Slow broadband cancellation fee rip off

[#1]

Well I ordered my broadband not even a month ago and it's very slow I'm lucky if I achieve 2.5mb
The tech guys been great and tried a few things but it's not really getting Any better so I've rang to ask if I can cancel to which the reply was yes but there's a fee of £100 which has really bugged me , as the lady explains I had 14days from the point of ordering to cancel for free . To which I replied this would be impossible to achieve seeing that you have to wait for phone line to be activated , the router to be sent out , then on the letter you get says that you have to wait 10 days for the phone line to stable to show true broadband speed. So I did and now I defiantly know that this is the best speed I'm going to achieve and I'm going to have to pay £100!!!.
Your 14 days cancel period is very sneaky/wrong in my eyes.
Surely this is really wrong of plusnet , I could understand if it's been months but it's hasn't even been a month yet ...
Come on plus net, this really isn't fair.....

Has anyone else had a similar problem

Please help !

[#2]

The 14 days isn't really designed as a trial period. It still costs the ISP to connect so that has to be covered. It's literally there for if you change your mind. If it's a speed issue though, there's the minimum guaranteed speed which should be in the contract. If this cant be met you can leave the contract on that basis (penalty free).

Bear in mind though, if speed is poor with one provider it's not likely to be better with another since it's the same line, so really it wants fixing, not dropping, plus you do need to work with pnet and let them exhaust everything they can do to improve it to use minimum speed as a release.

With that all said, and I expect tech will have gone over most of this, but what are your estimates? And are you getting poor speeds wired or over wifi? Poor wired speeds could be a line issue, but wifi is usually an in home issue.

If you can post up an overview of what's been covered so far some of the forum users can help, and the staff who monitor this are pretty good too.

[#3]

I see your point on the cost of setting up etc, but this would have been done beforehand anyway, so if I hadn't of tested it and just cancelled right at the start. It would have been free. But there would still have been a cost to Plus net for isp connect anyway... So there's no difference in my opinion .
I think nowadays, the main reason people would change there mind on broadband would be because of the speed.

Yes I think there was a min which I believe was 1mb, to be honest I didn't take much notice of it, when I signed up to a contract saying upto 18mb I thought even half of that I'd be happy with for what I use it for .

Sorry I'm not technical with this, they changed the noise db and tried a few things (the tech guys was good tbh) even said I could keep it in the test port just to try and get alittle bit more .

I understand that any other provider would probably have the same issues if it's going through the phone line ...
I believe there's one company that doesn't need to do this (no names mentioned here)
The guy told me that I wouldn't really get much more out of it , Adsl 1 and exchange thing is far away... or something like that.

I've only tried it on Wi-Fi.
But it's a real struggle to do anything with such low speeds .
Today it dropped down to 0.70mb agghhh!

Any help would be grateful but I still think the 14 policy is very wrong , do you not agree ?

[#4]

Ignore the 14 day policy, also testing via Wi-Fi, what speeds should you be getting according to the DSL Checker?

How does that compare to your sync and max attainable speeds on the Helpdesk page of your router?

With these basic bits of info, you will get far more useful support information and help. 

No ISP will guarantee Wi-Fi speeds, there are far too many variables, what are your speeds via am wired connection? 

[#5]

0.70Mbps is definitely not normal.

What speeds did you get with your previous provider? I also have a problem with the speeds being slightly slower than compared to Sky just over 1 month in. I get around 12.80Mbps with noise margin capped to 9dB due to drop out issues. But with Sky I was getting 14Mbps at 9dB profile. At 3dB Sky gave me 18.04Mbps whereas with Plusnet max was 16Mbps under 3dB. This is supposed to be the same line right? But of-course even ISP's vary from quality even under the same Openreach copper line.

I also have for example worse pings 21ms vs 12ms with Sky with whichever speedtest server I try. Nothing I can do about it. Upload speed is also slightly slower 968kbps vs 1200kbps with Sky. Nose margin is also very poor for my upload speeds. I'm not sure whether it's because Plusnet are connecting from Sheffield to London that's why I have this issue.

But there's nothing we can do about this. It is a service issue with the ISP or maybe the Sagemcom F@ST router isn't good. Try a 3rd party router like Netgear. Make sure you connect your router through the test socket. Remove the master socket and try also removing the orange ring wire, that can reduce speeds and isn't really needed. Only terminals 2 and 5 are needed.

Since the service is cheap and much cheaper than Sky. Sky increased the price to £30 a month silently, otherwise I would not have left Sky. But I was attracted by the £75 cashback and the cheap £197 year on advance so I joined Plusnet. But of-course I know it's too late now to quit. My recommendation is if with 12 months of the contract, the performance/reliability does not improve then at least you know you can quit Plusnet at the end of the contract and return back to the provider that is more reliable.

You don't have FTTC available in your area by any chance? That may have solved the problem. I'm still waiting for FTTC last 10 years on a Plan. I know our real solution will be Fibre to the Premises. Until we can't get rid off these copper lines we will always have some problems more or a less forever basically until regardless of ISP.

[#6]

No I agree that this isn't normal 0.70.
I don't know as I've just moved in here so I have nothing to go off but surely it could be quicker than this .

I will have to do another test to see what the pings was but I believe they was quite high .

