How Many Customers Does Plusnet Have?

[#1]

Hi, I’m thinking about switching to Plusnet, but I’m just curious at to how many customers Plusnet has as it may change my mind about switching. I can’t find anything about this on Google, so would really appreciate it if someone could help me. Thanks.

[#2]

Why have you posted in the thread for ADSL queries?

[#3]

Moderator's note:

Thread moved from Broadband to Everything Else.

[#4]

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@fsdsdfddffff wrote:
Hi, I’m thinking about switching to Plusnet, but I’m just curious at to how many customers Plusnet has as it may change my mind about switching. I can’t find anything about this on Google, so would really appreciate it if someone could help me. Thanks.

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Unlikely you will get a answer to that question as it is commercially sensitive information but I am not sure why it would affect your decision ?

Some larger companies give very poor customer service whilst smaller companies often go the extra mile to help.

This does not just apply to ISP's but companies providing other services such as energy companies.

[#5]

How does the answer influence your decision making? What is it which concerns you?

There is a bottom line in this industry - aside from Virgin Media and a handful of other local cable suppliers, ALL of the local ‘copper’ network used by ALL ISPs is owned, managed and service by just one company - BT Openreach. That you cannot escape be the ISP large or small.

[#6]

@fsdsdfddffff

Plusnet is owned by BT who now only publish the total number of customers for all 3 brands (BT, EE, Plusnet) in their annual report. It is no longer given by individual brand.

[#7]

It used to be approaching 1 million customers, so it's probably somewhere around 1 million now.

[#8]

I agree that the number of customers shouldn't be relevant for a good ISP.

To a degree I can understand it, in that it makes you feel safer against a company who are larger, but even then that is no guarantee. Look at the High Street and who have gone this year: BHS, Maplin and Toys R Us.

As has been said I find it highly unlikely PlusNet would disclose such information, you'll see plenty of rumors around elsewhere on the internet which may be true or not.

Also be wary of looking at comments, as generally people will only complain if someone is bad or goes wrong. Like any big ISP.

Overall I am happy and PlusNet staff do try and put things right. In the past I haven't always agreed with them, but I am sure that applies to many people who have been around as long as I have. It happens at times.

[#9]

I was first with Sky on fibre optic a few years ago, they were great. Then when the offer ended, they couldn’t offer me anything great, so I decided to change to BT, again on fibre optic. I’ve recontracted a few times since being with them due to the price increases, and am sick of having to ring them up and go through the same [-Censored-] every few months, so I want to change providers. I’m still in contract with them, but have about another 10 days if I want to change to a different broadband provider without charges.

What I was going to do was probably go back to Sky, however I’m tempted to try TalkTalk or Plusnet just on the fact that they’re slightly cheaper. This is the thing though, the reputation about these 2 providers isn’t the greatest, TalkTalk I imagine being the worser one. However, as ejs has said above, Plusnet only has about a million customers, TalkTalk has over 4 million. So surely the bad criticism from TalkTalk may just be to the fact that there’s a lot of customers, therefore they’ll be a lot more dissatisfied customers, even those percentage wise, there may be less than quite a few other providers.

BT and Sky have fairly more customers than TalkTalk, but I don’t hear about them in a worse light than TalkTalk really. Not really going off any statistics but people seem to complain about TalkTalk a lot more than Sky. And people also complain about Sky it seems, fairly more than BT. A fair few people complain about Plusnet, but not loads. But could that be because they don’t have the greatest amount of customers?

Sorry for going on, but I agree with what townman said about the lines being BT lines, and being managed by Openreach. But if that’s the case then why do people complain so much about particular ISPs being worse than others. Other than the router supplied by the ISP, and maybe the customer service, surely the connection is just the same? I can’t see traffic management being an issue anymore, at least it’s not been a problem in the past 5 years. TalkTalk though for example have a horrific reputation, but how can this be the case if going through BT’s lines? Not as many people, but a fair few complain about Sky, yet when I was with them my service was perfect. Slightly less, but a lot complain about BT, again, I had perfect service with them.

Plusnet is a mixed bag for me, some say it’s good, some say it’s not. However, percentage wise they *could* have more dissatisfied customers than TalkTalk, but in reality have less, just based on numbers, seeing as though TalkTalk have a lot more customers than Plusnet.

Again, sorry for going on, but I would just love it if someone could enlighten me about all of this. Why do certain ISPs, including Plusnet, get bad reputations compared to other ISPs, when they’re all using BT’s lines? I get that some ISPs will install their own equipment in exchanges, but surely there has to be more to it than that. Traffic management was scrapped years ago for most ISPs, with very few just traffic managing P2P traffic. So what is it then? I’m so confused. Thanks.

Moderator's note by Mike (Mav): Avoidance of swear filter edited as per Forum rules.

[#10]

Those who've waited an hour to get through to support would probably answer "Too Many!" to your question.

It's interesting that Plusnet is "a totally separate company" from BT but still included in BT's subscriber numbers.

This table https://www.ispreview.co.uk/review/top50.php places Plusnet at number 32, BT at number 33, TalkTalk at number 37and Sky at 25 as rated by ISPreview readers.  Fido, which I've never heard of, is top dog (perhaps literally).

TalkTalk has a bad reputation, but I have no personal experience with them.

I think one of the best things about PN is the help provided by staff on this forum.

You could always try a 12-month contract and see how it goes.

I'm not sure what you mean by ten days if you want to change without charges.  It will take a minimum of ten working days to migrate, and if you remain with BT for a few days after your contract has expired, they'll just charge you the full out-of-contract price for those days.

[#11]

The thing is with any ISP who is big, is you're always going to find people who are unhappy and moan. My view is the bigger they are, the more likely you will see complains as they have a bigger pool of people in which to make them 

Like @Jonpe I find Talk Talk seem to be one which I have read many bad complaints about, so many more I would usually expect, it would make me a bit cautious of them. But then again I don't have any experience of them either so I could just be overreacting.

I have no personal experience of calling CS, (well yes tell I lie I do but that was many years ago) the only thing I have seen mentioned on here are call waiting times though they have seemed to have died down so maybe they are better. Since PlusNet started TV advertising, it sounds to me they've attracted many more customers than they had CS staff to do with. Though they seem to getting better. Then again for them as a business I can see it from their point of view: They want to expand (they are a business after all so fair enough), and what it their advertising wasn't successful or as successful as they'd hoped. They don't want to take on too many staff, there is the office space - or the rent of having to open additional offices so the rent and the staff salaries cost too. They could end up with more staff then required.

* Note the above paragraph is just my opinion and may not be true, so don't take it as fact as I don't have any evidence of this. *

However, for me: Haven't used CS for years, only done it once and had no problem. The staff are really good at responding to queries on here, as you'll see from many other threads and never used on-line chat so can't comment on how good that is.

Plenty of knowledgeable and helpful people on here who know their stuff, and hopefully you won't have problems. You only need PlusNet really if they need to check or do something their side.