topic Re: Plusnet Pro 20GB usage allowance too low in Plusnet Feedback

Plusnet Pro 20GB usage allowance too low

COD-Dougal — Tue, 06 Jul 2010 13:13:05 GMT

While I was glad to see the broadband usage allowance increase recently from 15 to 20GB, for a premium product such as Plusnet Pro, 20GB is beginning to look a little mean.
Certainly the demands a family place on the internet now are much greater than they were only 12 months ago. Essential software downloads are now more regular and larger in size (look at the size of each iTunes update) and with more and more households having many PCs, Plusnet Pro is looking a bit poor next to Plusnet Extra (60GB cap).
Are there any plans to update Plusnet Pro to a level this product deserves?
Many thanks

Re: Plusnet Pro 20GB usage allowance too low

jelv — Tue, 06 Jul 2010 13:27:05 GMT

Get real!
Pro delivers all traffic at high priority. 20GB is all Plusnet can deliver at the price, if you want more you have the option to pay for more allowance.
Extra has more allowance because it is heavily shaped with significant limits on the speeds at times of the day.
It's up to you to choose whether you want speed or a higher allowance - you can't have both without paying more.

Re: Plusnet Pro 20GB usage allowance too low

COD-Dougal — Tue, 06 Jul 2010 15:51:15 GMT

Many thanks for your constructive input, however, I will point out two things.
Firstly, if I wanted Plusnet Pro and 60GB then my monthly cost would be about £50/month compared to Extra at £18/month.
Secondly, a lack of Packet Shaping is less important if your exchange is simply overloaded, which most are. Despite having Pro my speed drops (on any port) from 6.3 to 4Mbps at high usage times. This usually starts from 16:00 every weekday when the schools close and everyone rushes home to play COD online/watch iPlayer/Startup Limewire/etc. It also confirms the point I was making - that most normal households are using broadband much more than they were just 12 months ago. 20GB is no longer a sensible cap for any product, never mind a top-of-the-range one. I'd be happy with 30GB, at least for the next year.
Oh and I haven't even mentioned what the competition now offers!

Re: Plusnet Pro 20GB usage allowance too low

jelv — Tue, 06 Jul 2010 16:47:23 GMT

Quote from: COD
Secondly, a lack of Packet Shaping is less important if your exchange is simply overloaded, which most are.

Not mine. I ran some speed tests during the simultaneous Andy Murray semi- final at WImbledon and Brazil v Holland at the World Cup - here's the result of the BBC iPlayer speed test:

Quote from: COD
most normal households are using broadband much more than they were just 12 months ago. 20GB is no longer a sensible cap for any product

Thanks for the insult saying I'm not normal. I'm still on the old PAYG which while it has the same priorities as Pro only has a 15GB allowance. I work from home and am using the internet all day and I've NEVER gone over the 15GB.

Re: Plusnet Pro 20GB usage allowance too low

David_W — Tue, 06 Jul 2010 20:48:44 GMT

I think what Jelv is saying is, you get what you pay for. If you're finding 20Gb isn't enough, why not just switch to the 60Gb package?

Re: Plusnet Pro 20GB usage allowance too low

jelv — Tue, 06 Jul 2010 22:22:32 GMT

Absolutely correct. Commercial viability dictates the the Pro Product with it's Gold or better priority can only offer 20GB.
COD-Dougal can either choose to pay for extra usage, or switch to the higher allowance of Extra and accept the lower speeds.
Nothing is preventing him from getting his MAC if he is under the illusion* that he can get better deals elsewhere.
*If his exchange has LLU from Be/O2 it's not an illusion and I can't understand why he hasn't gone for it.

Re: Plusnet Pro 20GB usage allowance too low

sassy62 — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 21:26:26 GMT

I wouldnt say it was too low...I just think plusnet need more options..

Re: Plusnet Pro 20GB usage allowance too low

BenTrimble — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 08:32:09 GMT

Thanks for your input.
Our Marketing Department make the final say on how much usage goes with which package and the priority assigned to various protocols. This is done with an estimated cost for us to transfer that usage (which rarely decreases). These sort of things are regularly reviewed (as shown by us increasing the included usage of BBYW products) but unfortunately we can't advise when the next review will be.

