topic Re: Gadget Show in Plusnet Feedback

Gadget Show

sipart — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 09:30:36 GMT

As a new signer to Plus.net (live in a week hopefully) from the dreadful Virgin.net (ADSL customer - reliable but throttled to death at evenings and weekends) I thought the 'new' campaign from the Gadget Show (jump on the bandwagon why don't' you) about 'unlimited' broadband was interesting but biased towards telling us about the big guys bigging up the 'unlimited packages' (Quelle Surprise)
So I thought I'd drop them an email about Plus.net (don't let me down guys when my service goes live!! 😉
Cheers

"I thought it was worth mentioning the companies who go out their way to blast the myths of unlimited broadband and actively highlight the traffic shaping they do and the packages that don't (and funnily enough plus.net are owned by BT - but independently managed!)

http://www.plus.net/unlimited_broadband/

http://www.plus.net/support/broadband/quality_broadband/speed.shtml#OptionProspeeds

Nothing like promoting the good guys rather than just knocking the bad ones.
Cheers
P.S. I don't work for Plus.net!"

Re: Gadget Show

orbrey — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 11:51:19 GMT

Blimey, many thanks for that - here's hoping we get a feature! (Well, at least a mention...)
I certainly hope everything goes well with the activation, please do drop a post in here if there's anything we can help with.

Re: Gadget Show

techguy — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 14:00:57 GMT

Welcome aboard what I consider to be the best ISP
A little tip for when you migrate in sipart if you are using your own router
I had an issue with my Netgear DG834N when I migrated in although it had appeared to be operating ok on my previous ISP, Namesco.
It started to block random sites, the good folks at plusnet had a really good stab at fixing the issue but couldn't, it turned out the routers firmware had gone renegade and was deciding to do what it liked.
I'd therefore advise that you do a factory reset on the router when you move across.

Re: Gadget Show

scootie — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 15:10:54 GMT

sipart nice one.
I was watching gadget show last night and the moment they announced about the campian i went to the website to do the same as they never said much about the little guy that are open honest about there network.
But seemed a good % of plus net customers must of bein doing the same as the gadget shows server must of bein under some heavy load as i could not get on for the 10 or so minutes i tried.
plus net are not 100% perfect all the time but when there is a problem there open and honest about it and most times you will pick the problem up on the service status feed before you even notice a perfomece drop in speed ect
smart move from virgin media sipart.
Even if there cable was in my street i would have to think long and hard about a move to them as wonderful as having a cable line would be i dont like the fact that one end of that cable ends up at richard bransons house of congestion and looney thottling.
when the guy from O2 was trying to explain the reason for the fair usage he was quick to mention that no one had had there service stoped but did not mention the 1000s of people that have there download speed thottle. there not stupid why kick them of the network when they can cap there lines and most of there customers will not even notice why still collecting the money from the customer that is paying for what they think is 8mb or 24mb top down speed

Re: Gadget Show

pierre_pierre — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 15:36:55 GMT

The Channel 5 web site is one of the most peculiar I have ever seen.
You first get directed to Five.tv Then try and navigate to Gadget Show. This takes you to fwd.five.tv. They have the most peculiar schedules that by no means equate to whats on TVi.e. it says the Gadget show is on tonight the 28th. Took a lot of drilling down to find where the ISP program was and then it seemed they were only interested in those that claimed no capping
http://fwd.five.tv/gadget-show/blog/unlimited-broadband

