Leaving procedure

[#1]

After eight years of great service from you I've decided it is time to move to another ISP.
For the £22 a month my 'Premier Option 1' legacy account costs me I expect a lot more than:
800kB down
48kB up
and 13GB peak allowance (4pm–midnight.)
None of your current packages appeal to me mainly due to the 8am–midnight peak and the associated limitations.
I'd like to know the procedure for leaving?  What's the notice period?
Thankyou.

[#2]

Is THIS of any use?
Seems to explain everything but you could always call 0114 2965197 to discuss.  In any event I think that you have to call in anyway if you require a MAC code.

[#3]

nebula,
The notice period is 10 days for residential accounts. The appropriate number to call is 0845 140 6002.
It would be worth having a chat with us about this to see if we can agree to providing you something that more closely suits your needs.
Adam.

[#4]

Yes I think I’m going to pack up and leave too. I admit I’m on the basic package which has an agreed limit of 10gig per month usage peak time 7 days a week (Cant find if this also includes weekends so will assume so). I have my own router and internet security.  However, I’ve paid the same price for much, much more in the past.
My last account was with O2 and cost me £6.50 per month including wirelss router and without a tie-in. I never received a usage warning or a suffered any speed loss/throttle-down – a steady 6.5mb down speed and a useful 1MB up speed all day long. However, with Plusnet I’m peaking out halfway through every month. There’s simply no way I’m paying more than I’ve paid in the past for a downgrade in speed, usage and service when the rest of Europe seems to be getting faster and cheaper! It’s said that the average speed in the UK is around 4.5MB! This when we see packages advertising 50mb plus. Do you know anyone who gets 50MB down speeds?
OK lousy infrastructure isn’t the fault of Plusnet but competitive pricing or at least more realistic usage limits would go some way to help sway me to stay.
My current download speed is just short of 4.5mb and my up speed is averaging 350kb which to fair aint bad for a semi rural location.  I don’t know about you guys but I like to watch a lot of catch up TV on the Web (iPlayer, TVCatchup etc.) most of which is viewed between 8pm and midnight (bang goes 1.5 gig of usage in one night) I also want to take advantage of Cloud Computing sites such as DropBox. I like to upload the odd HD videos to my YouTube account and the occasionally stream the radio during the day. All of which I’ve done in the past without fear of being financially penalised, all of which is NOT unreasonable private usages in 2010.
I’ve had a word with customer relations a couple of months back when I first peaked out and they said they’d get someone to call me back and discuss this further. But I’m still waiting.

[#5]

Hi treblezero,

Quote

Yes I think I’m going to pack up and leave too. I admit I’m on the basic package which has an agreed limit of 10gig per month usage peak time 7 days a week (Cant find if this also includes weekends so will assume so). I have my own router and internet security.  However, I’ve paid the same price for much, much more in the past.

I'm sorry you've not hard back from the customer options team, they usually only deal with inbound calls, if would be worth having a chat with them. I would advise calling between Monday and Friday 9AM to 5PM so you can deal with them directly. With regards to peak time usage, yes it does apply 7 days per week, don't for get off-peak between Midnight and 8.00AM is free to use. What sort of service have you had in the past that offers more than we do for £6.49 per month? (please don't take that as a confrontational question, we're genuinely interested).

Quote

OK lousy infrastructure isn’t the fault of Plusnet but competitive pricing or at least more realistic usage limits would go some way to help sway me to stay.

We are committed to being unbeaten on price for standalone broadband so we do believe our prices are competitive compared to other services available in the broadband market at the moment. If you are exceeding the usage limits each month by a small margin it may be worth checking your usage levels on a regular basis (if you don't already do so) alternatively if you are exceeding your limits by more than 5bg regularly changing to extra could be a much more cost effective way of doing things for you.

[#6]

Happy to give you details of the last account I had with O2. Incidentally I only swapped because we moved house in to rented accommodation. It's a long story about why I didn’t continue/carry over the service to the new place and believe me it wasn’t for lack of trying. But thanks to a number of cock-ups by BT Openreach and BT Wholesale a seemingly simple exercise turned into quite a traumatic event!
I actually paid 7.50 (not £6.50 as originally quoted) for up to 8MB down and 1MB up through my O2 mobile account. Walked into the local store and walked out with a take home broadband kit in a box for £25 upfront deposit - That also include the Netgear Wireless modem which I don’t have with my PlusNet account as I’ve subsequently bought my own. Had the O2 service for over a year and really couldn’t fault it – Even did a few audio/video webcasts from home such was the stability and consistent upload speed. Most importantly I NEVER received a warning about bandwidth.
My monthly payment for PlusNet goes out today (18th) so I'm assuming my usage zeros again today.  I'm just to say using up to the 10gig limit each month, receiving the warning notice in the last week. But what you need to consider in is our daughter no longer lives with us. If she did I'd easily be busting the 10gig mid month. She downloaded music, movies and was an active player on the usual string of social networks and of course watched TV up in her room on line too. On the whole I figured I've taken a giant step backwards in service albeit a pound cheaper and I'm now considering going back to O2 and dealing with the admin/customer service issues that pushed in to trying PlusNet in the first place. I also feel a bit suckered in to the "Buy Yorkshire" thing. Off course that strikes a chord with a fellow Yorkshireman but what I forgot to factor in is how tight fisted Yorkshiremen tend to be 😉
As regards the 12mindnight – 8am free usage factor. Well yes I have been using that service but not through choice. Usually fairly tired by about 11pm midweek and have not figured out how to automate chunky downloads to start up after the magic hour. I’m sure it doable (in fact I know it’s doable) but like I said earlier it feels like a step backwards in this day and age and I’m buggered if I’m tailoring my life around the nets dead zone. Besides that, the lousy 345kb up speed means I aint web-casting again anytime soon regardless of the time of day… unless I change supplier of course.
Hope that helps and by all means give me a call to discuss the details in person. I’d rather work sumink out than face the hassle of moving again. At present you’re not making a significant enough change to the way we buy broadband to make me stay. I’d happily pay the extra £1 I paid O2 to open up the limits.
😉
Ed

[#7]

treblezero,
It definately sounds like we can help out with a lot of the issues you mention there. Bear with me and either me or one of my colleagues will give you a call later day. We'll help you out as much as we're able to.
In the meantime, re scheduling downloads over night you may find this post helpful:
http://community.plus.net/forum/index.php/topic,89850.0.html
Adam

[#8]

I'm being told that I have to wait 20 minutes to speak to the options team!  Is it possible to request a callback?

[#9]

Hi nebula,
Unfortunately not, though I suspect it's busy at the moment because you're calling at the busiest time - if you ring back some time between 2 and 3 you should get through much more quickly.
Hope that helps,

[#10]

Just wondering when somone is going to call me back?  Just been notified that I'm at my limit again this month so I guess it's make or break time.

[#11]

I'm sorry no one got back to you, please bear with me as I'm currently looking into something for you. One of us will be in touch today.

[#12]

Hi treblezero,
Could you drop me a private message with your username please? I'd just like to check a few things on your account.
Adam.

[#13]

As per our discussion when I called I have sent you an e-mail with details of a proposal for a change of account type.
Adam