Pipex deal for existing customers

metaphase

Hi

If you're an existing customer of Pipex and are outside your 12-month contract period then I'd definitely recommend calling them to see what they can offer you.

I've been with them for 3 years now and have been on Solo 2000 for a good number of months, paying £33.99/month.

I'd looked around and lots of other providers seemed to be offering better deals, so after asking some advice in the ADSLguide.org.uk forums I gave them a call. Basically just said I wasn't happy with how much I was paying and asked if they could offer me anything to get me to stay.

In return to agreeing to another 12-month contract they've offered me the same 2Mb service for £17.99 - the only catch being a 30Gb/month cap. Any usage over the cap is charged at about 90p/Gb. They were very helpful and were able to tell me how much I'd used over the previous months so I could get an idea as to whether it would be likely to suit me or not. They also said that should I find I need more than the 30Gb then I would always have the option of upgrading back to my uncapped service.

So assuming the 30Gb cap is livable with (which I think it should be) then that a £192 saving for the sake of a single phone call (without any of the hassle of getting a MAC, changing provider, etc. - I was happy with the service, just not the price)

Cheers

Alan

MarkyMarkD

I'm not sure I understand their pricing or their service structure anymore. I was with them for a long time on 512kbps but then got a free upgrade under their upgrade programme to Solo 1000 - but that has a 2Mbps connection speed, which appears the same as Solo 2000 which costs £10.50 more!

metaphase

I think you mean 512Kbps. Also perhaps they swapped you onto a Solo 1000 (=1Mbps) with a 2GB download cap? The Solo 2000 (which costs more) doesn't have a cap.

I agree though they're pricing doesn't seem as clear as before - they used to have options with and without cap at 512kbps/1mbps/2mbps speeds quite clearly listed, now it seems some are only open to certain customers. I'm fairly happy with my change though at least

SomeOne_2

MarkyMarkD wrote:

I'm not sure I understand their pricing or their service structure anymore. I was with them for a long time on 512MB/s but then got a free upgrade under their upgrade programme to Solo 1000 - but that has a 2GB/s connection speed, which appears the same as Solo 2000 which costs £10.50 more!

Firstly your connection speed is definitely NOT 2GB/s more like 2Mbps.
Basically what Pipex have done is: if you're line can support 2Mbps speed then they automatically upgrade you to that (regardless of what connection you had before).
Now if you're paying for the 1Mb service they control the speed at their end so that you get 1Mbps. You'll notice this if you are downloading large files, the speed will be capped to 1Mbps.
They upgrade everyone to the highest speed their line is capable of so that its cheaper for Pipex to make future changes to the speed should the customer request to do so.

MarkyMarkD

Thanks both - I was basing my units on the OP who confused things with GB/s etc and I've now corrected it.

SomeOne is almost definitely spot on - it makes sense. I have a 2Mbps speed according to my connection, but they may easily be capping the download speed at their end - I can't honestly tell the difference because I don't do huge downloads that often and I wouldn't pay extra for 2Mbps over 1Mbps.

The new customer offers don't seem to include all of the permutations - Solo 1000 Lite and Solo 2000 Lite (or whatever they are called now) with the download caps are not shown at all, but certainly did exist and seem to be what the OP has ended up with.

Al_Mac

Could someone explain capped to me. I pay £14.99 a month and nothing ever stops working.

Sorry

metaphase

Al_Mac wrote:

Could someone explain capped to me. I pay £14.99 a month and nothing ever stops working.

I take it you're on Pipex 'Start'? (at least that's the £14.99 price plan on their website). It looks like it's got a 1Gb/month cap on it, so if you go over this then they'd charge you extra - £2.70 for 3Gb. I've read in some places though that the caps aren't being rigidly enforced until January - not sure if that's true or not though.

Cheers

Alan

iceburn

al Mac with cap you have a certain amount of bandwidth and than once you reach that set level they will either charge you x amount per y over cap or reduce speed to z amount. But some ISP do not have caps, have times when bandwidth usage is not included, have caps but not enforce, etc. If you say what ISP you are with can tell you if you got a cap and what it is.

Al_Mac

With PIPEX, perhaps I don't do as much as I thought I did, never been charged extra.

So I wont panic;)

2ax

For that 1GB cap, I think I also read that whilst the ordinary unused bandwidth doesn't roll over to the next month, the top-up part does - so could last a while.