Caveat Plusnet Fibre Optic

Timalay

penrhyn wrote: »

Sky do this too with their new hub. So you lose an ethernet port as well. I guess someone will come out with a combined VDSL modem/router before long.

I believe DrayTek already have. It's not cheep mind.

brewerdave

There are VDSL modem/routers available ...but the risk is that tech. problems will not be supported by either BTOR or the ISP..SO you need to be pretty tech savvy to risk using one in place of the BT kit,especially in the early days of fibre connections:)

yourbestoption

There is an advantage to the Technicolor TG582n wireless router in that it has the ability to act as both a wired, and a wireless network print server. Simply connect a USB printer to the USB socket on the router and appropriately configure any PC on the local network and it acts as a print server.

hareng

penrhyn wrote: »

Sky do this too with their new hub. So you lose an ethernet port as well. I guess someone will come out with a combined VDSL modem/router before long.

Will still loose ethernet port on pc if wanting best performance , just like every other router inc Draytek above.

I fail to understand why someones moaning about a feebie router.

NonGeographicalMan

hareng wrote: »

I fail to understand why someones moaning about a feebie router.

(a) Plusnet charges I think £11.95 postage, way above the competitive market rate for sending a box of this size and weight. So it is not completely free and if it is no good it would be better to have spent the money on your own router.

(b) There is no point in providing a free router that is of such low quality that it sabotages higher end fixed line broadband connection speeds such as those available via VDSL (FTTC) by not being able to distribute those higher speeds properly around the home.

(c) Plusnet makes a great marketing pitch of having won the Which Award as Best Broadband ISP in 2012. However it won this almost solely due to the UK based and generally reasonably helpful UK support staff (compared to Indian or other overseas based and almost totally unhelpful support of several other large UK ISPs) and not due to its wireless router as this appears to be clearly inferior to what BT would supply for its FTTC customers.

Plusnet_company_representative

Hi there,

Just hoping to clear up a couple of things here.

NonGeographicalMan wrote: »

(a) Plusnet charges I think £11.95 postage, way above the competitive market rate for sending a box of this size and weight.

We charge £5.99 for router delivery.

NonGeographicalMan wrote: »

(b) There is no point in providing a free router that is of such low quality that it sabotages higher end fixed line broadband connection speeds such as those available via VDSL (FTTC) by not being able to distribute those higher speeds properly around the home.

Wireless will always be slower than ethernet (or powerplugs, another popular solution), especially given that conflicting wireless networks, more and more common as more people get wireless, work by alternating packets - you'll always get a slowdown on wireless if there's another network in the area.
Further, while we have had a number of complaints about the wireless on the 582n this is in no way a majority of our customers who have one - suggesting that in by far the larger number of cases it's perfectly fine.

NonGeographicalMan wrote: »

(c) Plusnet makes a great marketing pitch of having won the Which Award as Best Broadband ISP in 2012. However it won this almost solely due to the UK based and generally reasonably helpful UK support staff (compared to Indian or other overseas based and almost totally unhelpful support of several other large UK ISPs) and not due to its wireless router as this appears to be clearly inferior to what BT would supply for its FTTC customers.

To be fair, the award was based on customer service and not hardware - it's easy (and can cost as little as £25) to buy another router, should you need to, that will work fine on our service. That's not really possible with a customer support team, especially not for a customer

Regards,

Matt Taylor
Customer Support

mattyprice4004

The issue you're having is nothing to do with the FTTC and everything to do with your router, an entirely different issue.

NonGeographicalMan

mattyprice4004 wrote: »

The issue you're having is nothing to do with the FTTC and everything to do with your router, an entirely different issue.

Its not my router but Plusnet's and one that they have explicitly chosen for use with FTTC connections where the downstream speed can be as high as 80Mbps at the present time.

Because the router's wireless speed drop off with distance as a percentage of connection speed at the router itself is higher and higher as the Sync speed increases in my opinion it is not fit for purpose as a router to be used with an 80Mbps FTTC connection, even though it may serve perfectly well in its original designed purpose as an up to 24Mbps modem/router for ADSL2+ connections,

Plusnet are using it only because they got a cheap deal on x hundred thousand routers from Technicolor and not because it is a suitable piece of equipment. They would have been far better not to do so and either adviser customers to either buy their own router and/or offer one that does the job properly at a competitive price to customers (which they would be able to obtain as a bulk buyer).

patman99

If the router plugs into a VDSL modem, then there is nothing stopping you buying a wireless router & using that instead. Having modified hardware that allows a port to be used as a fibre connection is a cop-out.

NonGeographicalMan

patman99 wrote: »

If the router plugs into a VDSL modem, then there is nothing stopping you buying a wireless router & using that instead.

The Technicolor 582n plugs in to BT Openreach's separate modem (BT supply it when their engineer comes to install the filtered faceplate). The Technicolor 582n has modified firmware installed by Plusnet that allows it to act as a poor and extremely cheap wireless router only.

But if the product is no good then Plusnet should not be offering it, thereby spoiling what is meant to be a top quality broadband service.

Having modified hardware that allows a port to be used as a fibre connection is a cop-out.

Agreed. So its very disappointing finding Plusnet doing it for the router provided to their Fibre Unlimited customers for their flagship broadband product.

The excuse of Plusnet customer service reps here on this forum that complainants are in the minority of customers using the Technicolor 582n with FTTC are ridiculous when inevitably the majority of customers are technically knowledgeable and unsophisticated.

The only reason this very poor modem/router is being used for this application by Plusnet is quite clearly because Technicolor must have had a large pile of a couple of hundred thousand of them sitting unsold in a warehouse somewhere that Plusnet agreed to take off their hands for a bargain price. This is especially unacceptable given that Plusnet's parent company, BT, always makes a feature of their Home Hub having the most reliable wirless signal of any major UK broadband provider.:eek::mad: