Broadband not fit for purpose - can I cancel?

slbhill

I recently signed up to a 2-year fixed term contract with plusnet (it was a good deal, reported here).


It turns out their broadband speeds at my location aren't just slow (I could live with that), they are absolutely atrocious. When it's busy (Friday evening particularly) I often can't even get a simple webpage like google to load. On a typical evening I ran a speed test using uswitch and it had a download speed of 0.3Mb, which uswitch says is 99% slower than average.


It has to be a plusnet issue - I had a phoneline from Sky before, which used the same wires etc. So I don't see that it can be my equipment (unless it's an issue with the plusnet router??)


Obviously I hadn't planned on moving within the 2 year contract - in fact I paid the line rental up front to get the good deal. But given the level of service I have to consider it. Has anyone been in this situation, and have any idea if the service being so poor will give me a get-out for the contract? I realise I'll have to talk to them and probably haggle - but any experience or helpful suggestions before I do that would be much appreciated.

JJ_Egan

Have you been through the PN complaints procedure ??That is the first step .

Is this poor connection over wifi ??

Buzby

What speeds were you offered? There is considerable leeway, but you have to let them exhaust their troubleshooting on your line.

Browntoa

You'll have to give them ample opportunity to remedy the problem before even getting near a point where they may allow you to break the contract

Maxwell007

Yes ample opportunity to remedy the problem,
Then its a simple thing of your not going to pay
for a service that does not work . .

Marvqn1

Have you tried connecting via a wired ethernet cable, to see how the speed compares to WiFi?

fierystormcloud

Are you DIRECTLY plugged into the socket? (phoneline?) There's no extension leading around the back of the room or anything?

This will slow things down dramatically.

Plusnet are probably the best for customer service, and if they promise 7mgs (which is usually the slowest!) you should be getting it.

Ask them to send out an engineer or you will have to leave. If they say you can't, as you will be breaking the contract, say THEY have broken the contract by not delivering the speed they promised.

As I said, are you sure it's not you? Are you definitely plugged in directly into the socket?

teddysmum

fierystormcloud wrote: »

Are you DIRECTLY plugged into the socket? (phoneline?) There's no extension leading around the back of the room or anything?

This will slow things down dramatically.

Plusnet are probably the best for customer service, and if they promise 7mgs (which is usually the slowest!) you should be getting it.
Not any more. Phone waits of 45 minutes are common and if you manage to contact online, they switch you to another department,upon which you are conveniently cut off and end up back at 20th in the queue.
Ask them to send out an engineer or you will have to leave. If they say you can't, as you will be breaking the contract, say THEY have broken the contract by not delivering the speed they promised.




There is a risk that the problem is internal, in which case they will charge for the visit.

As I said, are you sure it's not you? Are you definitely plugged in directly into the socket?

I left Sky with speeds a little over 6 and have only eve r had slightly over 5 from PlusNet.


Our broadband was terrible for three months off and on, with less than 1Mbps at 2am, when there aren't crowds online, slow speeds 1-2 otherwise, often too slow to use a speedtest and constant drop outs.


There were two claims of having and indeed seeming to have fixed the problem before things settled to around 5 but mainly under.


Our promise was 2 to 5 so if over 2 they were not breaking a contract but the service was well under par.


AS type we are at a huge 5.33.