Both TalkTalk and Sky Have Now Fully Launched FTTP Services

[#1]

It is true that Plusnet didn’t need a phone number for the trial FTTP. That’s because FTTP services don’t have a phone number. 

That’s exactly the problem. If your provisioning and billing systems are based on phone numbers, you can’t offer services that aren’t based on phone numbers unless you do it manually (= expensively). 

So you either invest in new back office systems or you let customers drift away to another ISP. If that happens to be your parent company then that’s probably not that bad. 

[#2]

@barnyandpippa Wrong FTTP services can also have a phone number and an FTTP phone socket on the FTTP modem and with BT and Sky there is no option but to take their FTTP services with FTTP phone also included that would port your existing copper phone number over on to the new FTTP fibre cable.

See for instance BT's own guide at http://bt.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/42641/~/connecting-your-phone-service-to-superfast-fi...and also https://community.bt.com/t5/Bills-Packages/Phone-Line-Required-for-FTTP/td-p/2003264

TalkTalk are also now providing FTTP on a trial basis only on their Future Fibre Trial with a 500Mbps service for £39.99 per month but there is no option (surprisingly) to have an FTTP service at all even if you are willing to pay for it.  Also normal TalkTalk IPTV services with a Youview box and/or via NowTv are also not available on their cheapo 500Mbps FTTP only service.  But that's why TalkTalk can offer their FTTP service cheaper.

It really would help if people who clearly don't understand a technology properly didn't make authoritative sounding posts saying that there is no phone number associated with an FTTP broadband service............

[#3]

@barnyandpippa The only reason Plusnet and Now Broadband don't yet offer FTTP is because they are cheap flavours of the parent company's product range and the parent companies (BT and Sky) don't yet want their cheapest broadband offering to also offer an FTTP service as then you might not buy the considerably more expensive broadband services being offerred on the parent company's premium product brand.

I suppose Plusnet are shortly going to change their advertising to say "service not available on new housing estates where there is no access to an old copper phone line as Plusnet doesn't support the latest Fibre To The Home broadband technology being installed by BT Openreach"🙄

[#4]

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@barnyandpippa wrote:

It is true that Plusnet didn’t need a phone number for the trial FTTP. That’s because FTTP services don’t have a phone number. 

That’s exactly the problem. If your provisioning and billing systems are based on phone numbers, you can’t offer services that aren’t based on phone numbers unless you do it manually (= expensively). 

So you either invest in new back office systems or you let customers drift away to another ISP. If that happens to be your parent company then that’s probably not that bad. 

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I'm afraid you're wrong. PlusNet did require a phone number - the Trial was only offered to existing customers who obviously had phone lines for their ADSL / VDSL service and hence a phone number.

You're right in that the FTTP service was offered by manually "bodging" the system to get it to work.

Brian

[#5]

There is obviously a lot of people who aren’t quite following this debate. 

My point is that FTTP does have a phone number and as such it had to be provisioned outside of the current infrastructure management systems that are phone number based. 

I didn’t say it couldn’t provide a telephone service and hence have a service with a telephone number on it, I said the infrastructure doesn’t itself have a number. Sounds like you might have misunderstood the difference between the physical infrastructure and the service it bears.  My FTTP is only for broadband. It doesn’t have a phone number. 

That fact that the trial was only offered to existing customers is also irrelevant. At the time my phone service was provided by BT. PN used to share the copper o provide ADSL and when they provided FTTP, they had no connection with the phone line at all. 

In the end none of this matters. If you’re in the trial, you can get FTTP from PN but without any deals or discounts. If you’re not on the trial, you have to go somewhere else. 

[#6]

That doesn't make sense. Should read FTTP doesn't have a phone number! 

[#7]

In the current crisis, you are right that none of this matters.  However, I was just hoping that perhaps Plusnet might soon offer a chance to upgrade from awful ADSL (1.5Mbps at best) to fibre (newly available FTTP on the pole in my garden) as I still want to keep my ordinary phone line.

And I do not want to leave Plusnet, having been with them for a very long time since I originally switched from BT. 

[#8]

@ndv But you do realise that Plusnet has been wholly owned by the BT group for quite a few years now (in fact for 13 years which is longer than the period in which it was not owned by BT Group) and that in the last two years most of their senior management personnel have been replaced by people who previously had long careers at BT Retail.

And I also have an email address (one that is happily still free to run, even though I'm no longer with Plusnet because it was linked with an 0845 dial up connection and not an ADSL broadband phone line) that goes back to when I was first a dial up modem 0800 service customer of Plusnet in 2003.

