cancel
Showing results for 
Search instead for 
Did you mean: 

Leaving Plusnet £33 Month ADSL2+ For £10.08 Now Broadband Inc Anytime Mobile/Landline Calls Deal

Capvermell
Rising Star
Posts: 481
Thanks: 12
Fixes: 1
Registered: ‎16-12-2007

Leaving Plusnet £33 Month ADSL2+ For £10.08 Now Broadband Inc Anytime Mobile/Landline Calls Deal

Just to say that due to my own Belkin ADSL2+ wifi router recently turning up its toes and then short term uprating my £10 GiffGaff Goodybag to the £20 one that gives you 80Gb of data (rather than 6Gb on the £10 one) I was reminded what a very bad deal indeed I am getting from Plusnet by being charged £33 per month for ADSL2+ broadband (ok at least its 16 Mbps speed but that's just down to how near I live to the exchange and not Plusnet) with no phone calls included.

As FTTP cables installed due to my rural exchange due to it being a Race To Infinity winner back in 2010 have passed my flat door since 2015 I looked at the FTTP options (there is no FTTC option here) but was horrified to see that for anything price competitive on a monthly basis the only option was still BT Retail (Zen, IDNet and Aquiss all still charge more for slower connection speeds than BT, although do at least only have a 1 year contract).

So even though I am a speed freak by nature and have driven sports cars for over 30 years I'm also value conscious so looked around and was amazed to find that Now Broadband is not only offering new customers its Brilliant Broadband ADSL2+ service for only £18 a month in the first 12 months but in addition is throwing in unlimited Anytime Calls to landlines and mobiles (for which they normal charge £8 per month but BT Retail charges an outrageous £15 per month as an add on) but to cap it all off they were offering £100 cashback to signup for their cheapest broadband service through Quidco (cashback which in fact tracked instantly rather than a nervous wait of days or weeks before it turned up, but hence why I no longer use TopCashBack).

So by my calculations the £18 a month times 12 is £216 but then take off the £100 Quidco Cashback and add £5 for new ADSL wifi modem/router (which I actually need as my last one broke and the only other ones I have are either VDSL or locked to another ISP) and the first year cost is only £121 or £10.08 per month compared to the £33 or so with Plusnet. And in the process I gain nice clear Anytime calls to landlines and mobiles that I currently have to make on my mobile that at my home address is often unclear and distorted and where calls often drop after a few minutes at busy times of day when the local cell tower is overloaded (especially now during COVID-19 lockdown when neither mean BT or mean Plusnet gave their customers free Anytime landline calls to stop cell tower congestion).

If I had gone for BT Fibre 900 at £59.99 a month with the £15 per month Anytime Calls add on then my cancellation charges if I had needed to cancel (if I moved abroad or merged with another household that already has broadband) in a few months time could have been as much as an incredible £1,500 despite previous Ofcom rulings saying that BT must only charge customers their real actual costs in the event of early termination.

As along the way I have discovered all the senior management positions at Plusnet are now taken by BT employees who are clearly there to turn it in to a second class cheapskate ISP (hence why Plusnet is not allowed to offer FTTP to customers despite it now passing by over 2 million homes via Openreach cables) it was an easy decision to leave Plusnet, save a fair bit of money and encourage Plusnet to stop ripping off existing customers who aren't enslaved in an 18 month contract (as a recent Ofcom directive has told them they must stop doing but they still are currently doing).

And the final icing on the cake is that due to the complete recent BT'isation of most Plusnet processes there is no longer a ripoff £30 cessation charge for leaving Plusnet and migrating on to Sky/NowBroadband/Comcast's LLU in my local exchange.

Perhaps when Plusnet and BT see enough customers leaving they may realise that no FTTP at Plusnet and 24 month minimum terms for any new BT broadband contract (even an ADSL2+ one) are both very severe and unnecessary Own Goals😡

Oh and by the way my relationship with Plusnet goes back 15 or more years to the days of Lee Strafford and when it was a truly independent ISP............