Re: Plusnet Pro 20GB usage allowance too low

COD-Dougal — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 23:12:54 GMT

Many thanks Ben for taking the time to reply.
Maybe your Marketing department should take a look at what TalkTalk and VirginMedia are currently offering new customers. TalkTalk have just installed their own equipment in our local exchange and I've already seen speeds 3 times greater than I currently get (18 v 6Mb) with an unlimited (80GB) allowance for £5 less per month than I currently pay. Oh, and I've 12 months to wait until the FTTC upgrade and a chance for Plusnet to respond. That's putting my customer loyalty to the test but then Marketing Departments are famous for not being interested in retaining existing customers only attracting new ones.
PS Can you do anything about your forum trolls?

Re: Plusnet Pro 20GB usage allowance too low

BenTrimble — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 07:59:47 GMT

TalkTalk don't offer a prioritised service so you will (probably) see more lag during busy times. With regards to the pricing, this blog post is a little old but still accurate and may prove informative.
Plusnet Staff play no part in moderating the forums, you can report any post to the Moderating Team via the link on the bottom-right of each post.

Re: Plusnet Pro 20GB usage allowance too low

pierre_pierre — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 11:09:55 GMT

and trolls should be reported as it is against forum rules

Re: Plusnet Pro 20GB usage allowance too low

gswindale — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 12:41:33 GMT

Quote from: COD
Many thanks Ben for taking the time to reply.
Maybe your Marketing department should take a look at what TalkTalk and VirginMedia are currently offering new customers. TalkTalk have just installed their own equipment in our local exchange and I've already seen speeds 3 times greater than I currently get (18 v 6Mb) with an unlimited (80GB) allowance for £5 less per month than I currently pay.

But PN don't use TalkTalk's equipment do they? Virgin Media run their own network as well.
You are comparing apples with oranges & bananas here.
Comparisons should only be made with the likes of BTBroadband and other providers who solely use BT's wholesale network.
Additionally, when you comment on TalkTalk giving an 80GB allowance, is that purely between 8am and midnight as well? If not, then again the comparison is not really valid. You are really comparing a 53.33333GB allowance v 20GB and then a 26.66666GB allowance v none (Talk Talk v PN).
Headline figures are just that. You need to look into the fine details to see if what they are offering really is better.

Re: Plusnet Pro 20GB usage allowance too low

michaelm — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 13:53:33 GMT

Interesting to see this discussion in the forums again. Perhaps PlusNet should take notice.
I recently migrated from PlusNet to IDNet and i did go for the top of the range Broadband package and a medium phone line package increasing my monthly payout by £10 compared with what I was paying to PN. For that I get 60GB 9Am to midnight, and 300GB off peak. Additionally, they claim a 'priority' at the local exchange. Not sure what this means but i know that previously with PlusNet my speed was deteriorating at PeakTime. Now my speed never deteriorates and I am constantly at round about 15-16Mbps. PlusNet at best would give me 12Mbps. I don't know what is was but i know it is better. Perhaps the old saying you get what you pay for is true.
I have been a loyal PlusNet customer for almost 5 years before migrating but the market has changed a lot in these 5 years. Additionally the nr of wrongly generated automated emails were really getting to me. i.e. PN cancelled my direct debit themselves and then send an email informing me of failed payment (really....billing needs to be updated!)
IDNet are more expensive but I value fast download speeds and decent allowances. When I was on the extra package I tried to download a Mac OSX update at 700MB at 7pm. The download just couldn't complete and the estimates were reporting in excess of 3 hours. on IDNet the same download took less than 10-20 min (i think).
PlusNet did try to retain me and I even offered to pay more for say 30 or 40GB but they could not accommodate my request.
Don't get me wrong, I am still recommending PlusNet to friends and family but these days I make sure i ask what they use the Internet for and what do they think of speed. For me an extra £10 per month has stopped me looking at the download meter and the clock (for now) and that is certainly worth it.
For comparison, I occasionally work from home, I have a mac and two Windows laptops, an IPTV enabled set top box, an Apple TV and i do lots of video streaming.
I hope PlusNet continue providing good value but at the same time, i think they need to update their Pro Package as there will always be customers who want to pay the extra for that extra service.
Michael

