House move - transfer of mailboxes

[#1]

Hi

I'm posting on behalf of my father.  He currently has plusnet phone and broadband at his home.  He is about to move to a new property and is planning to use plusnet phone and (fibre) broadband at his new address.  However, his current property has not yet sold, and will be used intermittently until it is sold - which could be several months - so he wants to retain the plusnet services at his current address until it sells.  When it does sell, he wants to continue using the mailbox and email address (an old free-online address).  How best to do this:

a. transfer his current BB/phone contract to his new address (upgrading to fibre), and contract for new services at his current address? or

b. subscribe for new services at his new address.  When his current house sells, terminate that service and transfer the mailbox/email address to the new account (is that even possible)? or

c. any other suggestions?

I guess (a) could result in him paying early termination charges if the house sells before the end of the new contract?

Many thanks.

[#2]

Personally I would do this as a multistage process.

1) Contract a phone line (Plusnet or BT as required at the new address) possibly with the line rental saver.

2) Once the phone line is running and the primary residence changes move the broadband service (with any fibre upgrade) thus moving the location with the broadband account.

3) Use mobile broadband (perhaps the 3 3GB/3 month SIMs) and a 3G router at the old address for occasional internet access.

This saves paying for 2 broadband services. If, for some reason broadband via a phone line is needed at the old address (say cameras) then I believe it is possible to disassociate the email account from an active broadband account by asking Plusnet.

Then starting again wouldn't he a problem.

[#3]

Welcome to the community forums @pbasdf, apologies for the delayed response.

I'm afraid we wouldn't be able to move an email address from one account to another, so this would largely rule out option b, the somewhat work around to this would be keeping the account open as a mail only account instead of closing it when the times comes, but that would ultimately mean paying for an email only account despite having a separate active account.

Option a sounds good, other than the early termination fees if any would be applicable, the other downside would be the downtime between the services moving to the new address and being re-provided on a new account. To try and avoid the early termination fees, there would always be the option of setting up a non-contract account at the old address for the interim period before it's sold.

[#4]

Many thanks for your answer.  Could you explain what you mean by "a non-contract account"?  Could he keep the same phone number at his old address?

[#5]

Suggest that you reflect on the following...

At the time you father has access to both properties - how much time is he likely to spend at each? Until such time as he will spend more that 50% of his time at the new place, keep the service where it is.

When he expects to be in the new place more then 50% of the time move the service to the new property.

For when he is in the property not served by the service use a smart phone. Most smart phones will do a good job with email and web browsing is fine ... indeed I'm posting this from an iPhone.

This approach avoids second accounts / email addresses / contracts etc and affords lots of other flexibility.

[#6]

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@pbasdf wrote:
Could you explain what you mean by "a non-contract account"?

That would be a new account signed up at www.plus.net but without a minimum term contract.

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@pbasdf wrote:
Could he keep the same phone number at his old address?

That should be fine, unless he's wanting the number at his new address instead?

Another option to consider [Option C], would be to create a brand new account at his new address. Then when the time comes, to downgrade his existing account (At his current address) to a mail only account for £1.06 per month.

That's assuming that he's not in contract on his existing account as there may be early termination fees. If that's the case, Option A as Harry put it may be better.