I think my upload speed was 0.38 or around there.

Where is this orange ring and how do I remove it ? (Sorry I'm a complete novice)

Again sorry what's fttc... is that fibre, if so then no it hasn't come to our area as yet (few miles from Wolverhampton city center)

Thanks again

[#7]

Here's the guide on how to remove the orange ring wire. https://kitz.co.uk/adsl/socket.htm
It is inside the master telephone socket. You have to open both of the screws with a screw driver. Locate the orange or red wire on pin 3 and try removing that and see if your connection improves.

Also check https://www.homeandbusiness.openreach.co.uk/fibre-broadband/when-can-i-get-fibre
FTTC is Fibre to the Cabinet. If you haven't got that yet then unfortunately like me we are stuck on ADSL copper.

Check also this https://www.btwholesale.com/includes/adsl/main.html add your post code or your address to see what are your maximum attainable speeds. If you have any residential neighbours ask them what speeds they get and with what provider they are with, this should give you clues if it's the ISP or line that's the issue.

[#8]

To be honest fairness isn't really a factor here. If I recall correctly, early termination fees are actually profit foregone-in other words, if you cancel you pay whatever the ISP has paid to connect you so they dont lose out for you changing your mind, and you dont have to pay full price for something you don't want, but as I said, in this case you'd use speed guarantees instead so the 14 days is irrelevant.

From what you've said mind, I have a feeling you might be in for a disappointment. If your minimum speed was only 1Mb then you'll be a good distance from the exchange and very unlikely to hit the 9 you're hoping for. Definately not if ADSL 1 is all that's available as I believe the technical max there is about 8. Really important to check those estimates, because if your getting those to the home (not necessarily via wifi) then the contract is fulfilled.

If you're using wifi too that will always be slower. There are a few things that may be doable, but as others have said, first you need to know what the line can actually do, and what it's doing now to have a realistic target.

Pop your phone number in dslchecker.bt.com first to find your estimates. After that, if you can, run a speed test via ethernet, or check the sync rate in the router to find out what the line is doing. That'll determine whether we're dealing with a genuine line problem or just poor wifi. From there you can start to look at improving things.

[#9]

@Jus 

To.be fair you should have had an email from Plusnet stating the range of speeds that your line would support and a minimum guaranteed speed when you signed up. This would have been given to you well within the cancellation period. I’m afraid that  in my opinion to ignore that and assume that you will get 9 Mbps is not an acceptable get out of contract free argument

If however you are not getting the minimum guaranteed speed when connected via an Ethernet cable and Plusnet cannot get your speed up to this rate then they will release you..

[#10]

I've just had a Look and I can't find an email stating this anywhere .
I think as I was signing up to 18mb that it said min 1mb so I stupidly presumed that it was just a standard across the broad minimum 1mb .
I didn't expect 9 mbps but certainly a broadband that I can actually use.
I.e to watch movies etc
I'm still disagree with the 14 day policy .

If you brought a sports car with 500bhp but was only achieving 50bhp I'm sure you would be insisting to return it too. For an crazy example.

[#11]

So what else does it say on the email that quotes a minimum of 1Mbps?

Taking your super sports car example, if the supplier advised me that the power output of the car might be no more than 50 bhp then I would walk away. 

Caveat Emptor!

[#12]

You will have received an email. Check your junk mail box. For me it was like this... 

About your broadband speed

Account Username: serajmi  When you signed up for Plusnet Broadband, we gave you an estimated line speed range. Now that your broadband has been up and running for 14 days, we wanted to let you know your line speed as it stands today, as a comparison.

Estimated line speed: 10Mbps to 19Mbps This shows the normally available speeds your line is capable of. You may have chosen to buy a product which runs at slower speeds. Current line speed: 15.8Mbps

Unfortunately even if it said that your estimated line speed is higher you still can't do anything about it yet.
However, from next year 2020 there will be a USO (Universal Service Obligation) which will mean that anyone from the UK will have a legal right to get at least 10Mbps. This law hasn't been legislated yet so you won't be able to quit your ISP penalty free.

[#13]

Thankyou , your right it was hiding in my spam so I never seen this .
I've just looked and the estimate speed was actually 3-8mb with a min guarantee of 1mb.
I'm achieving around 2.5mb. Which still isn't ideal for me .
I'm just wondering if the line is really old (as I've noticed a old fashion connection box (rectangle box with one screw at the top) if this is the problem , would I be able to ask to have the line changed? ... would it help ? Or could the little connection box be causing an issue ...

Thanks in advance

[#14]

You could actually try connecting your router from the intrusion point of your house. The wire that you see connecting to the Master socket. Instead of connecting to the master or test socket this will rule out internal wiring issues. You connect the faceplate to the intrusion point by connecting pin 2 and 5 and see if your connection speed improves.

If it doesn't improve speed/performance then your problem will not be the the small BT Openreach box or Openreach socket in your home.

[#15]

@Jus: the estimate Plusnet sent you will have been based primarily on your distance from the exchange, which of course you can't change without moving house.

Keep checking for (and keep your fingers crossed) fibre becoming available - in the meantime you can only try to maximise what you do have by connecting via the test socket if that's convenient for you, and using wired rather than wireless whenever possible.