Can I increase my upload speed?

[#1]

Hi
I have just moved house and we transferred our fibre optic connection to the new house. However, in this new house we are not getting as fast of upload speed as what we were getting in the old house. Our old speed was about 20 mbps, whereas here it is about 2 mbps. I called plusnet and found out that the normal fibre optic connection allows at least 2mbps speed, so I asked if we could upgrade to the super fast fibre optic, however the system would not let us upgrade because the connection here would not reach the minimum speed. However, she did say that our max upload speed here is 7 mbps (minimum to upgrade is 19 mbps I think), which is a good speed for the uploading that I want to do.
Is there any way that we would be able to get the 7 mbps?
Thanks

[#2]

What account type were you on before you moved, was it the 80/20 Extra or the 40/20?
Did they give you a new deal at a new price or did you just continue your existing contract?
Did they tell you what your new upload speed would be beforehand?

[#3]

In your message you say "however the system would not let us upgrade because the connection here would not reach the minimum speed" from that I infer that the telephone line at your new house is incapable of delivering speeds above 40Mb/s. PN are very reluctant to put people onto the 80/20 package if it doesn't look like they can get in excess of 40Mb/s downstream.
Now here's where it gets a bit confusing but please bear with me. The technology that you are using - called VDSL - is supplied by BT in several different flavours. 40/2, 40/10 and 80/20. Unfortunately PN do not sell the 40/10 package. PN used to sell a 40/20 package by provisioning you on BT's 80/20 and capping the downstream to 40 but withdrew that for new customers last summer. So that means at the moment PN can only sell you 40/2 (that is, up to 40 down, up to 2 up).
Where it gets annoying is that PN haven't handled the withdrawal of 40/20 and 40/10 very well. In a lot of cases they have failed to tell customers (especially those like you renewing their contract) that they will be moved across onto the current 40/2 offering.
So where does this leave you? From a technical point of view your line might be able to provide faster upload (I'm assuming that's what the 7Mb/s refers to in your question). Unfortunately PN will not currently sell you a package that makes use of that. In effect you are being deprived of all that your line can do. If you previously had 40/10 you might be able to kick up a fuss and persuade PN to put you back on it. The package still exists (as does 40/20) but they are legacy packages and not for sale. Whether you'd succeed though...I doubt it. The victims of PN's shoddy sales team who encouraged people to renew at end of their contract had a good case to be put back on their old package but your house move probably means that argument won't work. The best you might be able to do is get PN to let you out of your new contract so that you can move to another ISP that does offer a 40/10 package.

[#4]

So,the lesson for the rest of us is don,t renew when we are out of contract,if we want to keep our present upload?.

[#5]

As upload is becoming more important with people using cloud services etc -
I think the new 55/10 speed now available from BT OR should be introduced by PN

[#6]

Quote from: jockwav

don,t renew when we are out of contract,if we want to keep our present upload?.

Unless you can get a cast-iron guarantee 'in writing' that your existing package will continue. I believe that some people have fought and won to get their old package back but they may have been cases where the downgrade wasn't made clear at the time. Tread carefully and just be sure to get everything in writing - or at least an email.

[#7]

But if i don,t renew when it runs out in a few months it should stay the same d/load & opload?.

[#8]

Yup. Nothing will change and you don't have to notify anyone.
The only change you'll notice (if you bother to look) is that in your member's area on the PN web site you'll lose the pending order 'cancellation charge' or some such. Other than that the direct debit requests will continue to be sent to your bank as they are now. Same service, same price.
mav:quote

[#9]

Either that or look around for a better deal elsewhere.