Business account closure possibly moving back to residential and rdns

Louc · ‎09-06-2023

Hi,

I thought I would give an uipdate on this. This all a mess.

Firstly I don't think I require rdns for my email server to work. I set this up decades ago when none of this was relevant and I have always used a smart host for outgoing emails, relay.plus.net to begin with and now a third party one who do the authentication. To the best of my knowledge rdns is only required for outbound and not inbound email.

So, I have been trying now for 10 days to switch back to residential with a static IP address and not to take my landline and am getting nowhere. My first thoughts judging by their behaviour is that Plusnet are on the way out as a company (I have heard some rumours in some parts to this effect which may or may not be true) Any thoughts?

I tried Vodafone but can't get past the sales team and they tell me that I can't use my own router even though there is evidence of this on the Vodafone forums. Again any thoughts?

In my attempt to get the Plusnet call resolved somehow I ended up at BT sales so I decided to ask what they could offer with a SOGEA connection. I was told I could have SOGEA, though he had to check if it was available (being that the lines are going anyway I was not sure why I could not have this) Anyway turns out it's fine and I can have just a broadband connection at £18.95 + £5.76 for one staic IP address + VAT. But.... an engineer needs to come in to change my socket as the connection/line will be digital as it is SOGEA. Now no matter how much I tried I could not figure out whether he meant FTTH or FTTC with something different inside my home. I'm pretty certain that there is no FTTH in my area unless I go Virgin.

I am currently awaiting a call from Plusnet in the next 20 minutes but i'm not holding my breath.

RealAleMadrid · ‎07-07-2009

@Louc BT are telling you rubbish, SOGEA is just FTTC with no phone service over the existing copper line from the cabinet so no changes required to your socket.

I don't understand why Plusnet are being so difficult, there should be no problem moving you to a residential SOGEA account.🙄

Louc · ‎09-06-2023

@RealAleMadrid I suspected BT were talking rubbish but I have had so many variations from different providers that I can never be sure now. Unfortunately IMO this country is experiencing a high level of dumbing down. Plusnet did eventually call me back, and it looks like it might finally be going ahead. Someone will be calling me tomorrow to finalise, hopefully.

knowdice · ‎25-04-2008

@Louc

I have just moved to Vodafone over City Fibre getting their 100mbs service +phone, I also moved my domain away from Plusnet to Google domains and am running my own email server.

So some notes and info that may help...

Email server is Modoboa running on Ubuntu the hardware is a Friendly Elect Nano Pi R6C with 32GB of EMMC and most importantly this hardware supports an NVMe SSD - so boot off the EMMC but run OS etc from the SSD. No fans just a really nice little cast metal case, I haven't checked power consumption but should be around 5 watts.

Vodafone [gosh it's hard-work talking to them] any how....If you ask nicely...They have configured a static public IP for me and have also given me the PPPoE login info and SIP login credentials server etc (still to check those) it seems like a variety of Grandstream ATA will work with their SIP voice service,

Forum shows:

GXP1620 - Wired Phone
GXP1625 - Wired Phone
HT801 - ATA (Tested by many)
HT802 - ATA (Tested by many)
HT812 - ATA (Tested by many)
WP810 - WiFi Phone
WP822 - WiFi Phone

That's it for the moment from me, will let you now once I have transferred to Draytek router and probably HT801 ATA

Louc · ‎09-06-2023

@knowdice

Thanks for that info. Would be nice to hear if you can get your Draytek to work as that is the same make of router that I have. There is no reason why it should not work. The mail server hardware sounds interesting from a power consumption point of view. My setup is Microsoft Active Directory with an exchange server so would have to totally change the way of working at my end to try something like that.

Vodafone may still be an option for me as I have not received my phone call from Plusnet today even though it had been escalated and promised. The person I spoke to just now reiterated what I have already heard many times from my numerous phone calls, that the provisioning of accounts whether they are new or migrations used to be carried out by front line staff, but for some reason they decided a dedicated team was the way to go. This is obviously not working at all and it definitely looks to me that this is a failing company that won't last for too long. Plusnet used to be the tecchies ISP. If I'm not mistaken they may have been the only 'wires only' provider in 2002 which is how long I have been with them (by the way loyalty appears not to hold any sympathy in the way I am being treated) I know the answer is to look elsewhere but most of the ISP's I have spoken to are just as bad if not worse. I am now awaiting a call before close of play today.

Anonymous · ‎01-09-2023

@Louc have you looked at Aquiss ?, they offer /29 (block of eight) static IPs for an additional £3/month

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knowdice · ‎25-04-2008

@Louc

Tried my Vigor 2862 this morning with PPPoE on WAN2 but it wouldn't authenticate.

