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These routers are not worth the P+P let alone £40!

mcorne
Dabbler
Posts: 10
Registered: ‎10-05-2012

These routers are not worth the P+P let alone £40!

These routers, seriously?! I have the TG585 v7.
PlusNet nails customer service, value for money and almost everything I look for but they fall down when it comes to the router provided. I don't expect a top of the range router with a million different features but I do want the basic features and I want it to work.
Just about every time I try to set up port forwarding it will crash and revert any changes made. It isn't just me, I know of others with the same problem. Plain and simple, the router is awful. I do each port I want to forward individually so I don't stress it too much and it still crashes, forwarding lots of ports takes forever as it takes about 3 times before it works and I have to wait for the router to reboot and my computer to reconnect and wait for the pages to load as slow as ever.
Come on, I'm not asking much!
PS Admittedly this is only temporary as my old Netgear broke!
44 REPLIES 44
FuchsiaCottage
Dabbler
Posts: 17
Thanks: 1
Fixes: 1
Registered: ‎30-08-2012

Re: These routers are not worth the P+P let alone £40!

I have to admit, I am really disappointed by the modem/router as well. The WiFi signal is so weak it's a joke. So I opened it up to see what the internal aerial looked like  . . . there isn't one, just a trace on the circuit board. So I disabled the WiFi and plugged in my old (and very basic) Netgear router and set it up as a wireless access point and now I get a very good signal all over the house (stone cottage) and a usable signal outside as well!)
I notice there's quite a few complaints about these routers on the forums. Plusnet really should do something about it and give us at least a router that actually works as it should.
Ali.
orbrey
Plusnet Alumni (retired)
Plusnet Alumni (retired)
Posts: 10,540
Registered: ‎18-07-2007

Re: These routers are not worth the P+P let alone £40!

I'll be raising this in today's daily operations meeting, asking the support team if they're seeing the same thing and to keep an eye out. I certainly can't make any promises but it is something we'll be looking into.
Having said that it's been a while since we've sold the 585, it's been the 582n for some months now and that does seem to be better all round especially where wifi is concerned.
MJN
Pro
Posts: 1,318
Thanks: 161
Fixes: 5
Registered: ‎26-08-2010

Re: These routers are not worth the P+P let alone £40!

Quote from: mcorne
These routers, seriously?! I have the TG585 v7.

Could yours be faulty I wonder? Reason I ask is that I've got one and not had any issues with it. Sure, I hate the UI however I've not experienced any difficulties with port forwarding so the fact you are may be indicative of a fault rather than an inherent design issue.
Is it still under warranty?
Mathew
James
Grafter
Posts: 21,036
Thanks: 5
Registered: ‎04-04-2007

Re: These routers are not worth the P+P let alone £40!

Quote from: FuchsiaCottage
I notice there's quite a few complaints about these routers on the forums. Plusnet really should do something about it and give us at least a router that actually works as it should.

In honesty, regardless of what hardware we sent out, there would still be complaints.  It's the nature of forums.
As Matt's said, he'll put some feelers out to see if the call centre are seeing similar issues.
FWIW, I've had a 585 and a 582 and have had absolutely no issues with wireless performance.
nadger
Rising Star
Posts: 4,498
Thanks: 46
Registered: ‎13-04-2007

Re: These routers are not worth the P+P let alone £40!

I've used 585v8 since it first came out and not had a problem - it's better that 585v7 as cooling is improved.
I'm running software 8.2.7.8
Alex
Community Veteran
Posts: 5,500
Thanks: 921
Fixes: 13
Registered: ‎05-04-2007

Re: These routers are not worth the P+P let alone £40!

I'm using a TG585 v7 on another ISP (what they used to supply too).
The UI is awful, and you can boil a kettle in the time it takes to load. I remember it being a pain to forward a port (as in not saving settings) so I could RDP to my machine remotely.
That said, when I finally did get it working, at least it works and I can only remember having to reboot it once in the last year.
I hardly use wireless, as I have a wired connection on my PC. I have a laptop which I hardly use (but I'm sure I would get complains from the other members of the house if the internet didn't work on that Wink ). So can't really comment on it
Would upgrade it, but with fibre coming in my area there is little point if it does come in December.
Though I am not sure I should hold my breath considering the date slipped from June Roll_eyes
Rik13
Grafter
Posts: 62
Thanks: 1
Registered: ‎11-08-2011

Re: These routers are not worth the P+P let alone £40!

I've had no problem with the 585v8 router in over a year. On the other hand I was sent a 582n router and had lots of connection problems over the few days I used it. I have now gone back to the 585V8 which is giving better signal quality and is reliable.
Looking at some other threads  I notice others have had the same problem with the new one.
8grosvenor
Newbie
Posts: 8
Registered: ‎19-09-2012

Re: These routers are not worth the P+P let alone £40!

