topic Re: New Plusnet customer, first impressions in Plusnet Feedback

New Plusnet customer, first impressions

et0 — Fri, 17 Sep 2010 09:49:57 GMT

I thought I'd keep a record here of how my switch to plusnet goes, just for the sake of it.
I signed up yesterday, phone and value broadband on a rural BT-only exchange. Have been meaning to do so for some time as AOL Broadband had gone drastically downhill.

Things I like: the website / dashboard. All the details I need are there, as is the status of my order and so on. Very good.
This forum. Not many large ISPs are brave enough to have something like this.
Other comments:
I haven't received an email confirmation of my order. I realise it possibly hasn't even been accepted yet, but it might be nice to have a link back to the portal. I actually checked my spam box just in case.
I do have the "signup complete" page though, and the first thing it tells me is
"Here are the login details you'll need for our website:
Broadband username:
myusername@plusdsl.net"
This isn't correct! If you put in 'myusername@plusdsl.net', it doesn't work - you just use 'myusername'.
It's only a minor niggle but tripped my up slightly.
Fingers crossed for the next bit - actually getting switched...

Re: New Plusnet customer, first impressions

Alxns — Fri, 17 Sep 2010 10:38:25 GMT

myusername@plusdsl.net is what you usually need for router login and is also your PN email i think
not the actual website though its probably not too clear.

Re: New Plusnet customer, first impressions

et0 — Fri, 17 Sep 2010 10:44:45 GMT

Quote from: Alxns
myusername@plusdsl.net is what you usually need for router login and is also your PN email i think
not the actual website though its probably not too clear.

Yes, it's familiar as a router username to have the @whatever bit, and is unusual as a website login. I doubted it even as I was typing it in.
But note the quote above, it does say "Here are the login details you'll need for our website". Couldn't be clearer!
As I say it's a small point but it's definitely wrong IMO

Re: New Plusnet customer, first impressions

adamwalker — Fri, 17 Sep 2010 10:48:07 GMT

Hi et0,
A warm welcome to Plusnet and to the forums from the staff here .
Thanks very much for the feedback about our site and our forum.
Just to clarify the part before the @ symbol is the account username which you would use to log into the portal. The broadband username is the full myusername@plusdsl.net, the reason we call that a broadband is that's what's used in your router settings to connect you to the broadband network.
We'll keep an eye out for anyone else mentioning the same thing, if we do it could just meant that we need to slightly reword the confirmation e-mail.

Re: New Plusnet customer, first impressions

et0 — Fri, 17 Sep 2010 10:52:02 GMT

Oh, I'm an idiot. It actually says "Member Centre username: myusername" right underneath.
Sorry! And thanks for the welcome.

Re: New Plusnet customer, first impressions

adamwalker — Fri, 17 Sep 2010 11:29:54 GMT

Don't worry about it, BTW if you do spot anything that could be in a better place or perhaps worded better on our site do let us know as we're always open to feedback.
Adam.

Re: New Plusnet customer, first impressions

et0 — Fri, 17 Sep 2010 16:35:26 GMT

An exciting development. Out of curiosity I clicked on the "help and support" menu and noticed a question addressed to myself requesting the MAC (I didn't put this on the signup form as I don't have it yet). No problem, I'll send it in when I have it!
Still slightly surprised not to have received anything by email though.

Re: New Plusnet customer, first impressions

adamwalker — Mon, 20 Sep 2010 08:46:10 GMT

Hi again et0,
I'm a bit concerned as you should have received at least 2 e-mails by now. I've posted a query on your account which should have triggered an e-mail to be sent. Could you please check the contact e- mail address that you've given us (via the member centre) then see if you have received my message please?

Re: New Plusnet customer, first impressions

et0 — Mon, 20 Sep 2010 09:59:13 GMT

Thanks Adam, your test message appeared in the Spam folder.
I then did a search and located the previous messages, also in Spam (I apparently didn't do that correctly before).
Unusual for it (gmail) to trap legitimate mail but anyway, problem solved thank you.

Re: New Plusnet customer, first impressions

adamwalker — Mon, 20 Sep 2010 10:49:22 GMT

Quote
Unusual for it (gmail) to trap legitimate mail but anyway, problem solved thank you.

Agreed, I use gmail for my personal e-mail address so I'm off to test this out now and see what happens.
Adam

Re: New Plusnet customer, first impressions

adamwalker — Mon, 20 Sep 2010 10:55:17 GMT

I've just tested this and had the same problem.
Following some discussion with my colleagues it seems that this is a known issue at the moment, so if you've not done so already create a filter for messages from us.

Re: New Plusnet customer, first impressions

et0 — Thu, 23 Sep 2010 15:04:09 GMT

No drama to report yet! I received the MAC yesterday and passed it on to Plusnet. Within the day the order was placed with BT, I received an email and text(!) update of this fact, and I can see from the account status thing that my router has been sent out, a TG585 v7. Is that good? I already have a decent router but for 5 quid I thought a spare would be handy.
The estimated time for it to change over is a week from today. No idea why *that* takes so long BT, surely they don't have to physically send a man out to the exchange and mess about with wires!?
Anyway, so far, so good.

Re: New Plusnet customer, first impressions

pierre_pierre — Thu, 23 Sep 2010 15:34:15 GMT

even though it is digital age, they still moves wires from on terminal to another, saw them doing it a couple of days ago linking up a customers Fiber to the house block int the road cabinet

Re: New Plusnet customer, first impressions

et0 — Thu, 23 Sep 2010 16:17:55 GMT

Oh, I get that. But in this case, my telephone line is already connected to the DSLAM, and already has a modem allocated to it - what I'm using right now. It's a Market 1 exchange so there is no choice of racks.
So to the layman like me, I can't see the need for any *physical* intervention. Is that right, anyone know?

Re: New Plusnet customer, first impressions

fourfourdevon — Thu, 23 Sep 2010 16:22:24 GMT

Can someone explain to me what FTTP means? The reason I ask is because on in my mind it means BT providing a fibre to the premises, and having used fibre networks, what this defiantly didn't meant was plugging copper cables into different devices.
So if FTTP another "how to get better speed over the last mile of copper" as ADSL2+ et al are, or do they really put fibre into the premises of the customer?

Re: New Plusnet customer, first impressions

Jaggies — Thu, 23 Sep 2010 16:29:11 GMT

BT supply two different fibre services - FTTC (Fibre to the Cabinet), which is rolling out across the country. BT market it as BT Infinity. The other is FTTP (Fibre to the Premises). This is currently undergoing trials.

Re: New Plusnet customer, first impressions

fourfourdevon — Thu, 23 Sep 2010 16:54:22 GMT

OK. But whats the answer to my question?

Re: New Plusnet customer, first impressions

pierre_pierre — Thu, 23 Sep 2010 17:25:51 GMT

the signal dosnt fly through the air, it has have a physical connection, in the case of FTTC the DSLAM is in the Fiber cabinet down the road and the BT Speedtouch man has to run a link wire through to the old Analogue cabinet

Re: New Plusnet customer, first impressions

Jaggies — Thu, 23 Sep 2010 17:29:26 GMT

Quote from: fourfourdevon
whats the answer to my question?

The answer is in the answer...
FTTP stands for fibre to the premises. That means your connection is purely fibre, with no copper line involvement at all.

Re: New Plusnet customer, first impressions

fourfourdevon — Thu, 23 Sep 2010 17:31:12 GMT

Yes, I am not stupid.
My question '... is FTTP another "how to get better speed over the last mile of copper" as ADSL2+ et al are, or do they really put fibre into the premises of the customer?'