Today’s an exciting one for Plusnet, as we’re launching our first up to 20Mb broadband products – Premium and Pro. Over the last few months, together with our many customer volunteers, we’ve trialed the service itself
- along with the new ordering and ‘back-end’ processes that go with it.

Our new products offer our customers a greatly increased usage allowance as well as the potential for much higher speeds.

I know you’ll have plenty of questions so I’ve tried to answer as many as I can here in the ADSL2+ Community FAQ.  Let us know of any more questions you have either here or over in the Discussion Forums.

Without further ado then..

1. On which of your products can I have up to 20Mbps?

You can get the faster up to 20Mb speeds on our new Plusnet Premium and Pro products: http://www.plus.net/

2. Premium has 80GB allowance. Is overnight use free?

Yes, like all of our products, usage between midnight and 8am is free and doesn’t count towards your usage allowance.

3. How is traffic managed throughout the day?

Like other ISPs we deliver our broadband service over a network which is shared amongst our customers. This means we have to manage our network to ensure we provide a sustainable quality broadband service to all. You can read more about how we manage our network and your traffic profiles here.

4. When can I have up to 20Mb?

If you sign up for Plusnet Premium or Pro you’ll automatically be provided with up to 20Mbps speeds if your exchange is enabled. You can check when your exchange is due to be enabled here.   Alternatively, during the signup or account change journey our line checker will tell you.

If your exchange is not yet enabled, you’ll be included in our upgrade programme once your exchange offers up to 20Mbps.

5. Will I see much faster speeds than up to 8Mb?

Most customers will see faster speeds on ADSL2+.  However a small number of customers will not see an increase, or may even see slower speeds. In our trials of ADSL2+ the majority of customers got speeds faster than they had before. On average, across all our trialists, the top-end speeds increased from 4.5 to 6.2Mbps. If you were unlucky enough to get slower speeds + than you had before, our support team would work with you to help to resolve this. You can find out more about how ADSL2+ works and tips on how to get the best out of your line here.  

6. I’ve had an intermittent fault. Will I get a better connection on ADSL2+?

It is very likely that if you have an intermittent fault or a very slow broadband connection, that this will be made worse if we put you onto ADSL2+.  We would advise customers with such a fault not to upgrade to up to 20Mbps without our working with you to fully rectify the fault beforehand.
 

7. What’s the upload speed?

The maximum upload speed on ADSL2+ is 1Mbps.  However, this maximum upload speed can create an increased possibility of broadband faults for some customers.  To ensure that the majority of our ADSL2+ customers do not experience avoidable problems we provide a standard upstream connection of 448kbps to our ADSL2+ customers.  This will not affect your download speeds.  Where upload speeds are important to you we can increase this to 1Mbps for you.

8. Why is Unlimited no longer available?

We’ve found that the majority of our new customers looking for a premium experience are looking for performance over an unlimited product.  With an up to 20Mbps download speed we’re not yet sure how an unlimited product would perform in terms of customer experience.

Premium offers higher speeds with a generous usage allowance, and at a good price. To be able to do this we have moved away from offering unlimited. But 80GB is a lot and overnight usage is free – it doesn’t count toward your usage allowance.  Having a defined usage allowance on Premium will mean we can offer a better customer experience, particularly at peak times.

9. How much is additional usage?

Additional usage is £2 per 2GB across all of our broadband products, including new up to 20Mb Plusnet Premium.

10. How do I know if my hardware is compatible with ADSL2+?

Most new routers are ADSL2+ compatible; however we’d recommend checking the manual or product specification. We’ve been supplying ADSL2+ compatible Thomson routers now for more than a year, so if you’ve had one of our routers in the last 12-months it’s more than likely going to be fully compatible.

11. If my hardware isn’t compatible will you provide a new router?

Yes, if you wish to change to up to 20Mb we will optionally provide you with a new router.  However you’ll need to pay for the router if you leave within 12 months. This option will be offered in the signup and account change processes.

12. What’s the contract length on your products?

Our new products have a 12 month contract period. If you move to another provider during this time we’ll ask you to repay the setup and any hardware costs. You can see any applicable costs in the My Account section of our website.

