Should I ditch Plusnet for Sky for Fibre and Landline?

[MrRichAllen1976]

Above.

I'm strongly considering it but I'm a bit torn, I read somewhere the day before yesterday that Plusnet are bringing out FTTP (Fibre To The Premises) soon which makes the Interweb faster than standard Fibre over old Copper wires.

Like The Clash sang back in the 70s, "Should I stay or should I go?", the contract expires in mid May, so if I decided to leave I'd have to give the contractually obligated 30 days notice in mid April.

 

[JonathanRyan]

I read somewhere the day before yesterday that Plusnet are bringing out FTTP (Fibre To The Premises) soon

Are they really? Or are they piggybacking off OpenReach's connection? If it's the latter then most providers will offer the same.

It depends what you prioritise. After a year on 4G, my luxury treat is 650 meg Virgin Fibre. Per month it costs about the same as going into London once which for me is well worth it.

 

[robj20]

FTTP doesn't make any difference to browsing the web.
Good for gaming though with even lower pings. Good for downloading large stuff.

That being said a lot of services haven't caught up to what's available with FTTP I find I often can't get the full speed, Steam on PC will max my connection out but the PlayStation won't.
Also remember if you go for the fastest speeds you'll be needing hardwired connections.

 

[andrewc]

What is lacking about your current connection?

 

[MrRichAllen1976]

What is lacking about your current connection?

1) I get 55 Mb max download speeds on Xbox
2) The PN Landline isn't fit for purpose IMO, and I've had 3 OpenReach Engineers in last year to look at it.
3) PN has call centres in Leeds and Sheffield, but I've still spoken to several agents who don't understand my strong Sheffield accent.

I can't get Virgin, and wouldn't if I could, I simply don't have the time or patience to deal with Indian call centres, which is why I left Talk Talk in November 2020 as soon as I was able to give 30 days notice on my Fibre and Landline packages with them.

Don't get me wrong I am NOT racist, my beef with them isn't personal, I just don't have the patience to deal with people who don't understand basic English, especially people who speak basic English in a broad Yorkshire accent.

 

[robj20]

1) I get 55 Mb max download speeds on Xbox
2) The PN Landline isn't fit for purpose IMO, and I've had 3 OpenReach Engineers in last year to look at it.
3) PN has call centres in Leeds and Sheffield, but I've still spoken to several agents who don't understand my strong Sheffield accent.

I can't get Virgin, and wouldn't if I could, I simply don't have the time or patience to deal with Indian call centres, which is why I left Talk Talk in November 2020 as soon as I was able to give 30 days notice on my Fibre and Landline packages with them.

Don't get me wrong I am NOT racist, my beef with them isn't personal, I just don't have the patience to deal with people who don't understand basic English, especially people who speak basic English in a broad Yorkshire accent.

Sky is still openreach. You could always swap to FTTP but the lower speeds. Still has benefits.

Need careful though if Sky are like BT at least round here you don't have a copper landline anymore, and that means if you use the phone you're forced to use the supplied router. Which I don't but luckily I don't use the phone.

 

[MrRichAllen1976]

Sky is still openreach. You could always swap to FTTP but the lower speeds. Still has benefits.

Need careful though if Sky are like BT at least round here you don't have a copper landline anymore, and that means if you use the phone you're forced to use the supplied router. Which I don't but luckily I don't use the phone.

I do use the phone though, I use the Landline considerably more than the mobile even though I have unlimited minutes and texts on GiffGaff.

 

[andrewc]

1) I get 55 Mb max download speeds on Xbox
2) The PN Landline isn't fit for purpose IMO, and I've had 3 OpenReach Engineers in last year to look at it.
3) PN has call centres in Leeds and Sheffield, but I've still spoken to several agents who don't understand my strong Sheffield accent.

I can't get Virgin, and wouldn't if I could, I simply don't have the time or patience to deal with Indian call centres, which is why I left Talk Talk in November 2020 as soon as I was able to give 30 days notice on my Fibre and Landline packages with them.

