Request a replacement router when you renew your contract or Plusnet will charge you for one

[#1]

Plusnet will provide you with a free router when you renew your contact, but only if you ask for one within 3 months of renewing your contract. If you ask for one after 3 months, they will charge you. Make sure you ask for your free router when you renew!

We weren't made aware of this when we renewed our contract, and now our old router (from our previous contract) has developed a fault, Plusnet insist on charging us for a replacement, or suggested we purchase a 3rd party replacement. If we had asked within 3 months of renewing they would have given us one for free.

Seems crazy as it means we all need to ask for routers whether we need them or not (hardly environmentally friendly), but that's their policy. 

[#2]

@mrosevere  Welcome to the forum.

Whatever you do do not buy a router from Plusnet. They are not worth a fraction of their rip off charge.

Go onto an auction site such as EBay and pay very little money for a BT Smarthub 6. Setting instructions are here. https://community.plus.net/t5/My-Router/Using-the-BT-Smarthub-6-on-a-Plusnet-Account/m-p/1587673#M85...

They both look and perform far better than Plusnet hubs. They work on both ADSL and fibre.

[#3]

Thanks - useful tip. I will take a look. How does the BT Hub stack up against non ISP branded routers? I'd be happy to spend the money to get something reliable. My wife is a teacher, so really needs decent reliable broadband at the moment as she has to send out school work for those lucky enough to be able to self isolate at home.

[#4]

@mrosevere 

When they first came out the Smarthub 6 had flaky firmware and gained a reputation for poor reliabilty. This has since been resolved.

I have used one for several years now and had no problems. There are many of we Plusnet customers who use them and I guess literally millions of BT customers. I am sure that we would have heard if there were reliability issues. Apart from that they can be bought that cheaply you can always get a second as a spare.

It's horses for courses really. If you want a no frills dual band router with good wifi capability then get a standard residential Smarthub 6. If you want a few more options with features like the capability to set your choice of DNS server then get the business version. If you want all the bells and whistles like guest networks and QoS control then pay the extra and get a third party modem/router.