Can I try out an ISP before committing to a contract? (Dreadful Plusnet experience)

duchy

http://www.broadbandchoices.co.uk/news/broadband/sky-lets-tv-customers-try-broadband-for-free-00040

Three month free trial and no line rental

Swipe

With an attitude like the OP's it seems to me like they got the service they deserved. No wonder the Plusnet techs weren't bending over backwards to help them.

Mirandoch

Swipe wrote: »

With an attitude like the OP's it seems to me like they got the service they deserved. No wonder the Plusnet techs weren't bending over backwards to help them.

Obviously my fanboy comment hit a nerve.

The prevailng attitude of this forum seems to be: It's fine to have terrible broadband, you just need to suck it up more.

Clearly, I'm a nightmare customer for wanting internet in the evenings. Or internet at all (considering for 4-5 weeks I basically didn't have usable internet at any time of the day).

woody2234

So what speed do your neighbours get ie 100mb per second or 50mb per second or like you 3.2mb per second

brewerdave

Mirandoch wrote: »

Obviously my fanboy comment hit a nerve.

The prevailng attitude of this forum seems to be: It's fine to have terrible broadband, you just need to suck it up more.

Clearly, I'm a nightmare customer for wanting internet in the evenings. Or internet at all (considering for 4-5 weeks I basically didn't have usable internet at any time of the day).

..I think what others are trying to tell you is that evening congestion is a BT Openreach problem - you MAY solve it by going to Sky because they MAY have their own kit within BT's exchange -but anyone dependent on all the BT infrastructure will have the same evening problem until BT invest in new equipment at your exchange - and that is outwith any ISP's direct control.:)

Mirandoch

brewerdave wrote: »

..I think what others are trying to tell you is that evening congestion is a BT Openreach problem - you MAY solve it by going to Sky because they MAY have their own kit within BT's exchange -but anyone dependent on all the BT infrastructure will have the same evening problem until BT invest in new equipment at your exchange - and that is outwith any ISP's direct control.:)

I find this a bit hard to believe. Partly because an Open Reach engineer came round, tested the line, and said it was good. And partly 'cos of the results of the BT wholesale speed test, which identified a download speed of 11.85 mbps, and added this:

We were unable to identify any performance problem with your service at this time.
It is possible that any problem you are currently, or had previously experienced may have been caused by traffic congestion on the Internet or by the server you were accessing responding slowly.
If you continue to encounter a problem with a specific server, please contact the administrator of that server in the first instance.

Let's say the problem is traffic congestion one, and not a server one. Doesn't that mean that Plusnhet is cramming too many people onto one line? ISPs could stop bunging 50 people onto a single line. Again, I don't see how it's all BT's/OR's fault.

almillar

The prevailng attitude of this forum seems to be: It's fine to have terrible broadband, you just need to suck it up more.

Clearly, I'm a nightmare customer

You're being a nightmare forumite! We're trying to help you, so would you please answer my questions in post #21?

Ah, you just did - 11Mb/s.
So do you get this speed during the day? And it slows down in the evenings? Maybe it's your cabinet or exchange that's overloaded, which would indeed be Openreach's fault!

littleboo

Presumably this is ADSL so the cabinet isn't relevant

brewerdave

@Mirandoch -have you tried the exchange status page ? Link is http://usertools.plus.net/exchanges/

onomatopoeia99

almillar wrote: »

You're being a nightmare forumite! We're trying to help you, so would you please answer my questions in post #21?

Ah, you just did - 11Mb/s.
So do you get this speed during the day? And it slows down in the evenings? Maybe it's your cabinet or exchange that's overloaded, which would indeed be Openreach's fault!

Or it's the ISP not provisioning enough capacity in their links from the BT IP networks, or external capacity to the rest of the Internet.

If it's ADSL the cabinet is irrelevant and the potential problem is insufficient capacity in the link from the exchange to BT20CN/BT21CN (if the problem is within Openreach's remit and not the ISP's).

Some ISPs allow you to select who your backhaul link is with from the exchange on ADSL, so you can use TalkTalk backhaul if they are present in the exchange (I know this because I have in the past used it with my ISP, before my exchange was enabled for FTTC).