Working fine for me
Just outside Guildford. No disruption during the day either.
Allow us to sum this up: UK ISP Plusnet minus net for nine-plus hours
For the past nine hours or so today, bungling Brit broadband ISP Plusnet's internet service has been rather wobbly – with network packet loss wrecking some connections. This lack of stable connectivity for unlucky punters will hit things like online video and voice calls, gaming and streaming the most. Uptime-adverse Plusnet …
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Wednesday 23rd November 2016 10:03 GMT Lee D
Re: Working fine for me
My ex-wife (who kept my PlusNet account from the days when it wasn't owned by BT and was actually one of the best) in Cornwall had no end of problems.
She's considering cancelling the contract, it's been that bad for her.
And she lives right in the middle of one of the largest towns, so it's hardly out in the sticks.
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Tuesday 22nd November 2016 20:58 GMT Anonymous Coward
Meanwhile, on BT Infinitesimal
for most of Sunday, and for much of Monday evening, where I am:
bulk download speeds OK but DNS resolution very hit or miss, thereby rendering web access near useless.
It's BT. Believe it could be better.
Anybody recommend any VDSL2 modem/routers with decent line-level stats, esp error counts, errored seconds, etc, preferably accessible via SNMP. Or is that kind of thing (which my faithful old D-Link DSL604+ used to do) too 20th century for modern consumer electronics?
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Wednesday 23rd November 2016 00:26 GMT astarisit
Re: Meanwhile, on BT Infinitesimal
VDSL routers:
Draytek 2760 for home
Draytek 2860 small business
Cisco 887 VA for "won't ever let go of the VDSL"
All give decent stats, all do SNMP.
We get the ones without wireless functionality - but that's to do with wanting multiple wireless access points in appropriate locations - so non-wireless ones might not be suitable for you.
Draytek's are "SIN 498 MCT" compliant. i.e. will actually work with Openreach FTTC. Bit like the "green circle" stickers on phones that used to indicate BABT approval for connecting a device to a phone line.
See here for devices (assume accurate - but can't confirm):
https://www.pack-net.co.uk/blog/update-changes-to-fttc
Least interesting pdf ever about what is needed for this compliance:
https://www.openreach.co.uk/orpg/home/products/super-fastfibreaccess/downloads/ProcessGuideforCPEeModemConformanceTestingIssue1.4.pdf
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Wednesday 23rd November 2016 10:05 GMT Lee D
Re: Meanwhile, on BT Infinitesimal
+1 for Draytek. My three-year-old 2860VN+ is still getting firmware updates with major feature upgrades (they just added DNSSEC checking for the ISP DNS servers, for instance).
And if you buy the Vigor AP900 range of wireless points, it can be centrally managed from the Draytek router.
Never had a problem, upgrade it regularly with new stuff, handles all kind of stuff and has features that I've never seen on other routers in its price-class.
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Tuesday 22nd November 2016 20:58 GMT Anonymous Coward
A little slow in Berkshire
Download speed seem a little slower than normal for the last day or so, but no interruptions.
By coincidence I received and email from Plusnet today heralding their new mobile service:
"We (like any proud parent) are thrilled to announce the arrival of Plusnet Mobile. Our bundle of joy arrives on 29th November and we want to share the love with a special deal."
It appears to be hosted on EE who I am already with. I wonder if I dare risk it?
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Tuesday 22nd November 2016 21:06 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: A little slow in Berkshire
It appears to be hosted on EE who I am already with. I wonder if I dare risk it?
Don't be daft. Any deal offered to existing customers is always rubbish (in your case that's any offer from EE, BT or Plusnet).
Good deals (in commodity service contracts like telecoms, insurance, energy etc) are only ever offered as "acquisition only", because if they're a good deal chances are the provider is losing money at bottom line level. At the end of the fixed period/renewal point they try and punt you on to much more expensive deal hoping you won't notice, and if a small number of sticky customers stay on the poor renewal deal for a couple of years the maths works out commercially.
Never forget rule one of commercial services: Customer loyalty is there to be abused.
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Wednesday 23rd November 2016 07:42 GMT chas49
Re: A little slow in Berkshire
"Don't be daft"
Is the PNET offer cheaper than your currrent EE deal for the service? Since it's a 30 day rolling contract (I think),where's the downside?
Yes, the special rate for exisitng broadband customers may be undercut in future but you can easily move again. Check the T&Cs to make sure you're not tied in to BB.
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Wednesday 23rd November 2016 08:42 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: A little slow in Berkshire
"Is the PNET offer cheaper than your currrent EE deal for the service? Since it's a 30 day rolling contract (I think),where's the downside?"