Don't get me wrong I am NOT racist, my beef with them isn't personal, I just don't have the patience to deal with people who don't understand basic English, especially people who speak basic English in a broad Yorkshire accent.

Consider elocution lessons and then all telephone providers are open to you

 

[MrRichAllen1976]

Consider elocution lesions and then all telephone providers are open to you

Lesions?

I don't need to be a male Eliza Doolittle thanks.

"The Rain in Spain stays mainly on the Plain"

 

[andrewc]

1) I get 55 Mb max download speeds on Xbox
2) The PN Landline isn't fit for purpose IMO, and I've had 3 OpenReach Engineers in last year to look at it.
3) PN has call centres in Leeds and Sheffield, but I've still spoken to several agents who don't understand my strong Sheffield accent.

I can't get Virgin, and wouldn't if I could, I simply don't have the time or patience to deal with Indian call centres, which is why I left Talk Talk in November 2020 as soon as I was able to give 30 days notice on my Fibre and Landline packages with them.

Don't get me wrong I am NOT racist, my beef with them isn't personal, I just don't have the patience to deal with people who don't understand basic English, especially people who speak basic English in a broad Yorkshire accent.

Consider elocution lesions and then all telephone providers are open

Lesions?

I don't need to be a male Eliza Doolittle thanks.

"The Rain in Spain stays mainly on the Plain"

I blame autocorrect and trying a swipey keyboard.

You’ve said on other posts that you have a broad Yorkshire accent, and you speak quickly, so you have to accept a reasonable proportion of the problem when making yourself understood.

 

[troutfisher]

I think you will find that with the exception of Virgin where the connection is fully cabled all of the others are using open reach or working towards fibre to house so really its what offers you the best deal.
BTW I think virgin have stopped using Indian call centres.

 

[Box Brownie]

I have yet to see FTTP prices.....but AFAIK at one time (early adopters?) it was £hundred(s) for the installation and >x3 cost of FTTC costs per month.

 

[robj20]

I have yet to see FTTP prices.....but AFAIK at one time (early adopters?) it was £hundred(s) for the installation and >x3 cost of FTTC costs per month.

Price hasn't changed here same as FTTC was and obviously more for the faster speeds but even 1Gig is only about £50 a month, I didn't pay a penny for installation either. I'm paying £30 a month for 150mb/30mb

 

[Ricardodaforce]

I do use the phone though, I use the Landline considerably more than the mobile even though I have unlimited minutes and texts on GiffGaff.

So Virgin Media O2 do get some of your money then

 

[Box Brownie]

Price hasn't changed here same as FTTC was and obviously more for the faster speeds but even 1Gig is only about £50 a month, I didn't pay a penny for installation either. I'm paying £30 a month for 150mb/30mb

I learn something new every day

At the moment I have a good (FTTC & phone) deal until later this year.......then need to see what PN will do at renewal time

 

[robj20]

I learn something new every day

At the moment I have a good (FTTC & phone) deal until later this year.......then need to see what PN will do at renewal time

I'm lucky I live in one of openreachs trial locations so we get the new stuff first, I've had FTTP for a few years now.
I only have a fiber optic cable to my house now, the phone if you have one plugs into the router now as well and you get digital voice.

 

[Gremlin]

the phone if you have one plugs into the router now as well and you get digital voice.

So what happens if you have a power cut ?
I still have my landline, used for incoming calls only by people who don't have mobile contracts so therefore
if, as I understand this system will be coming to all landlines, how do they communicate in emergencies etc ?

 

[nog]

So what happens if you have a power cut ?
I still have my landline, used for incoming calls only by people who don't have mobile contracts so therefore
if, as I understand this system will be coming to all landlines, how do they communicate in emergencies etc ?

Seems they don’t communicate
Storm Arwen: Why power cuts left people unable to phone for help https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cumbria-59564480

 

[robj20]

So what happens if you have a power cut ?
I still have my landline, used for incoming calls only by people who don't have mobile contracts so therefore
if, as I understand this system will be coming to all landlines, how do they communicate in emergencies etc ?

