Broadband not fit for my purpose - unable to cancel without hefty penalty

[#1]

My fiber broadband has just been activated this week, upon trying to use it for my work at home set up, i have found it to be unusable. its fine as a basic browsing the internet line. but connecting over my work VPN does not work .

Tech team at work say its an MTU issue, and i need to up the MTU to 1500 on my home plusnet router. Plusnet support say they cant do this.

So i wanted to cancel my broadband as its not fit for my use. Called to cancel and told i will be smacked with over a £200 fine if i do, as they say i am out of my cooling off period of 2 week. But the cooling off period is from the day i ordered, not the day i activated. and it took over 2 weeks to activate.

Does this seem unreasonable to anyone else, not sure what to do, i cant use the internet service for what i need it for, and cant afford £200 to cancel it!

Rock ME Hardplace

any advise greatly appreciated.

[#2]

Thanks for getting in touch.

I'm sorry to hear you're experiencing problems with your broadband connection. I've tested your line today and I can see that your router is in sync at a stable line speed of 40mbps. 

From what you've said, I suspect the issue you're having is solely with your VPN as opposed to your actual connection.

Unfortunately the use of VPNs aren't something we officially support nor is it something we'd be in a position to waive any early termination charges as these type of issues are not considered a fault with the service we're providing.

With regards to your cooling off period, this begins from the day after you place the order, which is not a period of time for you to trial the service, but simply a period where you can cancel should you not be happy with the terms you've agreed to.

Moving on to the issue you're experiencing, I'm afraid it's correct that we have no control over the MTU. I believe that this setting is determined at router level as opposed to at the level of your broadband connection.

I've had a look into the settings of the routers we provide and there doesn't look to be an option to change the MTU. As the routers we offer are free of charge and it's not feasible to design it to meet everyone's exact needs, it's possible that you may need to buy your own 3rd party router if you're needing a more advanced setup.

That said, you may not need to alter the MTU in order to connect to your VPN. I've known many people connect to their work VPN's using the routers we provide out of the box.

If you can PM me with the make of the VPN, the company name and the error message you receive when you try to connect and whether you're using a wired or wireless connection I'll be happy to look into this further for you.

[#3]

I use an old Netgear router and its MTU is set at 1492. I don't know what that implies for actual network traffic.

[#4]

Moderators Note

This topic has been moved from Fibre to Everything Else