What I can't understand is that three to four years ago the majority of customers joining broadband ISPs were new customers but now they are mainly migrating and do not need a router or a new connection so are bound to feel a 12 or 18 month contract is not justified.  The insistence on 18 months seems to be pure dogma as though people can be conned in to it because it also exists for subsidised contract phones, even though there is an economic justification for the former, when expensive handsets are bundled free of charge, but no justification for the latter.  Obviously if people get initial months at half price then again the lock-in may be justified but the ISPs should offer an option to forgo the free months in return for only having to give one month's notice to leave.

I'm certain that Mand is a real person, but was it her all the time or someone else using her account - so it looked consistent - because she was on all day practically for four days - and some evening and this morning ?. If it really was her all the time in person - she did exceptionally well.

Was she on her own - I guess not - if I had been a product manager there - I would have set up a special conference room - just to cope with this work and had back up to support the person on the keyboard, including myself and other senior staff - even if we didn't touch the keyboard..

I've never done a product launch over the internet - but in events where customers are in a conference room, at an exhibition or at HQ  there was a big team of us, and the event led by either the Managing or marketing/sales directors - and when they didn't know the answer to the question - they asked the product managers. One memorable occasion like that we had about 10 Chief Constables in the audience and goodness knows how many Superintendents & Inspectors and civil support staff. That was an awe sum experience. 

Mand - in this context  does restricted mean that you can only go to the portal to add new bandwidth or can you still browse at 128kbps

Plusnet have been adding more capacity recently.  Thing is, do they plan to keep adding capacity through the next year or two, if the influx of new subscribers accelerates as they expect?   ie, in short, will the pipes become more/over congested?

In short yes. We've re-evaluated our forecasting, and will increase bandwidth in line with customer numbers and network performance.

Restrictions mean that you'd be directed to the portal, and asked whether you want to remain restricted or add extra usage.

Our most successful offer in recent months was for a free wireless router on our BBYW products.

All the new products have an 18 month contract as default. Obviously that's where most of the negative feedback has originated in this thread, and that has been passed on to the rest of the business.

The price is comparable to the BBYW additional usage pricing (before the marginal VAT decrease anyway, it was rounded up to £1 per GB for simplicity). Most customers who buy additional usage buy more than 1GB, so I can't see this being too big an issue.

I'm not sure what the question is here, we haven't made any changes to any of the BBYW products?

You may be passing it on to the rest of the business, but do they actually listen?

That's not entirely true. People who use BBYW2-4 and pre-purchase extra GB only pay £0.75 per extra GB.

I believe what Galdere is saying is that Plusnet 'Unlimited' effectively replaces BBYW3 but with extra bandwidth (although it does also include more stringent traffic management), hence the hypothesis that perhaps Plusnet Pro could see some more bandwidth included too.

Thanks for answering my questions Mand.

I'll just come back on one of them please, the extra bandwidth.

It is unnecessary to charge by every 2Gb imho. I am on Pro, but I imagine it would hurt those on Value more.

If the price has to go up (from 73p/98p) then any change in the bandwidth amounts would be preferable per 100mb than 2gb for obvious reasons.

To double to 2gb is making more money off what people dont want to use.

The usage allowance on Pro was considered as part of the refresh, but there isn't the scope within the pricing for a substantial increase.