I am sorry to bring this to the public forum....

[#1]

....but Plus Net are giving me no option.
It appears that being a Plus Net Business customer means that your tickets pretty much get ignored. Well over 24 hours in this case.
I was happy as a residential customer but ever since moving to business option 3 my connection and the level of service has rapidly gone down hill starting with the actual transition which was a complete disaster. I am still waiting for answers to questions I raised after this disaster.
I am also still waiting for answers as to why the latency and general quality of my connection is worse now than it was as a residential customer despite the so called improved contention ratio. Yes my upload speed has increased for which I am grateful but that is it. In the evenings sites such as YouTube are almost unusable despite being fine on a residential Talk Talk connection to which I have access, a connection which is actually much slower than my Plus Net connection. The best Plus Net were able to do in this case was to patronize me. I work in IT and do not need to be told to make sure my router is properly connected to the telephone line. That is not the issue nor has that ever been an issue.
Most recently I have been billed over £40 for a service Plus Net quoted me as being £29.38. I have 2 emails from them stating that as being the price!
I raised a ticket over 24 hours ago about this issue at which time the average wait time was listed as being less than 4 hours. So far I have waited over 25 hours.
So, as I have said I do not like to bring issues to the public forum but I don't see any other way for Plus Net to take notice of my concerns. 

[#2]

Unfortunately this is unlikely to be seen by Plusnet staff until Monday now.
One thing I should perhaps point out is that Plusnet's business products have a somewhat different ‘shape’ to their traffic management rate limits than residential products, as of course they are designed for completely different usage scenarios. Thus, even on option 3, you will still see a 1Mbps rate limit applied to YouTube between the hours of 7 and 10pm, which is actually lower than found on residential products (even Value). The implication being, of course, that not many businesses will need to watch YouTube videos between 7 and 10pm, which is fair enough in my eyes.

[#3]

No. Seen now.
Sean post the ticket ID. We're answering tickets in around 4 hours (or so the KPI's tell me) If we've got a problem I want to know about it and fix it.
I'll review the ticket responses and the info provided to you and get the underlying issues investigated.
Mark

[#4]

Quote from: Mark

No. Seen now.

I did say unlikely, not impossible.

[#5]

Just over 69 hours later I got an answer to my ticket. Of course this answer was as patronizing and generic as the previous answers. What is even more aggravating (possibly more so than the issues themselves) is the total lack of any sort of apology or explanation for making me wait so long.
After  many years as a Plus Net customer I never thought I would find myself browsing products on the websites of other service providers, but I truly am at the end of my tether!

[#6]

Sean,
Im sorry for any problems that you have encountered recently and I am currently looking at those. Once I have completed that I'll contact you and let you know what has been done and to see if there is anything further I can do to help you out.
Regards
James Nelson
Business Support Team Leader

[#7]

Quote from: Sean

.... the latency and general quality of my connection is worse now than it was as a residential customer despite the so called improved contention ratio. Yes my upload speed has increased for which I am grateful but that is it. In the evenings sites such as YouTube are almost unusable despite being fine on a residential Talk Talk connection to which I have access, a connection which is actually much slower than my Plus Net connection.

Sean
This has long been a problem with Plusnet business accounts. Plusnet have never had a business account suitable for the person who works from home (despite actually calling a product Teleworker at one point). Business accounts are optimised for the protocols that Plusnet consider to be for business type use & for office hours. They assume that you go home to a residential connection after 6pm.
Usenet, p2p & things like YouTube are not thought to be priorities on business accounts.
I've never understood this approach, as the growth in home working is driven by the availability of a decent broadband connection. Are people really expected to run 2 accounts on 2 phone lines? Maybe that's what does happen where the 'work' broadband is provided by the employer, but it's not how the self-employed would do things & the use of VoIP makes 2 lines unnecessary.
It always seemed to me that Plusnet was ideally placed to serve this community, but they have consistently turned their back on it.