Yes, the 30 day rolling contract is attractive, but there is no information about costs or service levels in the email, just a link labelled "Register now". I would like to know the details before "registering".
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Tuesday 22nd November 2016 21:06 GMT William 3
Welcome to Post Truth journalism.
Noticed the emotionally loaded words used in the article such as "bungling".
Sensationally making molehills into mountains for the sake of the advertising pound it brings in.
Whilst piously writing articles about how bad Donald Trump talks shit.
And how Facebook is the epitome of Fake News.
Brass Necks at the Register.
I give them that.
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Tuesday 22nd November 2016 23:52 GMT Dave Bell
I'm not sure how useful that map is.
The highest number of reports are where a lot of people live.
It does look as though London, for example, it getting hit worse than Birmingham, but none of use know enough about the Plusnet network to know what's different. In the past, I've often been told I am somewhere close to Milton Keynes, presumably because of the IP address, but the helpdesk staff seem to be based in Sheffield.
In the past, with other companies, I've known that a particular cluster of equipment had failed, but I wouldn't like to guess where my connection goes physically. The connection is working for me, but if it wasn't I doubt the red spot would show on that map.
Milton Keynes, incidentally, is legendary for having something falling down on it. There's a song.
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Wednesday 23rd November 2016 00:26 GMT Np_smith
Not the only issue today
Woke up this morning to my Plusnet hub rebooting continuously and hence no internet. Reported it as a fault then discovered it was a Chromecast Audio update in the early hours causing the problem.
https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/chromecast/3PiH_40qLBw
Not saying it's a Plusnet/BT router issue but neither company appears to be acknowledging fault at the moment.
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Wednesday 23rd November 2016 09:45 GMT Anonymous Coward
one of the most whinged about comms providers in the UK
really? They were rather good when I was in bed with them for about 10 years. This must have something to do with being in bed with BT... no, this can't be right?! BT would NEVER sit its 1 bilion ton gorilla butt on a solid asset to squeeze a little extra profit, eh?
well, this may be a schadenfreunde snigger, until I remember the butt of the Virgin overlords, squeezing her (and me) firmly, in all the right places :(
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Wednesday 23rd November 2016 13:20 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: one of the most whinged about comms providers in the UK
"BT would NEVER sit its 1 bilion ton gorilla butt on a solid asset to squeeze a little extra profit, eh?"
Absolutely not, no.
Same way as Ofcon wouldn't tolerate BT plc abusing BT plc trading as Plusnet to drive coach and horses through the regulatory regime. BT plc trading as BT Retail's prices are regulated, and BT plc trading as Plusnet's aren't. Which meant that in principle for a little while BT plc could have used Plusnet to undercut BT Retail's regulatory minimum prices (yes you read that right) thereby ensuring that potential competitors (smaller ISPs than BT/Sky/TT) wouldn't have a market niche to address - BT Retail as brainless bundler of overpriced and underperforming services for the naive and ill-informed, Plusnet as low cost ISP for the cost conscious and technically savvy, where's a mid-priced ISP supposed to go against those two?
Allegeldy.
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Wednesday 23rd November 2016 15:25 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Funny how different people have different experiences
Until last month, I'd been with Plusnet for about 14 years. In the early days, if you had a problem, you'd get through to someone knowledgeable, and able to do something that could resolve the problem. Since the BT takeover, proper techies doing support have gone, to be replaced by script readers. A couple of years back, email stopped flowing, and I found they had changed all my MX records for my domains to their own servers. It took hours to talk to someone who knew what an MX record was, and even then they refused to acknowledge that they had changed the records. I moved the domains from them as soon as I could.
The last three occasions I have had trouble also meant 45 minute waits on the phone - they removed or made incredibly difficult to find the old way of reporting faults online.
Moved to a new ISP last month.
A few days later, I got an email from Plusnet to say that money would be taken from my account for the next month's service. I contacted them (45 minute call) to say they;d made a mistake and that I no longer had service from them, cancelling the old DD authorisation in the process. I got batted around to several different people, the last of whom said oh yes, and put the phone down. I took up the battle on the web site and on twitter. Demands for payment continued to be emailed to the point where it felt like a blackmail scam gone wrong - "Your service will be cancelled if you don't pay...." After two weeks, another twitter campaign and more online reporting, they finally emailed to say their automated system had made a mistake.
Moving to another ISP was a hard decision to make; would the grass be greener on the other side? Actually the move itself was a doddle, the only hassles being the ones described above. Plusnet's race to the bottom may be fine, but I was expecting, and paying for, the service I used to get before that race started.
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Biting the hand that feeds IT