7 REPLIES 7
CJT-80
Aspiring Pro
Posts: 121
Thanks: 36
Fixes: 4
Registered: ‎14-11-2017

Re: Leaving Plusnet £33 Month ADSL2+ For £10.08 Now Broadband Inc Anytime Mobile/Landline Calls Deal

@Capvermell 

I agree that No FTTP for PlusNet is an own goal for both them and BT Group.

Regarding contracts at least with PN you can still opt for 12 Months as a customer (at least a new one).

 

Kind Regards,

CJT
Capvermell
Rising Star
Posts: 481
Thanks: 12
Fixes: 1
Registered: ‎16-12-2007

Re: Leaving Plusnet £33 Month ADSL2+ For £10.08 Now Broadband Inc Anytime Mobile/Landline Calls Deal

I can't for the life of me imagine why Plusnet can't now offer FTTP when their current CEO has a BT and not a Plusnet email address and several other senior personnel are current or previous BT employees and their other service like Calller Protect now work exactly the same way as the BT ones.

They should therefore be able to access all of BT's economies of scale FTTP ordering and management systems and offer Fibre Essential through to Fibre 900 at the same prices as BT Retail.

This seems to be all about keeping Plusnet as a dumbed down inferior product brand within the BT marketing stable.

But when you think it then means they can only offer over 2 million households either no broadband at all or only ADSL2+ it seems an extremely stupid decision.

Anyway for me 16Mbps ADSL2+ for only £121 per annum with inclusive anytime landline and mobile calls is perfectly adequate for now, although when a 5G signal finally gets out here in another 2 or 3 years then ADSL2+'s day is really going to be done as having all one's calls and data on just a mobile 1 month SIM only contract works out far cheaper and more flexible for a single person household than having fixed line broadband and a mobile phone calls and data plan.

jab1
Legend
Posts: 16,818
Thanks: 5,339
Fixes: 248
Registered: ‎24-02-2012

Re: Leaving Plusnet £33 Month ADSL2+ For £10.08 Now Broadband Inc Anytime Mobile/Landline Calls Deal

The simple reason why PN don't - or can't - offer FTTP is a BT corporate one. Plusnet are their bargain basement, and you don't get premium products down there.

John
Capvermell
Rising Star
Posts: 481
Thanks: 12
Fixes: 1
Registered: ‎16-12-2007

Re: Leaving Plusnet £33 Month ADSL2+ For £10.08 Now Broadband Inc Anytime Mobile/Landline Calls Deal

Funny then how for a long time Plusnet offered superior Yorkshire (in the main) based UK technical and customer broadband support and expensive BT was mainly incomprehensible and in India (admittedly BT has lately brought things back to the UK due to negative customer feedback about Indian customer service or technical support).

Also even the advertising BT has run since they took over has still emphasised the we listen and are helpful and are UK based market positioning of Plusnet.

Unfortunately Plusnet tested FTTP far too early when it wasn't at all widely available.  Now it is becoming widely available rapidly but BT management is refusing to re-evaluate the issue in that light.

Anyway if they can only offer me ADSL2+ (no FTTC with other major brands supplying and competing here due to the existence of FTTP that means no FTTC cabinets) I might as well move to Now Broadband and get it for less than a third of the price and including the very useful free unlimited landline and mobile calls during the first 12 months.

BT can stuff their FTTP until such time as they start selling it at competitive prices with no more than a 1 year contract.

jab1
Legend
Posts: 16,818
Thanks: 5,339
Fixes: 248
Registered: ‎24-02-2012

Re: Leaving Plusnet £33 Month ADSL2+ For £10.08 Now Broadband Inc Anytime Mobile/Landline Calls Deal

I'm not getting into a long discussion on this subject, but believe me, BT, as the parent company, has stuffed the PN management with its' apparatchiks, and run down the company, intentionally. What their final intention is, I don't know, but having seen this happen to other companies which have been gobbled by a larger competitor, I can't see much good coming of it.