You lose your line. I'll be honest I can't remember the last time we had a power cut.
Plus I'd just use my mobile, since having my own house I've never even had a house phone.
I use my own router so don't even have access to the standard BT phone line, id just get a VOIP service if needed, there are plenty of free ones, would divert to mobile as well.

 

[Krisstiffer]

Since losing power for most of the day during storm Arwen (think I was one of the luckier ones only losing it for a comparatively short time) I’ve been planning on getting a cheap wired handset. Couldn’t use home phone as there was no power to the base station for the wireless handsets and no mobile signal because there was no power to the local phone masts.
With VOIP only services then the cheap wired phone option will disappear too.

 

[Gremlin]

I can't remember the last time we had a power cut.
Plus I'd just use my mobile, since

Being in a semi rural location, we get them quite often, which also means that the mobile transmitters lose power too ,
so no mobile signal either
I do have a cheap wired handset, never used it though.

 

[Nod]

Since losing power for most of the day during storm Arwen (think I was one of the luckier ones only losing it for a comparatively short time) I’ve been planning on getting a cheap wired handset. Couldn’t use home phone as there was no power to the base station for the wireless handsets and no mobile signal because there was no power to the local phone masts.
With VOIP only services then the cheap wired phone option will disappear too.

We have a wired phone just-in-case and have made sure that Mrs Nod's Mum has one too. Only use the landline for incoming calls (mainly from Mrs Nod's Mum!) and she (MNM) doesn't have mobile coverage in her house. While power cuts aren't common, they're not an endangered species...

 

[JonathanRyan]

1) I get 55 Mb max download speeds on Xbox

How does this impact you?

I had an issue with a 2nd hand CoD game recently and trouble shooting involved downloading 80+ GB 3 or 4 times. It took like 35 mins each time. On yours it might take 3 hours or so. Is that a problem or do you do like most Xbox owners and install overnight?

As for call centres, I found the Santander one particularly bad and decided if I ever needed to speak to them again, I would close my account. IIRC that was 8 years ago and I'm still with them because there's never a need to speak to them - and that includes several house moves. I had an issue with my Virgin connection recently and within 20 mins I had the line tested and an engineer booked without speaking to anybody. Then it fixed itself and I cancelled via web.

 

[MrRichAllen1976]

How does this impact you?

I had an issue with a 2nd hand CoD game recently and trouble shooting involved downloading 80+ GB 3 or 4 times. It took like 35 mins each time. On yours it might take 3 hours or so. Is that a problem or do you do like most Xbox owners and install overnight?

As for call centres, I found the Santander one particularly bad and decided if I ever needed to speak to them again, I would close my account. IIRC that was 8 years ago and I'm still with them because there's never a need to speak to them - and that includes several house moves. I had an issue with my Virgin connection recently and within 20 mins I had the line tested and an engineer booked without speaking to anybody. Then it fixed itself and I cancelled via web.

I can't leave the Xbox on overnight, leaving the TV on at the mains to power the console is a Fire hazard.

Like I said in the OP, I can't get Virgin (even though I've been with them for Mobile) and their customer service is beyond crap IMO.

 

[robj20]

I can't leave the Xbox on overnight, leaving the TV on at the mains to power the console is a Fire hazard.

Like I said in the OP, I can't get Virgin (even though I've been with them for Mobile) and their customer service is beyond crap IMO.

Of course you can leave it on overnight it's not a candle.
Your supposed to leave them in standby 24/7 so they can install updates and download games.
TV has nothing to do with the Xbox being on or either.

Do you not have an app so you can install to your Xbox via an app on your phone, then by the time you actually want to play it is done.

That's what I used to do on a slower collection.
A lot of modern electronics actually doesn't like being hard powered on and off all the time.

 

[MrRichAllen1976]

Of course you can leave it on overnight it's not a candle.
Your supposed to leave them in standby 24/7 so they can install updates and download games.
TV has nothing to do with the Xbox being on or either.

Do you not have an app so you can install to your Xbox via an app on your phone, then by the time you actually want to play it is done.

