back to article Plusnet outage leaves customers unable to stream Netflix. Horrors!

Ongoing technical problems at gaffe-prone Plusnet are leaving customers unable to stream videos or play games. According to the outfit's forum, the problems first began to appear yesterday. However, Plusnet also encountered packet loss problems earlier this month. One customer wrote to The Register to complain: "There is no …

  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Ask them about IPv6

    and it will be more than likey that you will see the tumbleweed blowing down Ilkley High Street before they will answer you.

    1. Martin Summers Silver badge

      Re: Ask them about IPv6

      Oh come on, it's hardly a problem for a consumer ISP is it. Use a tunnel. I just set one up with he.net on my router.

      1. Lee D Silver badge

        Re: Ask them about IPv6

        Okay... so all your traffic is going through another unsecured third-party endpoint, possibly in a country with vast surveillance and interest in your traffic (he.net is in the US, right?), messing with IP geolocation, adding massive latency, and another point of failure.

        Sorry, but I excluded any kind of tunnel solution when my router supports all kinds of IPv6 setups, and the ISP supports NONE of them. Virgin Media are no different. But tunnels aren't the answer unless you run your own nationally-located server and have you tried setting those up? It's actually infinitely easier to set up a full VPN than a standard IPv6 tunnel.

  2. JeffyPoooh
    Pint

    People that use their ISP's email service are asking for trouble

    Just use Gmail, or Hotmail if you like spam.

    Email service is offered to 'lock in' customers.

    1. Halfmad

      Re: People that use their ISP's email service are asking for trouble

      Since the 90s I've owned by own domains and simply forwarded e-mail to the provider I wanted to use, for now it's gmail, but I have used ISPs in the past. Means moving ISP isn't a factor and if the likes of gmail change the account address or close I never need change my e-mail address that banks etc are registered too.

      Costs less than £1/month to have that flexibility.

  3. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

    “and we do suggest to our customers to look at a dedicated email provider if they want to look at something more encrypted or secure.”

    Very sensible advice. Having email independent from the ISP makes it much easier to jump ship from the ISP. Having your own domain independent from the email provider also makes it easer to jump ship from the email service.

  4. Lobrau
    Joke

    "Our engineers have been working really hard [snip]"

    Oh well, that's alright then. As long as they're working hard

    1. John Miles

      Our engineers have been working really hard

      I suspect they really mean - our engineer (well at least we call him that) has been working hard, management having laid off anyone who could possibly be called an engineer as they cost too much

      1. Message From A Self-Destructing Turnip
        Angel

        Re: Our engineers have been working really hard

        I am a plusnet customer and have been working 'really hard' all evening.... no sir, no video streaming issues here... actually that's an lie, I've been down the pub so never noticed any outage.Coincidentally, having read a few reports of ISP service issues lately I am starting to notice a trend... it would seem that only the idiots that are constantly on Twatter are effected... YMMV

  5. 0laf

    Plusnet

    Makes me soo glad I stuck with them to make keeping my bb easier when I moved house. Except that made an utter cock of it.

    23 days till my complaint goes to CISAS Plusnet. Ignoring your customers is soo good for repeat business btw.

  6. King Jack

    They are communicating fine...

    I left them at the end of August. They keep sending me emails and letters asking that I pay them money for my service (Sept). The last email informed me that they were restricting my service. That is a neat trick as I'm with another provider. Plusnet = shambles.

    1. hplasm
      Thumb Up

      Re: They are communicating fine...

      "Plusnet = shambles."

      Plusnet= BT in a hat.

  7. inmypjs Silver badge

    Multiple problems

    I noticed some really slow sites late last night which looks like a network problem.

    The 5 days to fix anything bit is openreach claiming much storm and lightning damage in some areas which they are re-assigning engineers to fix.

    Extra long support wait times probably due to both above.

    Crap email service? Who cares, I didn't know they provided one.

  8. Andy The Hat Silver badge

    38Mb?

    If they dropped their speeds in June how come they advertise, and I recently signed up for 76Mb/s broadband with 19Mb/s upload?

    1. Anon

      Re: 38Mb?

      Maybe it's a Ponzi scheme, but using bandwidth instead of money.

    2. hazzamon

      Re: 38Mb?

      The speed change only affected users on a legacy 40Mbps down, 20 Mbps up package.

    3. John Tserkezis

      Re: 38Mb?

      "If they dropped their speeds in June how come they advertise, and I recently signed up for 76Mb/s broadband with 19Mb/s upload?"

      The "engineer" responsible for updating the web page was at the pub.

  9. alpine

    BT Owned

    'Nuff said...

