topic Re: Should PlusNet compensate users for peak time slow downs? in Plusnet Feedback

Should PlusNet compensate users for peak time slow downs?

AndyH — Sun, 26 Jan 2014 19:29:54 GMT

There have been a few threads recently where users have been affected by peak time slow downs, outside of Plusnet's direct control. Some of the problems are on-going and it can take a month, or longer, to be fixed.
Users with FTTC speeds of 70Mbps+ are seeing slow downs to single digits during peak times and this is affecting their browsing, streaming, downloading or game playing. If they run the BT Wholesale Speed Tester, they are getting results below the acceptable speed levels.
As it stands, there is nothing in Plusnet's T&Cs (for residential users) that guarantees speeds. It is also my understanding that Plusnet's suppliers (BT Wholesale) do not compensate them for problems affecting end user speeds.
Should Plusnet be pushing BT Wholesale for compensation and passing this on to end users? Or should Plusnet be automatically compensating end users themselves?

Re: Should PlusNet compensate users for peak time slow downs?

jelv — Sun, 26 Jan 2014 20:14:16 GMT

If FTTC connections drop to ADSL speeds Plusnet should refund the user the difference in the price between FTTC and ADSL packages.

Re: Should PlusNet compensate users for peak time slow downs?

AndyH — Sun, 26 Jan 2014 20:16:48 GMT

I suppose the same should apply to ADSL connections dropping to 56k modem speeds!

Re: Should PlusNet compensate users for peak time slow downs?

TORPC — Sun, 26 Jan 2014 20:32:49 GMT

Or to non existent speeds

Re: Should PlusNet compensate users for peak time slow downs?

Dan_the_Van — Sun, 26 Jan 2014 20:49:39 GMT

Is this vote a joke, can you imagine any ISP signing up to this?
This topic needs more thought!
Dan.

Re: Should PlusNet compensate users for peak time slow downs?

ejs — Sun, 26 Jan 2014 21:11:58 GMT

I think they should have the opportunity to cancel their FTTC/FTTP provision without paying any early termination fees.

Re: Should PlusNet compensate users for peak time slow downs?

paulh — Sun, 26 Jan 2014 21:45:45 GMT

Quote from: Dandroid
Is this vote a joke, can you imagine any ISP signing up to this?
This topic needs more thought!
Dan.

Clearly you didn't live through The Great Broadband-Plus Debacle of 2007, after which quite a large number of us were compensated for poor service speeds. Or was it 2008?

Re: Should PlusNet compensate users for peak time slow downs?

jelv — Sun, 26 Jan 2014 22:07:23 GMT

Quote from: Dandroid
Is this vote a joke, can you imagine any ISP signing up to this?
This topic needs more thought!
Dan.

You must be the kind of customer that companies love - accept any level of poor service with no expectation of recompense. It's the British tendency to quietly moan but do nothing to fight back that allows companies to get away with poor service. For example I'm convinced that Plusnet have not been enforcing the Missed Appointment Payment from OpenReach and that has led to complacency in OpenReach that they can get away with it.

Re: Should PlusNet compensate users for peak time slow downs?

Dan_the_Van — Sun, 26 Jan 2014 22:19:54 GMT

John,
Think what you like, it is not practical to implement such a system. The current broadband service does not have the resources to manage the level of monitoring suggested here. PN would be swapped with compensation claims. Each claim which would need checking out to ensure it was valid. What level of compensation would you expect.?
It's not as if someone play "kill anything that moves" on their X Box is that important.
Business customers would have a valid claim for some form of compensation.
Dan.

Re: Should PlusNet compensate users for peak time slow downs?

Strat — Sun, 26 Jan 2014 22:26:01 GMT

The problem for Plusnet is they don't sell a service, they re-sell a service and have poor control over the service they re-sell in company with other ISPs that re-sell the same BTW service.

Re: Should PlusNet compensate users for peak time slow downs?

jelv — Sun, 26 Jan 2014 22:30:30 GMT

@Dandroid
If someone has agreed to pay a higher price to upgrade from ADSL speeds to FTTC speeds (the basis on which Plusnet offer it) it is only right that they can expect to receive the higher speeds. If they don't they should be compensated.
@Strat
They only have a poor control over the service they resell because they do not kick up a fuss. I bet Andrews and Arnolds customers don't have to put up with half as much [Censored] as Plusnet's users!

Re: Should PlusNet compensate users for peak time slow downs?

AndyH — Sun, 26 Jan 2014 22:37:22 GMT

BT Wholesale know the customers impacted by capacity problems - it's fairly straight forward. An end user does not even need to raise it as a fault if BTw are already aware of problems at that exchange.
If an exchange has capacity problems and it takes weeks or months to fix, BT Wholesale should automatically refund their customers (ISPs) a set amount of the monthly rental and this should be passed back to the customer.

