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shocked at the level of poor service i am receiving (phone and broadband)

RyanGould
Grafter
Posts: 169
Registered: ‎24-11-2011

shocked at the level of poor service i am receiving (phone and broadband)

hello,
we have recently changed from virgin media to plusnet and i can honestly say this was a huge mistake. with our previous provider i was paying for a upto 10 Mbs service and tests show i was getting between 15 to 20 Mbs on most days, a service which i was more than happy with.
i changed to plusnet on the recommendation of a friend who insisted that their service was was second to non and they were cheaper, i now think he was winding me up or telling a joke!
it started 2 weeks ago when i received my thompson gateway router and was connected. i immediately tested the up/down speeds expecting to see around 8 meg down and 0.5 to 1 Mbs up, how shocked was i when i found our download speed was 1.5 to 2 Mbs and my upload was as low as 0.01 Mbs! i rang plusnet to see what was going on and they assured me that after the stabilisation period the speeds would vastly improve.
well guess what, it didn't. the highest download speed i have had so far was 3.5 Mbs and the highest upload was around 0.1 Mbs which is no good to myself or my partner. then it gets better, i was having issues with the connection this morning only to ring plusnet customer services 3 times to have my phone line cut off on me mid conversation. when i finally got through i spoke to a helpful young man who informed me that the phone line i had installed 2 weeks ago is faulty and the longest my router has been connected today is around 5 mins before its lost connection.
this is no good what so ever, myself and my partner both use the internet for work, on demand TV and online gaming. the connection speed is that slow that my Mrs cant upload her work, we cant watch on demand TV because the program takes hours to load or we lose connection half way through and i cant play online because i either have lag or get booted from games because the connection speed is too low or i lose connection altogether. the three things we use the internet for that we cant use? whats the point?
this needs sorting quick time, im appalled at the service we have received so far and if i had known the speeds that we would of received i would of never used plus net as a service provider.
why are we getting such low speeds?
surely plusnet can raise the speeds? (other providers can)
is there a cap on the line speeds and if so can it be removed?
i might aswell have plusnet on speed dial at the min, this is the 3rd time i have tried to post this by the way because my broadband wouldnt work (again)
rant over /

229 REPLIES 229
RyanGould
Grafter
Posts: 169
Registered: ‎24-11-2011

Re: shocked at the level of poor service i am receiving (phone and broadband)

here are some recent test results as proof;
RyanGould
Grafter
Posts: 169
Registered: ‎24-11-2011

Re: shocked at the level of poor service i am receiving (phone and broadband)

just found this one of my old service provider for comparison;

(which, in my opinion is an average / half decent connection)
Oldjim
Resting Legend
Posts: 38,460
Thanks: 787
Fixes: 63
Registered: ‎15-06-2007

Re: shocked at the level of poor service i am receiving (phone and broadband)

Have you raised a fault or did the operator you spoke to raise one for you
RyanGould
Grafter
Posts: 169
Registered: ‎24-11-2011

Re: shocked at the level of poor service i am receiving (phone and broadband)

yup, i rang (again) to log another fault. i was told to use BT speed tester to test the line and the connection speeds. however BT speed tester doesn't work, before you ask i tried this on 3 laptops in my household all of which have java installed and not one of them will load it.
i tested it using the only BT speed test application that would work which is the beta that just gives download speeds. i got a few different results ranging from 1 Mbs to 3 Mbs, all of which are well below the 6.5 meg download speed that i was informed by a plusnet employee was entering my property.
Oldjim
Resting Legend
Posts: 38,460
Thanks: 787
Fixes: 63
Registered: ‎15-06-2007

Re: shocked at the level of poor service i am receiving (phone and broadband)

If you look at your open tickets is there an ongoing fault
For a bit of background what are the stats reported by your router - speeds, noise margin and attenuation
RyanGould
Grafter
Posts: 169
Registered: ‎24-11-2011

Re: shocked at the level of poor service i am receiving (phone and broadband)

i couldnt tell you, the longest the router has connected to the internet today is 5 mins. it loses connection and repeats this process. (so i was told by plusnet)
so all the stats keep resetting
jojopillo
Plusnet Alumni (retired)
Plusnet Alumni (retired)
Posts: 9,786
Registered: ‎16-06-2010