That's what I used to do on a slower collection.
A lot of modern electronics actually doesn't like being hard powered on and off all the time.

Well to be fair I did leave it on for a bit last night and went to bed, while it installed a 93 Gig update for The Elder Scrolls: Morrowind (93 Gig? I humbly apologise but WTF?)

 

[robj20]

Are they not the same as Playstation's in that you can set a download off and turn it into standby and it will download in the background? No need to fully turn it off or unplug it.
Even 93GB is only about 4 hours on a normal fast broadband connection.
On a fast FTTP you'd have it done in 13 minutes. Lol

 

[MrRichAllen1976]

Are they not the same as Playstation's in that you can set a download off and turn it into standby and it will download in the background? No need to fully turn it off or unplug it.

Probably, I don't pay that much attention to it, I just game, download stuff and that's it.

 

[JonathanRyan]

I can't leave the Xbox on overnight, leaving the TV on at the mains to power the console is a Fire hazard.

Wait, what?

I know there's an old belief that leaving the TV plugged in is a risk if your aerial is truck by lightning but who said anything about leaving the TV plugged in? Though in fact modern TVs are designed to be left in standby all the time. It's probably the same with an Xbox.

But yeah, sure. You should totally buy FTTP.

Even 93GB is only about 4 hours on a normal fast broadband connection.
On a fast FTTP you'd have it done in 13 minutes. Lol

You'd think so but in my experience the XBox servers can't / won't sustain a connection that fast - I seldom see them up above 300 meg. A very big game (100GB or so) will take the best part of an hour to d/l if you're not playing anything else. If you have a game running (even on pause) it drops the speed right down. But yeah, 1st World Problems

 

[Box Brownie]

I'm lucky I live in one of openreachs trial locations so we get the new stuff first, I've had FTTP for a few years now.
I only have a fiber optic cable to my house now, the phone if you have one plugs into the router now as well and you get digital voice.

The first I heard of "digital voice" was I think about 2 to 3 years ago in an item on R4 You & yours program.

As I recall the item covered the likes of the emergency button systems that elderly & infirm rely on to summon help.

It seems that not all of those systems were/are DV compatible and the onus was on the users and the suppliers to make them so asap. However the BT(Openreach?) person being interviewed spoke about those households where such an upgrade was either too expensive or 'not possible' they would be provided with a box that allowed for analogue connections to the DV system.

Furthermore the box meant that the analogue landline phone would work, get the dial tone, and I surmised that means that unlike the current method where power to create the dialtone is generated at/by the exchange , it would then be powered by the box.

As mentioned by others above, the likes of a major impact by Storm Arwen wiping out FTTC, FTTP & Mobile towers for anything from a few hours to weeks..................just what the heck mitigation is the government making Openreach (and others???) put in place for householders to be able to make emergency calls etc.

IMO without mitigation the rush to DV is rash especially as in the R4 article I think they spoke of the analogue system being 'turned off' in (I think?) 2026.

Reliance purely on digital technology is at best foolhardy and at worst a disaster waiting to happen..................the trouble is, if it happens now one will be able to tell others about it :banghead:

 

[woof woof]

You lose your line. I'll be honest I can't remember the last time we had a power cut.
Plus I'd just use my mobile, since having my own house I've never even had a house phone.
I use my own router so don't even have access to the standard BT phone line, id just get a VOIP service if needed, there are plenty of free ones, would divert to mobile as well.

I suppose it depends where you live. I live between Middlesbrough and Redcar so not exactly in the back of beyond and we have Virgin but Skype and others are often poor and the conversation is often "Can you hear me?" Wait a bit... "Can you hear me now? I can't hear you." Followed by "Oh, it's frozen." Then give up. I'm not a great fan of mobiles either or at least not for conversations of any length as there are often problems, they're ok for getting a quick message through but other than that I haven't used anything yet that's anywhere near the quality and reliability of the good old expensive landline.

Another problem is that we can't ditch the landline as it's part of a package, we can limit its use though and avoid extra charges.