Quote
And, if you’ve had your “unlimited” service restricted, suspended or even disconnected because your data usage was deemed excessive, then get in touch. E-mail us at thegadgetshow@five.tv
INTERNET SERVICE PROVIDERS
NAME TEL ## E-Mail Postal Address
ADSL4Less 0871 240 1499 (option 5) send e-mail 24 Chiswell Street, London,EC1Y 4TY
Be 0808 101 3430 send e-mail Be House, 62 Lancaster Mews, London, W2 3QG
BT Broadband 0800 800 150 Contact form BT PLC, Correspondance Centre, Durham, DH98 1BT
Demon 0141 567 1783(option 4) send e-mail Thus Plc, Gateway House, 322 Regent’s Park Road, London, N3 2QQ
EFH Broadband 0808 156 4776 send e-mail EFH Broadband, 195 North Street, Leeds, LS 2AA
Homechoice (now Tiscali) 0871 222 3311 (Option 2, 2) send e-mail Tiscali UK Ltd, PO Box 14505, Birmingham, B46 1BF
O2 Broadband 0800 230 0202 send e-mail O2 Complaint Review Service, PO Box 116, Leeds, LS11 5DS
Orange Broadband 0800 980 1492 Contact form Orange UK Plc, PO Box 486, Rotherham, S63 5ZX
Pipex 0800 458 7000 send e-mail Pipex Home Call LTD, Complaints Department, Christie Fields, Derwent Avenue, Manchester, M21 7QS
Post Office 02871 304 703 send e-mail Post Office Telecoms Services, Bridge Court, The Close, Newcastle Upon Tyne, NE1 3BA
Tiscali 0800 975 3030 (option 4) send e-mail Tiscali UK Ltd, PO Box 14505, Birmingham, B46 1BF
UK Online 0800 053 0606 (option 3) send e-mail UK Online,The Maltings, Charlton Road, Shepston Mallet Sommerset, BA4 5QE
Utility Warehouse 0208 955 5000 send e-mail Utility Warehouse, Edge Business Centre, Dryden House, Humber Road, London, NW2 6EW
Virgin Media (Non-Cable only) 0800 052 0459 Contact form Virgin Media, PO Box 333, Matrix Court, Swansea, SA7 9ZJ
Vodafone Home Broadband 0808 0000166 send e-mail Customer Correspondance, Vodafone Lts, PO Box 549, Banbury, Oxon, OX17 3JZ
Whilst every effort has been made to include all the ISPs which offer “unlimited” packages in this list, please contact us at thegadgetshow@five.tv if your service provider does appear here.

Re: Gadget Show

Thunderclap — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 18:55:42 GMT

The term Unlimited is ambiguous, however it's use is a matter for the Advertising Standards Agency or even, the Trading Standards Office to decide, not a tele-programme.
I would rather see the Gadget Show focus attention on ISP's who spy on their customers using technology like B.T./Phorm, rather than campaign vigorously on behalf of those jokers who have to fill a hard drive with downloaded Blueray movies, every day.
Thinks... I wonder if Jason B. got an email from his ISP?

Re: Gadget Show

techguy — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 19:59:10 GMT

Those that moan don't know a thing about the technical aspects of networking

Re: Gadget Show

scootie — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 02:04:52 GMT

tech guy its not about the technecal side of it. when looking for an isp i came across plusnet and read alot of the inforamtion they give you about there network so was a no brainer to sign up with pn instead of an unlimted provider.
But the thing that gets peoples back up is the fact the word they use is unlimted (not limited; unrestricted; unconfined, boundless; infinite; vast) and then have a FUP in the contract which means none of the defintions of unlimted

Re: Gadget Show

Word_Warrior — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 07:55:53 GMT

I'd like to point out that first of all, I have no influence over The Gadget Show but I will be working on part of the show soon. If the opportunity arises I will be mentioning the campaign and all about PN's openness regarding the mythical unlimited BB.
It's at times like this that you tend to get a little frustrated with PN though, when they seem to be too low profile and don't appear to be fighting their corner publically.
Going back some years now I really only stumbled across PN having had some awful experiences with some other ISP's free discs in mags to set you up etc. Having been with free-online first I was expanding my horizons to CGI-BINs and of course there was Force 9 which led me to PN. As far as I can remember no advertising was involved. I think now is the time for PN to raise it's profile a little.

Re: Gadget Show

artificer — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 08:17:11 GMT

it is the duty of broadcasters to impart information. were i looking for a broadband package and watched the show, i would find it helpful to know that unlimited is an impossibility and that those advertising their wares as such are being dishonest. armed with the information, i could then look for an honest broker.
lucky for me i landed with plus.net through recommendation.

Re: Gadget Show

techguy — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 10:19:59 GMT

Quote from: ASBO
tech guy its not about the technecal side of it. when looking for an isp i came across plusnet and read alot of the inforamtion they give you about there network so was a no brainer to sign up with pn instead of an unlimted provider.
But the thing that gets peoples back up is the fact the word they use is unlimted (not limited; unrestricted; unconfined, boundless; infinite; vast) and then have a FUP in the contract which means none of the defintions of unlimted

I think the vast majority that sign up to the ISPs moaned about use the minimum in terms of bandwidth and so don't fall foul of the FUP because they are just browsing the web.
The people that do and give the network planners, operations and accountants nightmares are those that make heavy use of streaming and P2P.