John
Capvermell
Rising Star
Posts: 481
Thanks: 12
Fixes: 1
Registered: ‎16-12-2007

Re: Leaving Plusnet £33 Month ADSL2+ For £10.08 Now Broadband Inc Anytime Mobile/Landline Calls Deal

I completely agree with you regarding BT totally running down Plusnet and inserting their on corporate message apparatchiks in to all the top positions.  They won't even allow the senior management team of Plusnet to be listed via About Us on the Plusnet website any more, although you can find several hundred Plusnet employees, including senior ones, via LinkedIn.

The way things are changing lately and with the Yorkshire chappy's voice having gone on the phone calls (in favour of some accent neutral female) and given the lack of interest in providing FTTP just when it is becoming critical to do so I would give them only a couple of years before all the customer base is coalesced with BT and all of the senior management jobs in Yorkshire go, although they probably will retain some of the largest customer service teams and call centres for some years until they have slowly whittled them down through no new hiring to the point where the redundancy bill won't be too large.

That is why I am leaving them now because despite having been a Plusnet customer since 2003 on and off (and having made my mother a customer for around 8 years on her phone and broadband) I feel that Plusnet is no longer distinguishable from BT Main, who i have always hated with a passion, for their systematic incompetence in terms of any form of customer service and reliable order delivery without fouling up and requiring hours of phone calls to get put things right with faceless and disinterested call centre teams scattered all over the globe.  So what is the point of remaining loyal to now BT owned Plusnet when I am getting more than I am getting now for the next 12 months for only one third of the current Plusnet price and by that time hopefully Sky (who I have also never liked due to similar corporate attitudes to BT including that you can never leave them, but who I do have better feelings about due to the new Comcast ownership, who seem to want to shake up the UK broadband and pay tv cartels) will also be offering FTTP products along with may be say Vodafone, O2 or EE (although the latter of course just another arm of BT these days) and of course TalkTalk at better prices.

Anyway I don't regret leaving Plusnet, who did bother to get a very senior customer retentions guy who knew his stuff and was totally empathetic about my reasons for strong dissatisfaction (he had formerly worked at Sky but had left them due to various aspects of corporate [-Censored-] that restricted how he did the job, my words but not exactly his) but he was not allowed to match the Now Tv deal on price alone (never mind the free Anytime calls worth a further £96 or the £100 Quidco cashback) and so totally unable to save me as a customer (they would only have done that if they had agreed to give me the £120 a year I have been overpaying them for the last 4 years as a loyal but out of contract existing customer, and now strongly disapproved of by new Ofcom guidance) as a credit against future bills and matched the Now Broadband 1 year deal.  I could tell this guy would have done that if he had been allowed to but the senior BT management would clearly prefer to lose me and hang to the £500 they have stolen from me in excess charges over the last 4 or more years

So Now Broadband here I come.  It may not be perfect but I doubt it will be much different from Plusnet but it will be very cheap and include those unlimited calls to landlines and mobiles on my usually much better speech quality fixed copper phone line.compared to the very marginal mobile signal here on all four networks.........

Capvermell
Rising Star
Posts: 481
Thanks: 12
Fixes: 1
Registered: ‎16-12-2007

Re: Leaving Plusnet £33 Month ADSL2+ For £10.08 Now Broadband Inc Anytime Mobile/Landline Calls Deal

I have had an email from BT's Chief Financial Officer (one of their Main Board Directors), Simon Lowth, saying he is going to have my issues investigated by his Executive Customer Resolution Team so I have called his bluff by saying I am willing to remain with Plusnet if they will credit me with the circa £500 (£120 a year) they have overcharged me as an out of contract customer over the last 5 years (compared to an in contract customer) against future line rental and broadband services.

Of course I suspect I'm gong to hear a big silence on that point so my move to Now Broadband at less than a third of my current annual cost plus free inclusive calls to landlines and mobiles will still be going ahead on June 9th.

On the other hand its some kind of progress that a BT Main Board Director effectively admits that BT Group is directly in control of Plusnet's current commercial policies and pricing and contract renewal systems...............