13. I’m on the ADSL2+ trial, will you be moving me back to ‘up to 8Mb’ or are you going to start charging me more?

We’d like to say thank you to our many customers who took part in the ADSL2+ trial.  Your involvement has provided us with the feedback and testing that helped us to launch the new products.  In way of a small thank you, you’ll stay on ADSL2+ at no extra charge.

14. I’m on Broadband Your Way Pro, why do new customers get upgraded first?

New customers purchasing Plusnet Premium or Pro will be placed straight on ADSL2+ if it’s available at their exchange.  As with any new technology we need to take new volumes steadily at first and we’ll be upgrading existing Pro customers shortly depending on availability at the exchange.  We’ll have more details on this soon.

15. I’m on Broadband Your Way Pro but I don’t want to be upgraded to ADSL2+. Is there anything I need to do to stop you doing this?

We’ll let you know nearer the time but, if you don’t want to move to ADSL2+ where your exchange is enabled, you will be able to opt-out of the speed uplift programme.

16. I’m on Broadband Your Way Pro.  Will I get a usage increase?

Yes, your usage will be increased in line with the new Plusnet Pro product, to 20GB.

17. I’ve been a customer for some time.  Will I get an upgrade to ADSL2+?

Provided your exchange has been enabled, certain older products will be included in our upgrade programme of batch migrations. We’ll give you more information about these plans shortly.

18. Will I be automatically moved from my current product to Plusnet Premium, Pro or Value?

No, you’ll be able to move to these products if you wish, or remain on your current product.

19. Why don’t business customers get ADSL2+?

Our current speed uplift programme is focused on our consumer products.  We have very recently updated our business products however we do plan to follow on with business products based on ADSL2+ in the New Year.

20. I’m on Value, why can’t I have ADSL2+?

Plusnet Value is our entry level product, and is provided on up to 8Mb Max DSL.  

You should consider upgrading to Plusnet Premium or Pro if you need the faster speeds or increased usage allowances.

21. Why isn’t ADSL2+ available to Madasafish or Metronet customers?

We’ll be considering other brands separately, but for the time being the new products, and ADSL2+, are only available to Plusnet brands (including Force9 and Free-Online).

22. Where can I see the ADSL exchange capacity status?

At the moment this facility is only available for customers on ‘up to 8Mb’ products where you can view the capacity status at the following website: http://usertools.plus.net/exchanges/

We’ll let you know when a similar facility to provide similar information becomes available for ‘up to 20Mbps’ customers.

23. ADSL2+ offers up to 24MB, why are your products only up to 20Mb?

The highest attainable speed of ADSL2+ technology ‘in the lab’ is 24Mbps, however in practice only a very small minority would ever get near this speed. So to avoid confusion we are calling the products up to 20Mb.

24. What happens if I signup for Premium but downgrade to Value?

Value is an up to 8Mbps product and you would revert to ADSL speeds were you to move to Value.

25. Why would I choose Pro over Premium?

Pro is especially great for games and for new applications that haven’t yet been ‘profiled’ by our traffic management systems.  It gives you ‘line speed’ at all times, even on things that are managed more on Premium (such as P2P or Usenet applications).

26. What happens if I signup to an up to 20Mb product but my exchange is not enabled?

We’d supply your service on the standard up to 8Mb ADSL to begin with, and then upgrade you as part of our batch migrations when your exchange is enabled.

27. What if I’m on up to 20Mb and move house?

We’d continue to supply you with an up to 20Mb service if your exchange allows, if not we’d supply you with up to 8Mb until your exchange was enabled.

More information:

Guide to High-speed Broadband:
http://www.plus.net/support/broadband/speed_guide/high-speed.shtml

Advanced Guide to ADSL2+
http://www.plus.net/support/broadband/products/faqs_and_guides/adsl2plus_guide.shtml

ADSL2+ Technical FAQ
http://www.plus.net/support/broadband/speed_guide/adsl2+_faq.shtml

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This entry was posted by Peter Jackson on Wednesday, October 21st, 2009 at 7:01 pm and is tagged with PlusNet News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.