Re: shocked at the level of poor service i am receiving (phone and broadband)

Hi RyanGould,
The original estimate was 5Mbps which is what I think you should get once the fault is fixed. You are currently on the up to 8Mbps service so once we resolve the fault I can upgrade you to the up to 20Mbps service which may make it a little faster.
Jojo Smiley
RyanGould
Grafter
Posts: 169
Registered: ‎24-11-2011

Re: shocked at the level of poor service i am receiving (phone and broadband)

hello,
thank you for your reply, however when my self and my partner were ringing round broadband companies to change providers (we left virgin purely because the price was rising on our service package) i was offered the upto 8meg package because it was the fastest we could get (apparently). so as far as im aware that is the package we accepted , we didnt ask for a 5 meg package i know that much. im not sure what has gone on there at all?
jim:quote
RyanGould
Grafter
Posts: 169
Registered: ‎24-11-2011

Re: shocked at the level of poor service i am receiving (phone and broadband)

Can we upgrade to 20 meg?
i am very interested in this is it is possible, how do  i go about swapping to the faster connection?
jojopillo
Plusnet Alumni (retired)
Plusnet Alumni (retired)
Posts: 9,786
Registered: ‎16-06-2010

Re: shocked at the level of poor service i am receiving (phone and broadband)

Hi RyanGould,
Just to be clear 'up to 8Mbps' and 'up to 20Mbps'  are just that, 'up to' the estimated speeds are based on the length of the line from the exchange, so, as you get further away from the exchange the speed will diminish more. This is how ADSL works. I imagine you were on cable with Virgin, but that's a totally different system. The closest we'll come to that is when BT enable Fibre optic in your area at the end of December with speeds of Up to 40Mbps.
Until then I would get this fault fixed and I'll get you upgraded and see if we can get as much out of your line as possible.
Jojo Smiley
RyanGould
Grafter
Posts: 169
Registered: ‎24-11-2011

Re: shocked at the level of poor service i am receiving (phone and broadband)

the exchange is on my street so we are not far away ( again, plusnet informed me of that ) and virgin was through the phone line too that same as my current plusnet package. please can you tell me more about upgrading as its something we are very interested in.
thank you
jim:quote
jojopillo
Plusnet Alumni (retired)
Plusnet Alumni (retired)
Posts: 9,786
Registered: ‎16-06-2010

Re: shocked at the level of poor service i am receiving (phone and broadband)

Hi RyanGould,
I'm very curious about the fact that you say virgin was through a phone line. If that is the case then the only thing I can think is that faulty equipment is reporting the incorrect line length; I have seen that before but very rarely. I see you called last night to have it moved over to ADSL2+. That will happen next friday and you may notice a short period of downtime. We'll have a better idea of what do do then.
Jojo Smiley
RyanGould
Grafter
Posts: 169
Registered: ‎24-11-2011

Re: shocked at the level of poor service i am receiving (phone and broadband)

next friday?
plusnet told me it is happening now (today) and thats why my internet connection would be intermittent all day hence no connection to the internet and when it does connect i am getting speeds like this;
 
so it should be sorted today, and just for comparison;

That is the speed i am getting from vodafone on a 3G connection tethering using my iphone. there is no way in hell that a phone's 3g connection should outperform a wired broadband connection. (except the ping obviously)
jojopillo
Plusnet Alumni (retired)
Plusnet Alumni (retired)
Posts: 9,786
Registered: ‎16-06-2010

Re: shocked at the level of poor service i am receiving (phone and broadband)

Hi RyanGould,
I can only imagine you were incorrectly advised. I'll have to feed that back. When someone is moved from 20CN to 21CN, as in your case, it takes 7 days, as an engineer has to physically remove your line from the DSLAM and move it to an MSAN. I can only the imagine the agent presumed is was changing from ADSL1 on 21CN to ADSL2+ which takes one day and doesn't require any manual intervention.
Jojo Smiley