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Plusnet Home Broadband VS Business Broadband

markb5000
Grafter
Posts: 73
Thanks: 4
Registered: ‎13-10-2015

Plusnet Home Broadband VS Business Broadband

Currently on the residential home broadband package with PN. We run a small plant nursery business from home, all our sales are conducted online through our website and we basically use the home broadband to print off orders and shipping labels etc. The issue is we also use it for general home useage e.g. web browsing playing video games watching TV on catch up etc.

I'm itching to go with a business package mainly because it appears cheaper £15 pm, compared to the £42 a month we pay currently for unlimited home redisential broadband with 7mb download and 448kbps upload - the exchange is rural and runs on ancient 20cn technology.

The only thing stopping me is i'm not sure if Business broadband would be fit for our purpose as we need it to function as home and business useage. I cant see any differences on paper so maybe somebody could verify whether there would be any issues watching catchup tv and playing video games on business broadband. In particular is their any difference in the traffic management, increased latency for gaming etc?

Thanks

5 REPLIES 5
jelv
Seasoned Hero
Posts: 26,785
Thanks: 971
Fixes: 10
Registered: ‎10-04-2007

Re: Plusnet Home Broadband VS Business Broadband

The main difference is that you are not supposed to run a business on a residential account so you are currently running in breach of Plusnet T&Cs!

jelv (a.k.a Spoon Whittler)
   Why I have left Plusnet (warning: long post!)   
Broadband: Andrews & Arnold Home::1 (FTTC 80/20)
Line rental: Pulse 8 Home Line Rental (£14.40/month)
Mobile: iD mobile (£4/month)
Townman
Superuser
Superuser
Posts: 22,839
Thanks: 9,487
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Registered: ‎22-08-2007

Re: Plusnet Home Broadband VS Business Broadband

Business accounts also have web space allocation (though if you already have an web site, you'll not really need that), there is a dedicated 24x7 support desk and IIRC the BT faults response is quicker.

Having read other recent comments around here, you might have to create a new PN user account - seems mad to me - the reason why the package on the account cannot just be changed to business was not explained.

Superusers are not staff, but they do have a direct line of communication into the business in order to raise issues, concerns and feedback from the community.

markb5000
Grafter
Posts: 73
Thanks: 4
Registered: ‎13-10-2015

Re: Plusnet Home Broadband VS Business Broadband

@jelv I dont think they can actually enforce that unless you are a large scale business taking up all the bandwidth. A lot of people work from home these days usually to take work home with them and they are using home broadband so aslong as you are not taking up excessive broadband its fine. Not to mention there are no specific requirements made by HMRC stating that you have to be on a business broadband package so this would be pretty much impossible to enforce on a small business like myself.

In relation to the business broadband itself i did some reading up and found PN do not prioritise most traffic like they do on residential broadband so unfortunately for myself where 90% of the time the broadband is used for home its not going to be suitable.

jelv
Seasoned Hero
Posts: 26,785
Thanks: 971
Fixes: 10
Registered: ‎10-04-2007

Re: Plusnet Home Broadband VS Business Broadband

The way AAISP enforce it works - no VAT invoices on residential accounts.

Don't forget that 90% of the time the PN prioritisation only applies when you are running your line flat out so that is unlikely to be as much of an issue as you think it is.

jelv (a.k.a Spoon Whittler)
   Why I have left Plusnet (warning: long post!)   
Broadband: Andrews & Arnold Home::1 (FTTC 80/20)
Line rental: Pulse 8 Home Line Rental (£14.40/month)
Mobile: iD mobile (£4/month)
markb5000
Grafter
Posts: 73
Thanks: 4
Registered: ‎13-10-2015

Re: Plusnet Home Broadband VS Business Broadband

We're not VAT registered so not much of an issue for us as we dont require VAT invoices.

Would love to get a package with AAISP but they stopped offering ADSL 20CN packages long ago. The response i got from CS was that they can no longer compete with the prices due to the high cost of hardware and maintenance.

In regards to PN business prioritisation it seems to be an issue as pointed out here - https://community.plus.net/t5/Business/Connection-issue-gaming/m-p/1298079/highlight/true#M2943 This was apparently a fibre line so i would hate to think what it would be like on ADSL 20CN.