[#8]

WOW, was thinking of moving to a business account at the end of the month as a home worker.
Perhaps not such a good idea after all! 
It was the promise of better CS that was making me think about it (rapid responce etc)+ the promise of better connection speed.
I think my family would lynch me if their youtube was cut off.
Will watch this forum with interest, thanks for posting your troubles.

[#9]

Yeah, issue still not resolved, in fact noone can even yet give me a reason for the slow speeds. Last night for example I got  a massive 20K/second while downloading .Net Framework from the Microsoft site. My line speed is about 230K/second.
Was on the phone to Opal broadband today (part of the TalkTalk group) but unfortunately they will only supply a maximum of two useable IP's per connection, no use to me. I hate BT with a passion so I am running out of options (lucky for Plus Net). Still shopping around though.
Youtube does work but in the evenings you have to load the page then go away for half an hour while the video stops/starts and buffers. It is an absolute discrase how bad it is. I thought is was maybe the websites but it all works perfectly at any time of the day on a (slower) residenial Talk Talk connection I have acess to on my network.

[#10]

Quote from: Sean

Last night for example I got  a massive 20K/second while downloading .Net Framework from the Microsoft site.

Business Option 3's traffic management does include the rate-limting of download servers to 512kbps between 7 and 10pm. What you're reporting is 160kbps which is even less than that, but still, I suspect it's related.

[#11]

I sent screenshots to Plus Net recently of similar speeds. The screenshots were captured at 6 in the morning. This issue exists 24 hours a day, it is just made worse in the evenings. Either way it is hardly acceptable that a TalkTalk residential connection at less than half the price performs much better than a Plus Net business connction.
I also highlighted the latency issue releating to my full time role. My Plus Net connection cannot stream smooth realtime unbuffered 256kbps video from an unreal mediaerver in RapidSwitch's data cente in London but the Talk Talk connection can do it perfecly.
This is despite the fact that the TalkTalk connection is slower and on the other end of a one mile wireless bridge which is currently partially blocked by a tree!

[#12]

Quote from: Sean

I hate BT with a passion so I am running out of options (lucky for Plus Net).

I assume with your background that you know plusnet is BT owned  
When I was gaming I had friends on FREE or £5 month talk talk connections with better connections and pings, I just can't get talk talk - I don't think. Not unbundled anyway.
I was looking at moving packages but aside from the hoo-ha about UP-TO speeds they now advertise UPTO 20MB on VALUE and when you look at the traffic management line speed is only available between 12am - 12pm the whole afternoon and evening is throttled!  
Have looked around myself but although not totally happy with PN they do seem to be trying to improve if you keep shouting.

Quote

the Korea Communications Commission is spending $24 billion to secure 1Gbps access by 2012. 1Gbps allows you to download a 120-minute film in 12 seconds. There's one small catch to the commission's plan, which is that only large cities in Korea will have access to the top tier broadband. But surrounding smaller areas will still have access to 50 to 100 Mbps speeds...

   

[#13]

Yes but Plus Net attracted me all those years ago because they appeared to be more aimed towards the power user, the people who actually know a bit about computers.
The problem now with all ISP's is that they're all offering huge line speeds but not a single company or the entire country as a whole can support this. The problem is that most people don't know better and will sign up to the huge line speeds not knowing that they will be limited in just about every way possible.
Gone are the glory days of broadband when I had a fixed ADSL speed of 576/288 and there was no download limits/throttling whatsoever.
In my experience TalkTalk are providing a better connection, I don't now how but the definitely are.

[#14]

Quote from: Sean

Yeah, issue still not resolved, in fact noone can even yet give me a reason for the slow speeds.

I think that this is as near as you are going to get to an answer.
Scroll up that page to see how it compares to evening speeds on a residential connection.
Remember that the quoted speeds apply to 'normal' operation. Additional restrictions will be applied under times of stress (i.e quite often).
As you know from my previous posts, I don't think there is an ideal PN product profile for the homeworker. I also note that there hasn't been a rush of PN staff to contradict me. I don't know if James N responded to you personally, but it's been a bit quiet in here.

[#15]

Agreed, just set a friend who went with them soley based on price (typical eh?) and the service is lightening fast.