  10. Your alien overlord - fear me

    How about a dedicated email provider like Yahoo? Can anyone recommend them? :-)

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    this has nothing to do

    with optimizing costs in order to boost profit by the owners (BT), nosir.

    Thank God I jumped the Plusnet ship after several years of great service. But then, I guess my Virgin bliss will only last until the next round of their "cost optimization implementation measures"

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    After about 13 years, I'm leaving PN

    Last week, I had the misery of trying to contact PN about a drop in sync speed to 160kbps. You used to be able to place a fault call via the web site, but now it's down the stairs, into the basement (mind the last three missing steps) and behind a door marked "beware of the leopard." So it meant a 45 minute wait, and then spending 30 mins talking to a script-reader. I've stayed with PN because you used to speak to people who knew what they were talking about. Their service really used to be good. After much aggro, I thought I'd phone their accounts dept to confirm when my line rental is up for renewal - also a 45 min wait, suggesting that support and admin questions go to the same team. Did a bit of research into alternatives, chose one and phoned. Got straight through to someone who answered my questions clearly and without pushiness. The difference between the two approaches made me feel stupid for having stayed with PN out of some misplaced loyalty for when their business ethic wasn't trying to to be BT's poor cousin.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: After about 13 years, I'm leaving PN

      Come on then - who did you go to ? I am in the same position - I really ought to migrate to an ISP with a clue before I run into a problem that requires them to fix something. Used to be with AAISP who where great but the household burns through loads of data each month (teenagers still at home) so they proved too pricey.

      1. Martin Summers Silver badge

        Re: After about 13 years, I'm leaving PN

        Zen are apparently very good. I'm with Plusnet currently, had the slowdown a few weeks ago, not so many problems since really. I may consider moving to Zen if Plusnet do get silly.

      2. Vince

        Re: After about 13 years, I'm leaving PN

        FWIW - A&A offer a 1Tb a month download service for reasonable money if you are prepared to pay for a premium service, it's no longer many hundreds a month for that sort of usage.

      3. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: After about 13 years, I'm leaving PN

        > Come on then - who did you go to ?

        Fortunately a clued-up neighbour did a lot of investigating after he decided to leave PN last year. He went with Zen, and they were top of my list, but the PN effect got to me, and I wondered about the glitziness of their web site. I felt I preferred to be with a smaller provider on the "we try harder" principle. So the company I spoke to is Aquiss, who have been going for long enough not to be a fly-by-night but are in the "small is beautiful" range. I had a look at A&A, but their costs seem a little too premium, and I can't work out why a badged Openreach-based service, which is all that would work on our exchange, should cost that much. So it will be either Zen or Aquiss for me. Unless alternatives crop up as a result of this thread....

  13. druck Silver badge
    Thumb Up

    Not all bad

    Well I've been lucky and not experienced any of the current problems. Got a phone call yesterday from PN offering to upgrade me from the 52/9 (previously 38/19) to the 76/18 service, for £2.50 a month less than I'm currently paying. It was supposed to start from next month, but it's gone live today!

    Yes, I'm always complaining about the lack of encrypted emails, but the increased upload speed will make fetching emails via a VPN much faster.

  14. harpingon

    I'm with PN from when they were good (or at least, acceptable), if I move, I'll be going to A&A or Zen

  15. Anonymous Coward
    Mushroom

    OPTIONAL

    After so many outages and outrages, I no longer have ANY sympathy for anyone stupid enough to stay with them.

    And that INCLUDES my parents.

    Not a nuke, my mum is just a REALLY bad cook.

  16. Lee D Silver badge

    I have never seen anywhere near as many "PlusNet falls over" stories than since they were bought out by BT.

    I really chose the right time to abandon those wonderful people just before they sold it out to a bunch of incompetents.

  17. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    On the bright side

    For once, not affected here. Though getting 53/17 off my connection, so the throttling they are doing to simulate 55/10 while they wait for BT to migrate 40/20 customers to pukka 55/10 is obviously knackered. Oh shucks.

  18. Wolfclaw

    Need to change their slogan, perhaps ...

    "Plusnet, We Do Our Balance Sheet Proud"

    "Plusnet, We Don't Do VOD"

    "Plusnet, We Don't Secure Emails"

  19. GrumpyOldMan

    Well once again I've not experienced any issues with my PN service except when youngest daughter uses Spotify to hog the bandwidth or Wifey wants to watch the episode of Strictly she missed.

  20. NonSSL-Login

    Email

    If PlusNet users want secure email they should sign up with a webmail provider like Yahoo....../joke

    PlusNet users used to praise the ISP all the time in the past but the last year or two, every part of the ISP from Customer Support down to the actual broadband has had tons of complaints. What is happening with them?

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