MSE News: Sky takes over O2 and Be broadband: What does this mean for customers?

A.Penny.Saved

I believe they limit it to 400kbps but if you talk to them and give a very very good reason they might be willing to increase it to 800kbps. That is still lower than anywhere else that I know, including Sky and far lower than I had at Be* which was 1300kbps and to begin with, just over 1200kbps until my profile was changed to 3dB.

Plusnet are pathetic. None of the ISP's offer what Be/O2 offered. We don't know how lucky we were.....I am now finding out just how good we had it......now with much lower speeds, poor routing and slow browsing.

[Deleted User]

A.Penny.Saved wrote: »

I believe they limit it to 400kbps but if you talk to them and give a very very good reason they might be willing to increase it to 800kbps. That is still lower than anywhere else that I know, including Sky and far lower than I had at Be* which was 1300kbps and to begin with, just over 1200kbps until my profile was changed to 3dB.

Plusnet are pathetic. None of the ISP's offer what Be/O2 offered. We don't know how lucky we were.....I am now finding out just how good we had it......now with much lower speeds, poor routing and slow browsing.

Plusnet site says:

Speeds can be uncapped on request using the Help Assistant.

Do you not then get the maximum quoted of 1.3 assuming you're not too far from the exchange?

stephenliverpool1

anactuary wrote: »

Plusnet site says:

Speeds can be uncapped on request using the Help Assistant.

Do you not then get the maximum quoted of 1.3 assuming you're not too far from the exchange?

I'm with Plusnet and get 1.6.

[Deleted User]

stephenliverpool1 wrote: »

I'm with Plusnet and get 1.6.

On ADSL rather than fibre? And did you have to request that? Thanks.

jem16

anactuary wrote: »

Do you not then get the maximum quoted of 1.3 assuming you're not too far from the exchange?

Provided you are on a 21CN exchange then yes you will get the 1.3 depending on how far you are from the exchange. If you are on a 20CN exchange it will be lower.

I'm getting 1.06 just now on a 6db margin and a 28.5 attenuation with ADSL. It was capped on switch over from Sky but soon uncapped via the forums. It shouldn't be capped but it seems many orders are going through capped and they're looking into why.

PlusNet's speeds, both up and down, are very similar to what I got with O2 and Sky so no difference for me. However as PlusNet does use BT equipment it's important to find out what your exchange is enabled for as in some cases the LLU equipment can be faster.

stephenliverpool1

anactuary wrote: »

On ADSL rather than fibre? And did you have to request that? Thanks.

On ASDL.

I didn't request it. When I first moved onto Plusnet from Talk/Talk 2 years ago, I had a problem with my connection. They sent an engineer around, who did me a lot of favours. He gave me a 'special' connector to my phone socket, where I can make simultaneous phone calls whilst using my b/band. Apparently I had 2 phone lines connected to my house. Please don't ask me to explain because I am not a techy. He did a load of tests on my line before getting me my b/band speed. He was on the phone (I assume it was Plusnet) a lot to get it sorted. I was very polite with him and I assume that is why he helped.

BTW, Plusnet did not charge me anything for the engineer visit.

I have been with Sky as well as TalkTalk and I have not achieved 1.6 with these companies. I have been with VM before but gave them up many years ago as I do not need the high internet speeds or downloads; so Plusnet is just right for me. My TV was with VM but moved over to Sky, VM can't compete with Sky; as I am on another 50% off deal for Skysports.

I have just renewed my Phone and b/band with Plusnet for £12.50 per month; including line rental, free evening/wend calls. I can also get the BT Sports channels for £5.99 pm if I wish.

HTHs.

A.Penny.Saved

spud17 wrote: »

Just to say, I recently did the deal of 12mths at £5/mth.
I went through to retentions and I was immediately offered *half price* £7.50/mth.
I told them that I had seen £5/mth on here, retention person had a quick chat with their supervisor, resulting in me being offered £5/mth.

Sky BB is slightly slower than my previous O2, but it has been totally reliable, so better the devil you know.:)

On a more technical note, I used to use a Netgear 834GT with custom firmware, on O2 I could tweak the snr down to 4 dB and maintain reliability.
I've found with Sky that any tweaking of snr results in frequent resyncing.
If I leave it alone at it's current 6dB, it resyncs approximately every 3 weeks.

anactuary wrote: »

Plusnet site says:

Speeds can be uncapped on request using the Help Assistant.

Do you not then get the maximum quoted of 1.3 assuming you're not too far from the exchange?

I spoke to someone at Plusnet when I was investigating who it was worth moving to. I asked about speeds and what speeds I could expect and was told 400kbps. I told him that that speed is extremely poor as I had 1300 at Be*. He told me that it was capped at that speed and is not normally uncapped without good reason. I asked whether it could be uncapped and he went away to speak to someone and returned and basically did not want to do it, but seeing as it was a pre-sales call he did not want to say "no we will not do it". I do not intend jumping through hoops just to get what I am paying for!

All these companies run automated systems to keep costs down and none offer what Be/O2 did.

Stompa

A.Penny.Saved wrote: »

I do have another 546 and 716 routers but I cannot get either working because I do not have the username and password.

Have you tried either of the alternatives suggested in post #3 of this thread?

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/4905908

jem16

A.Penny.Saved wrote: »

He told me that it was capped at that speed and is not normally uncapped without good reason.

A load of rubbish unless you are not on a 21CN exchange. What is your exchange?

spud17

A.Penny.Saved wrote: »

What router are you using now?

Currently using an unlocked BT Home Hub 3, don't ask why.

I did get a very slightly higher sync using the Sky SR102 router, but found it a pain when assigning addresses and opening ports.
It insists on rebooting after each alteration.

Stompa wrote: »

Have you tried either of the alternatives suggested in post #3 of this thread?

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/4905908

^ This is what I've always used for the 3 different routers I've tried, except that I've never put anything in for a password.