Re: Should PlusNet compensate users for peak time slow downs?

jelv — Sun, 26 Jan 2014 23:09:36 GMT

Plusnet should be able to easily identify users on the affected exchanges who have raised speed faults. If they can't there's something wrong with their databases as those sort of queries should be a standard check to see if other users are affected when faults are reported.

Re: Should PlusNet compensate users for peak time slow downs?

ejs — Mon, 27 Jan 2014 07:07:10 GMT

Perhaps the people who are closer to their cabinet / exchange and so get higher speeds should start paying more than those who are further away and get slower speeds.

Re: Should PlusNet compensate users for peak time slow downs?

AlaricAdair — Mon, 27 Jan 2014 07:09:12 GMT

This the nature of a Contended Service. It is many people sharing the same capacity at the Exchange.
If people want a dedicated service which doesn't slow down at busy periods the present BT price for 10 Mbps is approx £450 month on a 5 year contract.

Re: Should PlusNet compensate users for peak time slow downs?

AndyH — Mon, 27 Jan 2014 08:41:25 GMT

Quote from: AlaricAdair
This the nature of a Contended Service. It is many people sharing the same capacity at the Exchange.

Not really - this is different. Normal contention (BT don't actually work on 'contention ratios' so to speak anymore) should ensure there is sufficient bandwidth to be shared by all users at all times. In these cases, the capacity to and from exchanges are not being upgraded to account for the increased demand of services like fibre. In theory, when usage crosses a certain level, it should trigger capacity upgrades. This is something that does not seem to happen sometimes. What I am struggling to understand is how the same problem can affect the same exchanges 2-3x in a 12 month period.
If Plusnet's network saw significant slow downs at peak times due to poor network planning and lack of upgrades, these forums would be inundated with people wanting to cancel or get refunds.

Re: Should PlusNet compensate users for peak time slow downs?

jelv — Mon, 27 Jan 2014 08:56:27 GMT

I wonder how many of the people voting no might have a different view if they'd suffered a month of the internet being unusable at the times they wanted to use it?

Re: Should PlusNet compensate users for peak time slow downs?

ejs — Mon, 27 Jan 2014 12:34:58 GMT

Is it really unusable, or just not the 77Mbps they're used to?
If you want compensation if FTTC speeds drops to ADSL speeds - would that be the ADSL speed of the individual? In which case some people would be eligible for compensation if their speed dropped below e.g. 15Mb, while others, paying the same price, would have to put up with anything above their previous 2Mb or whatever.

Re: Should PlusNet compensate users for peak time slow downs?

AndyH — Mon, 27 Jan 2014 12:57:48 GMT

Quote from: ejs
Is it really unusable, or just not the 77Mbps they're used to?

Depends on what you mean by "unusable". Even though your speeds may drop to 2Mbps, this does not mean that you can easily browse websites, stream videos, play games online etc. In fact, some of these things become virtually impossible to do (just have a look at some of the congestion threads on here).
There is an "acceptable range of speeds" based on your IP Profile and type of service (e.g. ADSL/FTTx) which is clear when you run the Further Diagnostics on the BTw Speed Tester. That should surely be the definition of what is an acceptable level of service, otherwise what is the point in it?
There's a FTTP user with BT Retail who is on the 300/20 (Infinity 4) service also paying for BT Vision. His speeds drop literally to 0 and he cannot do anything (this has been going on for 2 months now). He has had several engineers out already to check his connection, but found no issues. Should he not be entitled to a refund or part refund on the £60-80 he must be paying a month?

Re: Should PlusNet compensate users for peak time slow downs?

ejs — Mon, 27 Jan 2014 13:25:52 GMT

There's also the 12Mb for 15Mb+ lines, or 70% of line sync speed, for less than 15Mb FTTC lines "Minimum ‘Best Efforts’ Planned Downstream Throughput (Mbit/s)" in the WBC FTTC handbook, and the 2Mb upstream fault thresold rate. And then there's also those minimum speeds for 90% of the 3 busiest hours.
When lots of people have 70Mb connections, it doesn't take that many people fully utilising their connections to suddenly use up far more bandwidth than expected. Just estimate the total Plusnet bandwidth from the usage graphs and the total number of Plusnet customers. Divided between all the customers, there's really not very much, the whole system only works on the basis most people aren't using any bandwidth most of the time. Perhaps a cheaper solution will be to stop selling it as unlimited (again!), and kick off the people using up too much bandwidth.
If there's ever not enough electricity for everyone (e.g. when we close down old polluting power stations, don't build enough new ones, and it's too windy / not windy enough), you'd just get rolling blackouts, which aren't supposed to be for longer than 24 hours, and you get compensation if you're switched off for more than 24 hours.