Re: Plusnet Pro 20GB usage allowance too low

adamwalker — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 08:12:48 GMT

Hi michaelm,
Just replying to say that we are taking note of what you are saying here.
With regards to what we can do for customers in terms of retention we do try and be as flexible as possible. I'm of a personal belief however that we should try and continually adapt our approach to this and try to tailor the offers we can make to be closer to competitor offers.
With regards to to connection speeds IDNet as far as we are aware they provide on the most part an LLU broadband service, in case you are not familiar with that term it means that they use their own broadband equipment at the exchange rather than a wholesale supplier like ourselves. This is often based on different connection technologies which may likely account for the differences in connection speeds.
After all I will flag up your feedback about the Pro package which by the way is most appreciated.

Re: Plusnet Pro 20GB usage allowance too low

Dom — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 09:16:22 GMT

I'd also like to chip in with my two cents.
We're on the Pro package as well, and while I think Plusnet are great in nearly all respects, the monthly cap is just too low given the other high quality aspects of the Pro package. All traffic is prioritised which is great (although I'm not sure how much priority it gets over other broadband users with different ISPs) and the support is second to none if we have a problem, but even though we're careful during the day/evening not to download anything, we still find that we go over the 20Gb cap more often than not.
When I say we're careful, I mean we even go as far as not downloading any Windows updates during peak hours, only downloading an update for a PC game once and copying the files to any other PCs that might need it, and never watching anything on the BBC iPlayer, for example.
Of course, there are times when we might use more bandwidth than usual, but that's generally if we have visitors who make use of the internet and might watch the odd YouTube trailer or something.
Given that we have two professional web developers in our house, one of whom sometimes works from home, and myself (I regularly need to connect to my home PC from work) it means that a 20Gb cap is too low for us. I think it's a sorry state of affairs when you can't even download the latest anti-virus updates until after midnight for fear of going over your monthly allowance and paying through the nose for it.
Having said all that, I like Plusnet as an ISP and I'm glad that your support stretches as far as forums, blogs and even Twitter, but the 20Gb cap is a real problem for us.

Re: Plusnet Pro 20GB usage allowance too low

BenTrimble — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 10:08:52 GMT

If you're working from home then you might be interested in some of our Business packages where Options 2 and 3 feature much higher usage allowances prioritised data transfer across common business protocols such as VPN, FTP and HTTP browsing but not P2P or HTTP downloading.

Re: Plusnet Pro 20GB usage allowance too low

Dom — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 11:36:38 GMT

We don't work from home every day, but every now and then we do. At home our priority is gaming, which is why we went for the Pro package (due to the high priority of all traffic) so we're not looking to switch packages. The Pro package is perfect, aside from the low monthly cap.

Re: Plusnet Pro 20GB usage allowance too low

adamwalker — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 12:08:44 GMT

Hi Dom,
In that case we would not recommend a business package for gaming purposes really as you may not get the best experience gaming-wise.
We're certainly taking in all this feedback about the pro package. I'm not sure as to the exact decision as to why the usage allocation was set at 20gb, I think an assumption may have been made that customers using the package mainly for gaming would not benefit from a higher allowance.

Re: Plusnet Pro 20GB usage allowance too low

Dom — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 12:29:11 GMT

Well I can see why you'd think that, but then again, you have to think about the type of people that are likely to want a gaming-oriented package, and the types of other activities they might also perform.
I'm just gonna say it - we're a bunch of geeks. Anyone who's into games/internet/computers enough to pick an ISP package based on latency is a blatant nerd, and is going to be using the net for everything pretty much - games, online TV, web development, the works. It'd be great if the monthly cap made allowances for these nerdy tendancies!

Re: Plusnet Pro 20GB usage allowance too low

michaelm — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 14:51:25 GMT

Thanks Adam
Pleased to see the feedback is getting through.
I will be slightly annoyed if the package gets updated now after I moved away but it will be a welcome change. I have not ruled out the possibility of moving back to PlusNet one day.
Personally I think if you can increase the peak allowance to something like 40-50GB for not more than £29.99 I think you may get a good interest in that product.
Keep up the good work
Michael