Probably a MAC address issue so I will try again tomorrow and emulate the Vodafone router MAC...

Louc · ‎09-06-2023

@Anonymous wrote:

@Louc have you looked at Aquiss ?, they offer /29 (block of eight) static IPs for an additional £3/month

.

Thanks for that. When I tried this it worked out more then Zen

Louc · ‎09-06-2023

@knowdice wrote:

@Louc

Tried my Vigor 2862 this morning with PPPoE on WAN2 but it wouldn't authenticate.

Probably a MAC address issue so I will try again tomorrow and emulate the Vodafone router MAC...

Any luck? would assume they have given you incorrect login details, I did not think they tied the routers MAC address to the service but I could be wrong.

Louc · ‎09-06-2023

I have still not received a call from the Plusnet migration team. I had decided to 'What the heck' and go with A&A. Well..... the sales person was the most knowledgeable sales person I have come across. Unfortunately (and this was something I had kind of noticed when going through the order process) for VDSL home (2 static ip addresses and more on request, no charge) there is an extra £10 a month on top of the £35 because of the copper pair, I think that's the reason, either way it is £45 a month and not £35. I'm not sure if this will change after tomorrow when you can't have a phone number over copper. I think I will wait now to see what pans out in the next month as I am resigned to losing my number of 30 years anyway.

Townman · ‎22-08-2007

Just looked there myself (literally a few minutes ago).

If ordering FTTC, they present two options...

Keep phone line with existing supplier (need the line to deliver the broadband service)
Move phone line to A&A for £10+ pcm -NO PHONE CALLS - not clear if that means the line cannot be used for voice services (i.e. SOGEA) or it means the cost of making calls is not included

It is an utter shambles!

In another browser tab, login into the Plusnet user portal BEFORE clicking the fault & ticket links

Superusers are not staff, but they do have a direct line of communication into the business in order to raise issues, concerns and feedback from the community.

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Anonymous · ‎04-09-2023

@Louc wrote:

... I had decided to 'What the heck' and go with A&A. Well..... the sales person was the most knowledgeable sales person I have come across.

Welcome to the club ! - I did exactly that a few weeks back and my broadband transfers from Plusnet to A&A tomorrow, then my landline number is scheduled to migrate from Pulse8 to A&A VoIP after they've confirmed that my broadband has successfully moved and connected, and that my VoIP phone has registered with my account (which it has - despite the number not yet being transferred !).

Unfortunately the extra £10 for the A&A copper pair, doesn't disappear tomorrow if they provision you as SOGEA. I specifically asked about that before I took the plunge, and A&A support say that they still get charged by BT Wholesale for the copper line (whether it's FTTC or SOGEA), so the copper pair is still charged at £10 regardless. The way I look at it is that it can't be much longer before FTTP finally arrives here, and at that point A&A FTTC (£45) moved to FTTP reduces to £37 which is much more acceptable.

Good luck !

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Townman · ‎22-08-2007

... in the meantime, others are charging less for SOGEA than PTSN+FTTC - looks like A&A's +£10 for the copper required for the SOGEA (FTTC service) is just milking users.

In another browser tab, login into the Plusnet user portal BEFORE clicking the fault & ticket links

Superusers are not staff, but they do have a direct line of communication into the business in order to raise issues, concerns and feedback from the community.

If this post helped, please click the Thumbs Up and if it fixed your issue, please click the This fixed my problem green button below.

Anonymous · ‎04-09-2023

@Townman wrote:

Move phone line to A&A for £10+ pcm -NO PHONE CALLS - not clear if that means the line cannot be used for voice services (i.e. SOGEA) or it means the cost of making calls is not included

If you use A&A for supplying the copper pair, whether it is provisioned as FTTC or SOGEA, they don't do analogue voice services at all - and therefore the cost of making calls is not a thing. Making calls via A&A is VoIP only.

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MisterW · ‎30-07-2007

not clear if that means the line cannot be used for voice services (i.e. SOGEA) or it means the cost of making calls is not included

@Townman if you look here https://www.aa.net.uk/broadband/soho1/vdsl-prices/ I think that clarifies it (a bit).

The £10/m extra is just for the copper pair from A & A, so it IS SoGEA they're offering. Any phone service offered is Voip at £1.20/m + calls

Have you looked at Zen ? they seem to be £29/m for SoGEA ( including the copper pair I think ? ) , Digital voice adds £5/m

Superusers are not staff, but they do have a direct line of communication into the business in order to raise issues, concerns and feedback from the community.