I have been with Plusnet since 2005 and have excellent service. But I am now having difficulty in finding a Plusnet package that is suitable.

We are a family of four and the two boys are using the internet more and for homework , music ect.

We were on the old Premier option 1, 20GB which starts to slow down when you hit 12GB and virtually stops near 20GB peak time.

I have just moved to Pro which at least gives 20GB at full speed at all times. We typically use between 12 and 30GB.

The 80GB replacement for unlimited is again a traffic managed service.

What I am looking for is full 8MB speed at all times with 30 - 50GB allowance for about £20/month.

I guess I need to go elsewhere?

Andy

Is all of that 30-50GB used between the hours of 8.00am and Midnight Andy?

Hi Bob,

90% is between 4pm (kids get home) and midnight.

Andy

Hey
This might not help but I just thought I would make a suggestion, because me and my brother (both heavy internet users) used to share our internet on the Pro package (When it was 15GB - Nightmare!)
Basically we just made a rule that large file downloads are no longer allowed until after midnight, yeah it meant keeping a computer on overnight Im not sure if your fond of that idea but thats what we used to do.
It was more frustrating for the brother at first, I didnt mind so much, but he was always streaming videos. So I taught him how to download them, and then he eventually got into a habbit of stacking up lots of files ready to download at midnight and then enjoy them all the following day, also enough content to last him a week usually too.
So you could do that for music, videos, games or whatever it is they download.

And ofcourse the 20GB can be increased if you want but it costs

Thanks Lee,

Generally we don't download many large files, the usual are Nvidia driver updates, game patches, program updates etc, I think the main use is music files, You tube and some online gaming. The gaming used to use a lot but they have reduced this over the last month or so. They also seem to log on via their ipods, we had a row last night as 1.5 GB disappeared from 4pm - 5:30 but both said they were not on the internet. I'm fed up with having to always say to them keep off the internet at month end. We have never gone over 40GB per month so far.

O2 look promising with unlimited upto 8Meg speed for £22/month, I don't know yet if there is any traffic management in this package.

I do not want to move unless I really have to as I have had no problems with plusnet.

Andy

Hi Andy,

If you're referring to the non-LLU product, then there is traffic management.

http://www.thinkbroadband...ve-traffic-mangement.html

Hi James, yes,  there is only BT on my Headley exchange. So it comes to all in the end. Do you think I would be better off with the 80GB Premier?

We like the snappy Pro but i'm sure we will be nudging the limit each month and £2 per gig is too expensive to just blindly go over with.

Kind Regards

Andy

Hi Andy,

Additional usage on Pro is actually £2 for 2GB.

Does that make any difference to you in your thinking of changing product?

Hi Andy,
We have the same sort of problem.  The pc is used during the day and when No.1 Son gets back from uni' in the evening he wants to download between 1800 - 2400.  I used to keep the machine on overnight as that's when we backed up; however with a more efficient backup programme and rising electricity bills we have curtailed that practice.  Even now, this message is eating in to my allowance...!!  I'm looking around too.  Interestingly: download speed at 10:18 yesterday was 6614, today 18:54 was 905 and recently(!) 19:05 was 4791.  Coming down again,and again and again.  NBG Really

At £2 per gig I can see my monthly bill would be £40 for a total of 30GB usage which to be quite honest is not a large download for a family of 4 but is a substantial cost. As BT charge £1 per gig is there a reason why Plusnet choose to charge double?

I would say that 40GB per month for £25 at full speed at all times would suit quite a few families, what do you think? We seem to be going backwards with faster speeds with more and more traffic management.

Could plusnet offer more options for the Pro package?

