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Choosing Plusnet for home phone

Graham21
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Posts: 72
Registered: ‎23-08-2012

Choosing Plusnet for home phone

I am doing some a piece of ad hoc research on home phone and would be interested to know:

Did you come to Plusnet because of the home phone package / features / price?
Thanks for any feedback you can give,
Graham
25 REPLIES 25
w23
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Re: Choosing Plusnet for home phone

I came to Plusnet for Broadband with good prices and decent support, later moved home phone to Plusnet mainly for price (though still disappointed at the extra charge for caller display while having free Voicemail that I don't want or use).  Also prefer the 'convenience' of a single bill.
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Graham21
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Registered: ‎23-08-2012

Re: Choosing Plusnet for home phone

Thanks W23, you anticipated my next question Wink
Again, thanks for the good feedback.
Graham
davidg52
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Registered: ‎05-03-2013

Re: Choosing Plusnet for home phone

I was migrated over from Vodafone@home, also I agree with w23 re prefer caller display to be free rather than voicemail.
pwatson
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Re: Choosing Plusnet for home phone

Joined Plusnet for FTTC broadband.  Phone line (pre-paid for 12 months) is unused as I've used VOIP exclusively for the last couple of years.  As I don't use the phone I'd like the option of 'line only' with no call package included at all...
If I used the phone, I'd like CLID to be free.  in fact I'd go as far as saying that £1/month for the facility seems to be very poor value...
Mav
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Re: Choosing Plusnet for home phone

I originally came to PlusNet for broadband only.
After returning in 2012 I moved my phone as well as the offer for the complete package was better than BB alone and moving the phone back to BT.

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198kHz
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Re: Choosing Plusnet for home phone

I migrated to PN broadband in Jul '08, but gave no thought at the time to switching the phone service, mainly, I suppose, on the 'If it ain't broke don't fix it' principle.
However, over time, I became increasingly frustrated by communication difficulties with overseas script driven call centres, and BT's ever more baffling ways of presenting items on their bills.
I'd really had enough by late 2010. As there was minimal difference in cost, and being extremely satisfied with PN's broadband service, I opted for the Home Phone service.
Main attractions:

  • Anytime International 300 tariff, for the same cost as BT's UK only product.

  • UK call centre

  • Easy to understand billing

  • One provider - one bill


My only line faults were before the switch, and were promptly dealt with. I'm a little concerned to read recently on the forum about voice faults taking a long time to get through PN's system and on to Openreach. Apparently the SLA is 'up to 72 hours'. If I ever do have another line fault, and I have to use more than two hands to count the hours before Openreach are contacted, then I'll seriously be looking elsewhere.
Anyone know what the BT Retail SLA with Openreach is? Or come to that, any other ISPs.
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James
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Re: Choosing Plusnet for home phone

Update by end of next working day plus one.
tstaddon
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Re: Choosing Plusnet for home phone

Graham - IMO there's no logical reason why, in the future, people requesting FTTP will actually *want* an analogue phone line. The voice telecoms can all be done through the fibre.
I took the phone option after moving house last year, but only because I still had to have a phone line for broadband - this house is in the town centre and has a direct line to the exchange. Yes we still use it, but only because we have to, not because we want to.
In the last house I nearly binned the phone line because I had a mobile phone mast only 400m from the house. My primary internet connection was a community solution based on fixed wireless (64mbit down, 48mbit up) the only reason to keep the phone (BT) was so I could retain ADSL (PN) as an emergency fallback. If I hadn't moved, I would've ditched the wires completely by now, and I'd be running a ninja GPON router, with phone and fax tied to nongeographic phone numbers.
So is PN planning to do anything funky with the fibre, or is the plan to do a BT and carry on partying like it's 1933?
NedLudd
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Re: Choosing Plusnet for home phone

I came to PlusNet for FTTC and ported the phone across when the sales lady said I could save money by paying the line rental a year upfront!
I came from Sky.
Geoff,
York.
PeeGee
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Re: Choosing Plusnet for home phone

As part of my "random" utilities costs checks I decided that PN were one of the lower cost acceptable phone providers  - our total monthly phone charges are a pound or three Cheesy
Contrary to others, I like a corded phone "for emergencies" and a land-line for incoming calls (to reduce costs for friends/family Roll_eyes ), though I also use a very low cost PAYG mobile service for many outgoing calls.
I would also vote for free CLI, as we use it a fair bit for filtering, though I would not wish to lose the free 1571 as it is more convenient/flexible than a dedicated unit at home (and our phone by the front door has a "1571 message waiting" indicator Shocked ).
Plusnet FTTC (Sep 2014), Essentials (Feb 2013); ADSL (Apr 2009); Customer since Jan 2004 (on 28kb dial-up)
Using a TP-Link Archer VR600 modem-router.
PeterLoftus
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Re: Choosing Plusnet for home phone

Unlike tstaddon below our provision of phone services is reactive and not proactive. we have everything which people use including mobiles, landline, Skype & VOIP. Also we use Facebook, Twitter and Linkdin.
Different groups use different media so I need a landline and internet as well as mobile for which I use Giffgaff.
Usually some decisions are made for me by my employer of the day which usually involves internet and mobile, I am in Saudi at the moment so that is irrelevant to this discussion.
We have had our present landline plus number for more than 30 years so don't want to alter that we still get some friends and relatives who would expect to be able to ring us once in 20 years.
I do take the emergency situation seriously too. Not everyone might be aware that the landline system is driven by batteries so it works in the middle of a power cut to ring the local electricity distribution company.
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picbits
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Re: Choosing Plusnet for home phone

My move was done for a few reasons.
I don't particularly like BT - I had some issues with them in the early days of moving to this property, I've had lots of issues with the Indian call centers when dealing with them on my customers behalf. I've had issues getting through to their support, issues getting support and an issue with billing (this was quite a while ago though).
I have however stuck with BT up till now as the line has been good for the past 6 years, I've not had to contact them again and they were marginally cheaper than the alternative.
When I moved my broadband from BE to Plusnet, I did some cost analyses and worked out that I'd be around £5 a month better off on a like for like phone service by moving to both phone line and broadband to Plusnet (with the Cashback from Quidco).
I had a line fault last week which I had to call Plusnet customer services about - I called around lunchtime on Saturday and was through to the CSR within a couple of minutes. No issues with reporting the fault (which fixed itself that evening) and the issue was dealt with promptly and professionally.
If the service levels continue then I see no reason to go back to BT. I'd rather pay and extra £1 or so a month and know if I have an issue I don't get transferred to a script reading puppet in another continent.
steveuk
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Registered: ‎02-02-2013

Re: Choosing Plusnet for home phone

I moved to plusnet because o2 were selling up and i did not want to stay as i thought TalkTalk might have wanted to try buy o2 out.
My phoneline was with talktalk and i wanted to get away from them and plusnet had a good offer on when i signed up and it worked out cheaper for line rental and anytime calls than what we was paying to talktalk.
Oldjim
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Re: Choosing Plusnet for home phone

I moved my phone to Plusnet because I was having phone and broadband problems. I thought that having both under the same faults system would help - and it did