topic Re: Usage rollover, makes sense? in Plusnet Feedback

Usage rollover, makes sense?

christmas — Sat, 04 May 2013 10:26:58 GMT

Most broadband contracts are initially for 12 or 18 months ie the customer is tied in or faces a financial penalty.
How about rolling over any un used monthly usage rather than being returned to ground zero each month?
If the companies can enforce 12 to 18 month contracts, how about similar arragement for customers?
What happens to the unused daily usage does it get re-cycled, dumped at sea or get stored in a cupboard for later use?

Re: Usage rollover, makes sense?

spraxyt — Sat, 04 May 2013 10:56:59 GMT

I expect the proportion of extra usage that is actually used is averaged out and used in the pricing calculations. Paying a bit more for the Unlimited product is surely better value these days.

Re: Usage rollover, makes sense?

picbits — Sat, 04 May 2013 11:06:30 GMT

As above - Plusnet pay BT per GB of traffic usage so they'll have based their business model and pricing on customers on capped products using x% of their total allowance.

Re: Usage rollover, makes sense?

Anotherone — Sat, 04 May 2013 15:02:32 GMT

The question of "rolling over" unused usage has been raised several times before. The above responses cover that point.
You don't have to sign up to a 12 month Contract for ADSL, but you will have to have an 18 month contract for Fibre because of the installation costs involved.

Re: Usage rollover, makes sense?

rogadodge — Sun, 05 May 2013 08:29:43 GMT

Quote from: Anotherone

You don't have to sign up to a 12 month Contract for ADSL, but you will have to have an 18 month contract for Fibre because of the installation costs involved.

I wonder why when you 'continue' or change your price plan you have to get tied in to a contract - the initial cost, which as you say is recovered by the contract, has already been recovered.
Ps, sorry my comment is in the quote box, but for some reason I can't get it out of here.
Dick:green Quote fixed.

Re: Usage rollover, makes sense?

Anotherone — Sun, 05 May 2013 10:57:10 GMT

If you sign upto a 12 or 18 month contract initially, when that term expires you are then on a 30 day notice. If you change ADSL product there is no new contract UNLESS it's a special offer AFAIK. I'm sure someone will put me right if that's changed. However if you move from ADSL to Fibre that is a new 18 month contract at this time because of the installation costs of Fibre.

Re: Usage rollover, makes sense?

Anotherone — Sun, 05 May 2013 12:28:54 GMT

Hmm, although this is going a bit off-topic as the OP was primarily about usage, I've been doing some further digging in relation to Fibre. It's not clear that if your have reached the end of the Term on Plusnet Value or Extra Fibre, if you are expected to agreed to a further 18 months is you moved to Plusnet Essentials or Unlimited Fibre without any special offers. That to me would seem somewhat unreasonable.
Clarification please Plusnet!

Re: Usage rollover, makes sense?

rja66 — Sun, 05 May 2013 14:27:35 GMT

I have always chosen the 'no contract' option on my ADSL connection (I seem to recall paying extra for this when I signed up back in 2004) however I was told when I recently switched to unlimited I would now be on a 12 month contract unless I paid an additional £2 (I think it was :-\) to retain the 30 day notice option. As a loyal customer it would have been nice to have been allowed to keep the 30 day notice option for the £9.99 price.
* Just to add: I chose the 12mth contract in the end to keep the price down and decided I may as well have the free router as well as I was already tied for a year and as this router solved many problems for me I cannot complain !

Re: Usage rollover, makes sense?

rogadodge — Sun, 05 May 2013 19:38:09 GMT

@ RJA66..
I'm on extra (still), and if I go to unlimited, will I be on a 30 day contract or tied in for another year?
If I am tied in - WHY? There is no hardware to pay for.
That was the point I was trying to make, off topic I know. Sorry.

Re: Usage rollover, makes sense?

Oldjim — Sun, 05 May 2013 20:22:59 GMT

It depends if you go for the lower price 12 month tie in or I think £2.50 more with no tie in

Re: Usage rollover, makes sense?

x47c — Sun, 05 May 2013 20:33:36 GMT

It will be something to do with ensuring they have at least some degree of certainty about the income received during the next year.
This means they can work out their allocation of working capital and expected cash flows with more accuracy.
They don't want a scenario where customers could come and go as they please (quite apart from the paperwork aggro/cost this would be) so they make it more expensive for those who do wish to have that option on ADSL.
Perhaps on Fibre they really really really don't want you to leave for some operational/capital expenditure reason to do with FTTC so they enforce a longer contract..........
Perhaps they have longer term contracts for the "FTTC links/ports" with BTworldwide so need to pass that on.
Who knows!

Re: Usage rollover, makes sense?

Anotherone — Sun, 05 May 2013 22:58:17 GMT

@doris barloff
Jim is right there when moving to a new ADSL product at the lower price, it's a 12 month contract, having looked at the small print

Re: Usage rollover, makes sense?

christmas — Mon, 06 May 2013 14:06:26 GMT

Re rollover of usage are people saying if everyone on limited allowance used it to the maximum PlusNet would lose money, or just that they'd make less profit?
Re the subject of contracts...I'm unclear what happens at the end of 12 or 18 months. Does it autonatically roll on to another 12 or 18 months contract?

Re: Usage rollover, makes sense?

Oldjim — Mon, 06 May 2013 14:11:45 GMT

It changes to the usual 10 30 day notice unless you sign up for another 12 months. But then again they would have to make that very attractive as you would stay on your present 12 month contract price but with 10 days notice
Edit - error corrected

Re: Usage rollover, makes sense?

Anotherone — Mon, 06 May 2013 14:19:14 GMT

No, as Jim has said, you are on 10 30 day notice - automatic contract rollovers were banned by OFCOM over a year ago, about the only decent thing they've done for users.
As was said in an earlier post, the allowances topic is all related to the business model. Without checking further (which I'm not going to waste time on) if it came up before, but it certainly did in 2006 and again in 2010 with posts on that continuing until 2012. They haven't changed their model since then and I doubt with Unlimited packages (and increased allowances on some others) becoming more common place, that they are very unlikely to do so now. Flogging that issue is like flogging a dead horse IMHO.

Re: Usage rollover, makes sense?

spraxyt — Mon, 06 May 2013 14:57:31 GMT

I thought the new products (Essentials and Unlimited) become 30 days notice after 12 months, the 10 days notice is for legacy products no longer sold.

Re: Usage rollover, makes sense?

Anotherone — Mon, 06 May 2013 15:01:21 GMT

Woops, schoolboy error on our part I did mention the 30 days earlier in the thread, thanks for the correction.

Re: Usage rollover, makes sense?

Oldjim — Mon, 06 May 2013 15:04:39 GMT

Quote
Once we have provided the service, you may tell us to stop providing it at any time by giving us 30 days written notice if you're a Plusnet Essentials or Unlimited customer (sold from December 2012), or 10 days for all other packages, unless the service terms say otherwise. We can stop providing the service by giving you 10 days written notice.

Previous post corrected
One interesting question - unfair contract terms
They only need to give 10 days but we need to give 30 days