Re: Gadget Show

scootie — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 15:55:45 GMT

so tech guy heres a serniro of some one looking for a provider. this example person works in television so they will be using iplayer, c4 on demand ect to catch up on shows they need to research.
So obivious choice is to go with a unlimted isp due to catch up services being high bandwith usage only to find that when signed up with said unlimted provider for a few months they find there iplayer traffic being speed LIMITED which would restict the user to a maxium total monthly bandwith useage. not the quite the defensions of unlimted i posted before is it

Re: Gadget Show

techguy — Sun, 02 Nov 2008 13:04:18 GMT

OK so the FUP needs to be made clearer but the simple fact remains that If something is truly unlimited then the provider will keep having to add capacity (centrals or backhaul from their exchange equipment and not to mention peering connections)
Indeed for an LLU operator, rocketing transit costs will lead to a crunch.
There will come a point when all ISPs have to say no more or they will simply go out of business
For a moderate browser, it really does represent unlimited but for someone hammering the connection with hefty downloads then it is very limited
Allowing people to do what they want on a network does indeed lead to performance reduction for all, so if you were in charge of the network of an ISP, what would you do?
If they advertised a cap, then people would also moan.

Re: Gadget Show

scootie — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 00:41:06 GMT

well virgin addvitse there network as perfect for downloading. movies,music ect are these the acctivities that reduce network performs YES INDEED so why the hell add unlimted to the sale hype if this is not what a isp can delver.
trading stand's or ofcom or who ever should be stoping this madness need to do so soon.
(If they advertised a cap, then people would also moan). never hear any one moan about usage caps here at plusnet in fact im in favour of them with free usage at quiet times.
my friend is with bt and was telling me at what times of day he got best speeds on p2p. and i had to tell him thats coz bt will have some degree of traffic mangament or just that its the queit period. if only the other isp's was open and honest there customers would be as knowledgeable about the internet as us here and so they would not moan about the FUP

Re: Gadget Show

techguy — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 17:37:24 GMT

PN is the choice of the tech savvy user obviously

Re: Gadget Show

sipart — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 22:30:45 GMT

Well now on Plus.net and testing the connection I'm getting about 4500kbps on average over a few different speed testers over 1/2 hour. Upload is more variable 65kbps upto 360kbps over the tests.
Corporate VPN is pretty good as well (which was always bad on virgin).
Overall I am happy, will see what it's like over the next couple of weeks as I know sometimes new connections need to bed in (is that correct plus.net?).
Cheers
P.S.> no mention on Gadget show 😞
DSL Connection Details
DSL Line (Wire Pair): Line 1 (inner pair)
Protocol: G.DMT Annex A
Downstream Rate: 7136 kbps
Upstream Rate: 448 kbps
Channel: Interleaved
Current Noise Margin: 5.0 dB (Downstream) 25.0 dB (Upstream)
Current Attenuation: 32.0 dB (Downstream) 19.0 dB (Upstream)
Current Output Power: 19.7 dBm (Downstream) 11.9 dBm (Upstream)
DSLAM Vendor Information: Country: {0x0F} Vendor: {ALCB} Specific: {0x00}
PVC Info: 0/38

Re: Gadget Show

techguy — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 12:23:29 GMT

On a new connection (ADSL has been provisioned for the first time) there is a ten day training period where the exchange equipment monitors the line while gradually incrwasing the synch rate to estalish the maximum stable rate.
Reboot your router during the day once a day but leave it on so you end up with the highest MSR possible.

Re: Gadget Show

James — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 12:33:27 GMT

And read link:speed

Re: Gadget Show

techguy — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 12:45:49 GMT

Wish I could get 4.5 Meg but as I'm miles away from the exchange I cant, thanks BT!

Re: Gadget Show

shutter — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 15:20:37 GMT

There seems to be a lot of posts on this thread, bemoaning the fact the PlusNet does not (hardly ever) advertise their services as widely as say Virgin or BT....
I think that, we who have decided to use PlusNet, should be glad of that !....
Why? ...................................Precisely why you all say what good customer service we get, and how everything is like a nice family.....
THINK ON.....
If only HALF of BT customers, and HALF of VIRGIN customers joined Plusnet, How long would it take to get a response to a ticket? or a phone call?
I think we should help to keep PlusNet "low profile", and be chuffed to bits that we belong to the "Exclusive ISP Club"... Oh yes, you can tell your friends about how good it is to belong to PlusNet... (after all you don`t want to loose out on the referrals payment) But you won`t get any referrals payment for shouting from the roof tops and bringing in thousands of extra customers.... Also, bringining in those extra customers, will not bring down the amount you are charged monthly.... in fact PlusNet may well have to invest in more and bigger/better equipment to cope with the extra demand on services, so you may well be forcing them to increase prices....