 

[woof woof]

Reliance purely on digital technology is at best foolhardy and at worst a disaster waiting to happen..................the trouble is, if it happens now one will be able to tell others about it :banghead:

Yup. But chances are that the people making the decisions wont care. So much of the modern digital world is IMO too often half working and unreliable. Yet the push continues.

 

[onomatopoeia]

Are they really? Or are they piggybacking off OpenReach's connection? If it's the latter then most providers will offer the same.

"The same". If I could get FTTP using OR backhaul in my exchange area, the ISP I currently have would offer me an unfiltered connection with a /28 of IPv4 addresses and a /48 of IPv6. Going to bet that Sky, Plusnet and all the others that also use OR local loop don't, so definitely not the same.

If on the other hand you only care about the theoretical maximum throughput of the link between your home an the backhaul network, then typically all ISPs offering connectivity based on OR local loop will offer the same, but that would fundamentally misrepresent the entirety os what goes in to providing and supporting an internet connection by focusing on a single element.

 

[hunnymonster]

Openreach supply the last mile - what an ISP provides beyond that is their choice. It simply isn't true that they're all the same. Yes you'll get the same line speed to the exchange but beyond the exchange is where the real difference is found.

Plusnet being part of BT Group plc will definitely use BT/Openreach's infrastructure exclusively. Sky may use it, but they also may not.

Other ISPs may use it but manage it more effectively. A small ISP doesn't necessarily mean poor - they trade on reputation (particularly word of mouth) and remember any ISP you see widely advertised are spending cash to attract new punters that they could be spending on the network that you're on that they are loading more and more users on to.

Frankly if I can avoid putting a penny in the coffers of BT, Sky or Virgin I count as a success.

 

[JonathanRyan]

"The same". If I could get FTTP using OR backhaul in my exchange area, the ISP I currently have would offer me an unfiltered connection with a /28 of IPv4 addresses and a /48 of IPv6. Going to bet that Sky, Plusnet and all the others that also use OR local loop don't, so definitely not the same.

If on the other hand you only care about the theoretical maximum throughput of the link between your home an the backhaul network, then typically all ISPs offering connectivity based on OR local loop will offer the same, but that would fundamentally misrepresent the entirety os what goes in to providing and supporting an internet connection by focusing on a single element.

'k. I only understood about half the words in that first paragraph. You clearly know way more about this than I do.

Personally I only care about stability, throughput and ping (in that order). If people have different needs then listen to @onomatopoeia not me

 

[robj20]

"The same". If I could get FTTP using OR backhaul in my exchange area, the ISP I currently have would offer me an unfiltered connection with a /28 of IPv4 addresses and a /48 of IPv6. Going to bet that Sky, Plusnet and all the others that also use OR local loop don't, so definitely not the same.

If on the other hand you only care about the theoretical maximum throughput of the link between your home an the backhaul network, then typically all ISPs offering connectivity based on OR local loop will offer the same, but that would fundamentally misrepresent the entirety os what goes in to providing and supporting an internet connection by focusing on a single element.

Even in confused by that post. I don't understand why it's anything to do with the ISP what IP addresses you use.
I use a /16 setup on mine to separate devices better.
10.10.1.x for stuff with full access.
10.10.2.x for IOT stuff.
10.10.3.x for guests zero Lan access only internet.

 

[the black fox]

We switched to FTTP middle of last year . Yes the interwebby is faster but the only real difference is we no longer have 3 landline phones around the house , meaning if I don’t have my mobile with me I’ll miss the call .
Personally I preferred a landline being hard of hearing but the new system works .. what you will have to balance is what you lose against what you gain

 

[robj20]

We switched to FTTP middle of last year . Yes the interwebby is faster but the only real difference is we no longer have 3 landline phones around the house , meaning if I don’t have my mobile with me I’ll miss the call .
Personally I preferred a landline being hard of hearing but the new system works .. what you will have to balance is what you lose against what you gain

Don't you just plug your phone into the router the same as I need to do if I want to use a landline phone.