve never been in a position to offer all the product options that we’d have liked to.

So we’re very pleased to announce our plans for a major overhaul of our web hosting servers. We’ll be using the popular Plesk software which will allow you to configure all aspects of your own webspace using an easy to understand web based interface.

You’ll be able to try out the new service on a trial basis very shortly and those keen to move over from CGI can do so right away.

More details about the trial and how to take part, as well as what to expect from the new hosting service, can be found over in the Web Hosting forum.

WebUser magazine has just voted us best broadband deal for students thanks to our monthly contracts and free overnight usage. We’re also the recommended option for gamers for Broadband Your Way Pro, and budget users for Plusnet Essential. Apple users will also be glad to know we’re officially Mac friendly.

Although we didn’t clinch the top spot, coming third in this year’s PCPro Awards 2008, we did get some great scores especially for Customer Support and Reliability. We’ll definitely be back and fighting hard for next year’s title.

Last but not least, in PC Advisor’s Reader Awards 2008,we took joint second place in the ‘Best Overall ISP’ section and picked up a PC Advisor Recommended badge for ‘best broadband deal’.

After much discussion and voting our community forums have been given a bit of an overhaul. However this is only the start – we need your help! Do they work? Are they easy to navigate? When the page opens, is it obvious where your question needs to be posted?

This is an ongoing process, but will be much better with your help. There’re now dedicated sections for feedback for both the community site itself and the service as a whole and we’d love it if you take part.

You can read the full blog on this page, there’s also more information on the thread on forum redesign and the Community Support forum.

What’s been going on in the CSC?

Well, when you have an award-winning call centre at your disposal it would be silly not to make use of it. As regular Community readers will know, we’ve begun sharing workflows between ourselves and our colleagues in Durban. Don’t worry though, the Sheffield nerve centre will remain just that – the absolute hub and centre of Plusnet.

Plusnet TV – we have a series of video interviews with staff from various departments in Plusnet, which will give you an intriguing insight into some of our staff and our ways of working. Come and meet Brad and Mike from the CSC, Ian from the products team, Nick from Marketing and Mark, one of our Business managers. You can see all the videos on our Community site.

Did you know we have a Usergroup? They are instrumental in the development of our service and have a part to play in everything we roll out. If you like the sound of that and think it might be something you’d be interested in, you’ll be glad to know they’re currently recruiting. Why not join in and make a difference to your service provider?

Plusnetplc Registered Office: Internet House, 2 Tenter Street, Sheffield, S1 4BY
Registered in England no: 3279013