Andy

Hi, interesting reading this as it was one of the reasons I left plusnet (force 9) a few years ago. In the early days of the net, speed was the issue. Now this has been solved (well, for most folk anyway), the issue is bandwidth at a reasonanble cost. I beleive (rightly/wrongly) that BT have a fairly large monoply on this and that they are charging ISP's for the bandwidth they use. Now we all have fast speeds, we can in affect download large amounts very fast. Over a period of time, if all customers did this then the cost has to go up, as in the past only a small number of customers used a large bandwidth who  were in effect subsidised by the lower bandidth users. Not the case anymore. My current ISP does very little shaping/prioritising and I have 55gig to use in peak. As I have an 18meg connection I could use this in 1 day but then would have to pay. Basically I monitor my usage and any big downlaods (torrents etc..) are done in off peak. I could see this situation 3 years ago as connection speeds got faster. I would suspect that ISP's are potentially making more money (I'm sinicle -how do you spell that  ) as we can use our limit quicker as we are paying for what we use, not for speed anymore. With streaming sites/gameing/live tv etc... it's also not that easy to schedule off peak. I work from home and listen ot the radio for about 8 hours a day peak. Over a month that can use a considerable amount of bandwidth.(However, that's my choice).  In the next few years it will only get worse and costs will go up if you use  the net for anything other than email and a bit of light surfing. Who does that anymore though. Most users have families/kids who now hammer the connection.

Basically if you pay peanits you will get a poor service. The cheap plus net packages are a good example as how many users can actaully get by on that bandwidth. I know a few who have tried it to there cost and soon moved off them. A good marketing ploy to attract new customers - who can blame plus net.

IMHO britain is years behind other countries and we must invest in bandwidth availability. If not we will be left in the dark ages.

Enjoy

Andy,

At the risk of repeating myself, Pro is £2 per 2GB, not £2 per 1GB.

Until BTw reduce the cost of central capacity on 20C (which won't ever happen), we're not going to be able to offer a product that offers line speeds for 40GB at £25.

I'm sorry James, I completely misread that, yes it would make quite a difference. I wonder where I got the £2 per GB from. I could probably live with that.

Best wishes in your technical writing role and for the future.

Kind Regards

Andy

You dont say how old the boys are but why not try some negotiation and give them the three options :-

You change to Premier, they can download what they want when they want but have to accept that their usage in the evening will be throttled. Web browsing speed should be unaffected (so their homework wont take any longer) but they will just have to be patient with their music downloads.

You go on Pro and they get full speed for everything and, providing they are sensible and download their music, videos etc in the free period, there will be no cost to them.

You co on Pro, they ignore your suggestions about scheduling downloads and they then pay for any bandwith used beyond the 20GB.

I've used 22GB in the last 24 days and am on Pro, yet my paid for usage is only around 12GB. A lot of this been down to the full reinstallation of the operating system and all the patches on three machines that I have bought and upgrade as familt christmas presents. It is quite easy to change the settings for microsoft update so it only lets you know that updates are available - you can then choose when to download them.

Your suggestion of 8MB speeds 24/7 for all traffic and 50GB of usage for £20 per month does seem like a big ask with the antiquated infrastructure the UK is using.

My wife was speaking the other day on Facebook to a guy in Egypt (hardly a country one would think of as technologically advanced) and yet he had unlimited 100Mbps broadband!!!! He was absolutely shocked when she said that we had 2Mbps on a good day and that was limited to 20Gigs in what many regard as a first world country.

Cynical.

I must say, reading this thread does bring in mind an interesting charging method that a small ISP I know of is bringing in soon, and I have to wonder if Plusnet might be missing a trick with the abolishment of any kind of product customisation à la the original ideas for BBYW. The ISP in question plans on charging a standing charge of varying cost depending on whether you want or are on a 20CN, 21CN or Be line, and then customers will pay for ‘units’ that get used up at different rates depending on the connection type and the time of day. Usage outside of business hours is considerably cheaper than daytime usage (i.e. it uses up your pre-paid unit allocation more slowly), which is probably something people who work all day would rather appreciate. It strikes me as a shame that PN did a complete u-turn on the idea of having any kind of product customisation like that.

I find that quite strange.
As a homeworker I use my connection all day and "office hours" are NOT peak time on t'internet.