All last year we used a 5-6 year old belkin router which out-performs the useless Thompson thing, worst piece of technology I have ever known, unbelievable!
I have just setup the new router (582n) and although its an improvement and seems to actually work I'm still really disappointed with the wifi. The 6 year old belkin is managing 48mbps wifi (obviously this isn't an n router either) while the 582n is giving me 13mbps!  So we most likely have to use the blekin yet again this year because the 582n is still hopeless (I imagine if it had an Ariel on the back it would actually be a decent router!).
Can you not offer customers a decent router?  Even if you have to say it's £10 for the better one for those who need it, its annoying that being customers we have to use our own equipment because the stuff supplied is so lousy... Please offer Netgear, Belkin or another major and reputable brand and if possible scrap this Thompson/Technicolor rubbish!!!
Otherwise I think your service is great (well apart from 60GB cap but we are on unlimited anyway, we wouldn't be with you if we could only use 60GB!!) but the routers really are a major letdown Sad
EDIT: just found the router on Amazon, review say it all! http://www.amazon.co.uk/Technicolour-TG582n-Port-Wireless-Router/dp/B005ELFTH4

EDIT2: ------------------------------------------
Just something for plusnet to note, if it wasn't because of the awful router last year we would have had a near-flawless service, instead we had months of un-usable internet and headaches, we almost left you because of it.  The new router was the winning point of us staying but now I feel let-down again.  I should also note that because of the major issues caused by the router I told a few people looking to go with yourselves to go else-where, which they did!  I now would tell people that your service is good but they would have to buy their own router because yours don't do the job!
I just thought that should be food for thought on the issue.
chrispurvey
Plusnet Alumni (retired)
Plusnet Alumni (retired)
Posts: 5,369
Fixes: 1
Registered: ‎13-07-2012

Re: These routers are not worth the P+P let alone £40!

This has been something that has been brought up on the forums recently and we have made our products team aware of this. I can't say what will happen with this as I don't know, but if there was a high amount of dissatisfaction with this router I'm sure it is something that does need looking at.
Gareth6
Grafter
Posts: 42
Registered: ‎17-03-2012

Re: These routers are not worth the P+P let alone £40!

Quote from: Jameseh
Quote from: FuchsiaCottage
I notice there's quite a few complaints about these routers on the forums. Plusnet really should do something about it and give us at least a router that actually works as it should.

In honesty, regardless of what hardware we sent out, there would still be complaints.  It's the nature of forums.
As Matt's said, he'll put some feelers out to see if the call centre are seeing similar issues.
FWIW, I've had a 585 and a 582 and have had absolutely no issues with wireless performance.

It's a shame the complaints manager doesn't see an issue here. I've used just about every brand of router, and the TG582n is by far the worst. Both in interface (having to go 6 levels deep just to set up dhcp is ridiculous) and wifi strength is very poor (literally need line of sight and not sufficient for an average size house).
Saying "it works for me" isn't a good enough investigation. I will happily send you mine if you want.
As for saying "there would still be complaints.  It's the nature of forums". The Netgear router Plusnet supplied died within 6 months, that wasn't a big deal and I didn't open a thread to cry about it. The TG582n is junk, your customers are telling you this but you choose not to listen. False economy indeed.
custos
Aspiring Pro
Posts: 315
Thanks: 50
Fixes: 2
Registered: ‎28-06-2007

Re: These routers are not worth the P+P let alone £40!

I have been using a Plusnet supplied TG585 v8 for over a year and it works very well. I have tried a number of different routers recently and the performance of the 585 is as good as any of  them and better than most. Ease of set-up compares well with the excellent Netgear interface and is far easier than some of the others, The wireless performance is also good. I use port forwarding and recently I have also used the option to assign my public IP address to one of my computers, all without any problems. It has never lost any settings. It also runs relatively cool unlike the later model which seems to get VERY hot.
Mark
Grafter
Posts: 1,852
Registered: ‎04-04-2007

Re: These routers are not worth the P+P let alone £40!

The TG582n is junk, your customers are telling you this but you choose not to listen. False economy indeed.
@Gareth6
That's a pretty strong statement Smiley Whilst I appreciate that it is evident that some customers seem to be experiencing issues (based on the posts in this thread) it's not a view reflected by the majority of consumer or indeed business customers using this router. We've many thousands of these out there and we're not seeing a worrying number of reports.
I'd much rather understand if there is a particular environmental issue at play or perhaps something causing the issues you are seeing.
I can guarantee that our consumer support team and the business support team are not seeing any volume of complaints regarding the 582n router and if it was a bad as you believe we'd be inundated.
Have you tried different wireless channels or used something like Inssider http://www.metageek.net/products/inssider/ to interrogate the local environment?
Mark

8grosvenor
Newbie
Posts: 8
Registered: ‎19-09-2012

Re: These routers are not worth the P+P let alone £40!

Quote from: Mark

I'd much rather understand if there is a particular environmental issue at play or perhaps something causing the issues you are seeing.
I can guarantee that our consumer support team and the business support team are not seeing any volume of complaints regarding the 582n router and if it was a bad as you believe we'd be inundated.
Have you tried different wireless channels or used something like Inssider http://www.metageek.net/products/inssider/ to interrogate the local environment?

Just to go back to a point I made that somehow a 5-6 year old router that we are using (nothing special) provides a better connection than your new N router.  There is no need to investigate environmental issues here as the routers have been tested with both the routers and computer in the exact same places.  Almost full signal on the old router we have and a weak signal which is basically unusable on your N router.  Yes the local environment may be improved but with a decent router there ins't a need....
oh and have a £40 Netgear router away from uni which has a stronger signal than your N router I have here and that has to travel from the bottom corner of the 6 bedroom house to the other corner a floor up, says a lot! (your router only has to manage 1 wall, 1 door square on and about 15-20m using line-of site)
(the 5-6 year old router is a D-LINK router, made a mistake with belkin!)
Luzern
Hero
Posts: 4,823
Thanks: 872
Fixes: 9
Registered: ‎31-07-2007

Re: These routers are not worth the P+P let alone £40!

Mine works quite well. It is in front upper room at one side of my 3 bed link detached and wife can use her IPOD, even for Facetime chat with daughter in Kenya, whilst in sun room at back of house diametrically opposite downstairs.
TBH I wonder what other variables might affect individual experiences, such as construction, WLAN cars etc. May be too many to reliably accuse a router?
No one has to agree with my opinion, but in the time I have left a miracle would be nice.