So Plusnet is now not independent from BT at all.  This is why I jumped ship to Now Broadband (owned by Sky) ADSL2+ in June this year where it was £18 per month for only 12 months for 16Mbps ADSL+ but with free anytime calls to landlines and mobiles in addition to that for the first year (and in fact it is given to you again if you recontract for another 12 months).  On top of which there was £100 Quidco cashback.  So factoring in the £5 router/modem delivery I was charged £221 for a year by Now - £100 Quidco Cashback = £121 or only £10.08 per month.  In other words no more per month than the cost of upgrading my mobile data package from 6Gb to Unlimited of Near Unlimited (i.e. 30Gb+) and tethering my laptop to my mobile.

Also look at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plusnet where you will find that Plusnet was founded in 1997 but became owned by BT Group in 2007 and that this year Plusnet corporate staff (AKA on salary staff and not outsourced call centre staff in the case of at least some Plusnet call centres) will be transferred to BT contracts.

So I think the final solution is to disappear the Plusnet brand and make all Plusnet customers in to BT Retail customers as that will be cheaper than evolving all of Plusnet's separate and no doubt more old fashioned and outdated ordering and customer service systems to properly support FTTP.......

[#9]

I think you are right. Technology companies that don't keep up with technology eventually die. That's not always by accident.

There might be a few who go elsewhere but so far the choice isn't great so most will probably end up with BT either by their own action or because Plusnet eventually pushes everyone that way.

There is another company (CityFibre) laying fibre plant where I live so it will be interesting to see what that does to competition. So far it's only fibre to the kerb so don't know who bears the cost of ducting up to the house. They are retailing it through Vodafone.

[#10]

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@Capvermell wrote:

So I think the final solution is to disappear the Plusnet brand and make all Plusnet customers in to BT Retail customers as that will be cheaper than evolving all of Plusnet's separate and no doubt more old fashioned and outdated ordering and customer service systems to properly support FTTP.......

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I get a bit worried when people mention "final solutions..." !

Thank you for the explanation, but I am certainly aware that Plusnet is gradually being absorbed into BT.  Contrary to the prevailing opinion, I can't see the sense in killing off a popular brand on which a lot of money has been spent building up it's market position and customer loyalty.  Running both brands gives BT Retail a greater chance to squeeze out the opposition.

[#11]

@ndv Clearly the same issue also exists with the Now Broadband service from Sky as that also doesn't yet support FTTP but Sky have now introduced it (as of 2 months ago) for direct Sky customers.

Again in the long run it won't make any sense to continue to offer Now Broadband unless it can also offer FTTP given how pathetically slow some ADSL2+ speeds are and customers in FTTP areas usually either only having access to FTTP (new housing estates) or otherwise only to ADSL2+ and FTTP .

I think with Now Broadband the same issues may exist of a completely different website and different phone support centre for orders for the Now Broadband service.

Plusnet has already been repositioned with the removal of the adverts by the cheeky comedian with the Yorkshire accent and all IVR phone menus having been changed from a Yorkshire accent to something neutral and national sounding in nature.

[#12]

Regarding the linking of a phone number with a broadband service, it is quite possible to have this split between different providers. For example my son has his phone line with BT (which he never uses for phone calls) and his broadband is ADSL with Plusnet. - Not necessarily the best deal financially because it is usually cheaper to have both from the same provider.

In my company we have 80/20 FTTC VDSL with BT Internet (with a BT phone line) and a backup ADSL Broadband with Plusnet on a Copper phone line provided by a third-party provider called Focus Telecom.

Our old BT ISDN main phone line numbers have now been taken over as VOIP lines by Focus Telecom and this is delivered via the Plusnet ADSL broadband with a fixed IPaddress.

Virtually anything is possible!

[#13]

@mdt 

Not nowadays with PlusNet it isn't. They stopped selling Internet only a while back - you now need to take a phone service from them.

However, they have a long history of supporting old products so long as the customer remains with them. I still have free web space from years ago.

Brian

[#14]

I stand corrected. You're right about Plusnet looking after their legacy customers, though. Our business "Backup" ADSL Broadband only costs £12 per month including VAT for a maximum download of 25GB per month. It is only really used for VOIP phone calls and never comes anywhere near the monthly download limit. It is there also as a backup if our VDSL were to fail, but it has never failed in more than 8 years.

[#15]

I joined plusnet way back in 2007, jut before the BT group buyout.

 At that tie there was little to no advertising, save for a sponsorship on Sheffield wednesdays shirt, there was 24/7 customer support , webcams in the customer support call centres, and other places giving an impression of open ness and availablity coupled with some call centre stats. if you had a problem you could pick a time to call when you would get straight through .

 overtime the bells and whistles have been slowly eroded,and i would expect the ultimate destination for plusnet will be as a budget ISP option offering ADSL and VDSL only services sitting at the bottom rung of BT groups tiered options:

Plusnet low price budget basics

EE  FTTP plus VDSL and ADSL

BT all the bells and whistles

i wouldnt be at all surprsied to find BT taking over plusnet call centres at some point with a bulk of plusnet customer support being outsourced overseas