Broadband deals

SaveMeDo

Hi guys

I've been having problems with my broadband ISP Plusnet, which, thankfully is now working again, but the ordeal has really shaken my trust in plusnet

https://community.plus.net/t5/ADSL-Broadband/Slow-Slow-Slow/td-p/1798491 

My contract ends 28 April, at which point the cost jumps from £18.99 to 32 quid!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I was considering Shell energy, but I can't even contact them to do a deal, so what sort of support would I get?

I think I'll have to rule Shell out.

After being abused by the staff at Plusnet on that thread, and the mods deleted the worst abuse, where can I turn?

The whole Telecoms industry seems to be in crisis, what the hell is happening to this country?

Neil_Jones

SaveMeDo said:

Hi guys

I've been having problems with my broadband ISP Plusnet, which, thankfully is now working again, but the ordeal has really shaken my trust in plusnet

https://community.plus.net/t5/ADSL-Broadband/Slow-Slow-Slow/td-p/1798491 

My contract ends 28 April, at which point the cost jumps from £18.99 to 32 quid!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I was considering Shell energy, but I can't even contact them to do a deal, so what sort of support would I get?

I think I'll have to rule Shell out.

After being abused by the staff at Plusnet on that thread, and the mods deleted the worst abuse, where can I turn?

The whole Telecoms industry seems to be in crisis, what the hell is happening to this country?

Considering I read the entire link you posted on the Plusnet forum and you proceeded to completely ignore every piece of advice you were given in that thread (including the key one, stop turning the router off and on), you didn't really help matters yourself.

SaveMeDo

We are rapidly getting to the point where poor people will simply be exculed from the internet, £22 might seem like a piddling sum to the comfortable well off, but for some of us, close to needing foodbanks to survive, it is an imposing amount of money.

matelodave

It appears that you've been enjoying a discount which has no doubt been subsidised by those who have either been loyal or are too lazy to keep changing suppliers. 

It's much like insurance, gas, leccy etc, being loyal doesn't work. By all means take advantage of new customer discounts but you have expect a swinging increase in a year or two at the end of a contract. 

However, unless you can negotiate a better deal or get a new customer discount with another supplier then you end up with a big increase at the end of your contract.  In the end, broad band isn't a free or even low cost service there is a vast amount of money tied up in the equipment and network to deliver it, likewise to maintain it and keep it up to date. The more sophisticated it becomes, the more it costs to provide.

Even buying a tin of beans or a gallon of petrol requires you to shop around for the best deal and if it costs more to produce, ship or other costs rise then it's the customer who pays otherwise the company goes bust - simple economics really. 

Chino

SaveMeDo said:

We are rapidly getting to the point where poor people will simply be exculed from the internet

I suspect most poor people are already excluded.
Like many libraries, my local library used to offer free Internet access but, since the current situation arose, it doesn't allow the public into the building so that service is no longer available to those that might have relied on it.

Searcher2

Haven't read all through your thread but my partner is with PlusNet and her contract is about to run out.  They automatically offered her £18.99 a month with the standard price rise coming up of about £1.  Strange you didn't get that.

SaveMeDo

Hi Chino

I absolutly agree. I used to go the library myself years ago for internet access.

Things are getting tougher and toughter for poor people.

SaveMeDo

Hi Searcher2

I was offered the £18.99 price reduction. and I was going to take it, if you read that thread, but I think I upset the guy at Plusnet when I said Shell was £14, funnily enough, that's when my connection went down!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

;-(

You should have seen what the Plusnet employee's wrote on that thread before the mod's deleted them, I now think that some of them are holding a grudge against me.

It's a strange world we are living in at the moment.

JJ_Egan

Ofcom have just given the green light to further increases to aid the rollout of FTTP .

hugheskevi

SaveMeDo said:

I was considering Shell energy, but I can't even contact them to do a deal, so what sort of support would I get?

I think I'll have to rule Shell out.

Albeit with a bit of trepidation, I recently switched to Shell. I didn't contact them though, just signed up online. Speed is a little slower than hoped for, but paying £14.66 per month (averaged over year) and getting pings below 10, download speeds around 28-29 mbs and upload of 3mbs, which I find very acceptable for our needs

Connection has been very stable, and range on wi-fi is fine. So far, no need for any support.

SaveMeDo said:

The whole Telecoms industry seems to be in crisis, what the hell is happening to this country?

I switched away from BT. Their service has been fine for the last few years (not a single call to support, no significant outage, etc) and I would have liked to stay with them, but although they offered £19.99 pm which I would have been happy with, it was only for a 24 month contract and I am likely to be going overseas after 12 months.

Compared to costs and service in other countries, I'm very happy with the industry.

SaveMeDo

Hi hugheskevi

That's a great price for fast broadband, but what happens if you have a problem later on?

Is the customer support there when someone needs it?

Years ago, I was with Freedom2surf, which worked well for years, but, when it went down, the "customer support" just took the pi55, and kept you on the phone waiting for hours on end.

Customer support depends on the quality of the staff and management.