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PN work for BT, not their business customers.

mssystems
Aspiring Pro
Posts: 290
Thanks: 45
Fixes: 1
Registered: ‎10-08-2007

PN work for BT, not their business customers.

Long time PN business customer and that of course, is part of my problem.  When I joined PN they acted the way most of us (small businesses) do, valuing their business customers and working _for_them_.  That was before BT first bought out and gradually imposed their own profit gouging practices.  I now realise what a huge mistake I made, being persuaded by a significant referral discount, to use PN when I moved the business out of my previous home office.  The discount simply is not worth it.

Summary. 

  • PN display a cynical disregard for the needs of their business customers, contrary to the claims implied by their advertising.
  • A 15 minute wait on hold, to ask PN to do what you have no option but to telephone them to do, should not be routine and is not acceptable.
  • BT made nearly £2 Billion in profit last year despite an accounting scandal.  PN business customers continue to be milked for a premium.  The claims of additional benefit are vacuous, in my opinion.
  • The domain registration included with a PN business account is worthless to a modern business.  Merely one example of bundled business services that have been removed or rendered practically useless by long-term underinvestment.
  • The network is adequate for the most part but at some point you will need to call PN and whatever you saved on the subscription is likely to be gobbled up in short order.
  • Your business will pay: being unable to adapt to the rapidly changing online landscape, having work schedules disrupted, waiting on hold, enduring the incompetence of an under-trained 1st line, waiting on a woefully under-staffed 3rd line.
  • You may feel compelled to spend time writing cathartic complaints on PN forums to avoid making your own customers pay for the frustrations PN cause you.

Details.

We are in the middle of rebranding our business and my task this morning, before start of business at 9.00AM, was to transfer our legacy co.uk domain away from PN.  We _need_ to complete the transfer as PN have completely neglected their DNS platform and essential functionality for a modern business, like txt and srv records, is absent. 

The last time I transferred a domain from PN it was a 10 minute, self service, job:  i) Initiate the transfer at the new registrar. ii) Request the IPS-TAG change.  iii) Sit back and let Nominet's automated systems do their stuff.  iv) Between 1 and 24 hours at the latest, job done and ready to check/change the name servers.  While this should all be straight forward the consequence of it going wrong are dire, hence scheduling over a weekend.

Today.  Step i) Was painless.  Step ii) De-ja-vu.  Every interaction I have had with PN in the last couple years, since they killed off the ticket system, has resulted in a poor experience.  The domain control web page now says I need to call PN.  A couple minutes guessing my way through the telephone menu.  15 minutes on hold, I'm through by 08:30AM.   Security check, fine.  Operator asks for the IPS-TAG...Starting to feel optimistic now.  But no.  The request will be passed to Networks and they will take between 24 hours and 72 hours, to type 7 characters into an online form!

24 hours is not great but is acceptable, just.  If it goes to 72 hours, the e-mail migration scheduled over the weekend is blown and a potentially business breaking action lands at the start of the working week.  I am unaware of any other UK (still) requiring registrar 72 hours notice to change an IPS-TAG.  It's like I stepped into a time-warp, back to 2001.

 

2 REPLIES 2
Darkfire
Plusnet Alumni (retired)
Plusnet Alumni (retired)
Posts: 699
Fixes: 30
Registered: ‎17-10-2015

Re: PN work for BT, not their business customers.

Good Morning, 

  

I can confirm that as of an hour ago your IPS tag was changed for you to move to the new registrar, we do advise a 24-72 hour lead time due to workload along with other tasks that need to be handled, however we do always attempt to complete these as soon as possible to avoid delays for customers.

 

You should be able to transfer the domain with no issues going forward Smiley 

 

 

mssystems
Aspiring Pro
Posts: 290
Thanks: 45
Fixes: 1
Registered: ‎10-08-2007

Re: PN work for BT, not their business customers.

Thanks for changing the IPS tags in an acceptable time frame.


No thanks for getting our mailserver and several of my clients listed on the Spamhaus PBL, again.

From the Spamhaus site...

The first thing to know is: THE PBL IS NOT A BLACKLIST. You are not listed for spamming or for anything you have done.

Outbound Email Policy of Plusnet Plc for this IP range:

It is the policy of Plusnet Plc that unauthenticated email sent from this IP address should be sent out only via the designated outbound mail server allocated to Plusnet Plc customers.

 

The designated PN e-mail relays have an aweful reputation.  So. You set your own mailserver up.  Jump through the RIPE allocation hoops.  Spend 20 minutes on hold waiting for PN to update the RDNS.  Move your included domain to a real host and pay them to serve a couple SPF and DKIM txt records...But still PN will see a spanner thrown regularly into your mailserver's works, by asserting the IP ranges they assigned static subnets from are dynamic.