Broadband provider Plusnet is offering a faster migration to customers wanting to upgrade to its max-speed product — for a fee.
Customers who have opted for the free upgrade up to 8Mbps may have to wait for up to 11 weeks to go through the bulk migration process, in which a thousand requests per week are being sent to BT by Plusnet. Therefore, the internet service provider (ISP) has offered to make manual, individual requests to BT for a fee of £5. This would ensure migration within days.
"We've processed 65,000 people on the free upgrade," a Plusnet spokesperson told ZDNet UK on Wednesday. "We've [still] got around 11,000 people [in the queue] — it will take a number of weeks to get those people upgraded through the bulk process."
The spokesperson denied the scheme means that customers who don't pay the will get bumped down the queue, stressing that the two upgrade streams will run independently of one another. He added that free-upgrade customers were "being processed in the order they opted in".
According to PlusNet, each ISP can only have a set number of regrades processed by BT each week. This helps BT handle the demand from over 100 ISPs which resell its broadband services.
The ISP estimated that around 75 customers per week to take up the offer of a sped-up upgrade. Asked what Plusnet would do if a large proportion of queuing customers opted for the offer, the spokesperson said the company "would be very busy putting those orders through".
This migration — an upgrade from BT's ADSL product to its Max ADSL product — is separate from Plusnet's transfer of some customers onto Tiscali's unbundled LLU platform. That migration , which involves clearing an entirely different backlog of customers, is currently suspended, although Plusnet's spokesperson said the ISP was in talks with Tiscali to resume the process shortly.
Talkback
What they aren't saying is there is an equally long queue of customer (such as I) that have already been "upgraded" desperate to get back on the old system which was far more stable!
I think it's Ironic, given their Marketing Director's recent observation to ZDNet, that "there's no such thing as free", that they've been unable to meet the expectations they set about MaxDSL upgrades, after offering all their customers something for "free".
I had an extremely negative experience with Plusnet. It all comes down to the fact that they have no customer service at all. It is impossible to get in touch with anyone. In addition, I was charged for a month of service in which they were not able to provide me with a broadband connection, and when I complained about this and demanded my money back, I was told that there is nothing that could be done about this because it's company policy. So I spent 15 pounds on my last month when I did not get any service from them, and during which I spent a lot of money on dialup connections just to try to get in touch with them.
When I moved houses, I followed Plusnet's house moves procedure and was told I had to wait 5 working days to get reconnected. More than a month later I still had no service, and after innumerable emails to them - they have no phone customer service - I discovered I had been charged for that month! I have complained and complained, but there is nothing to do, they will not reimburse me the money I gave them in exchange for nothing.
This seems like a particularly low way of cheating people out of their money, especially since the only time I actually got a real live person to answer my emails - and sign himself - was when I cancelled my direct debit (before they charged me for a second month in which I would receive no service). The only way I was able to communicate with Plusnet after that was because I googled the customer support person's name and found his personal email. Otherwise, there was no way to access the support section of the website without paying another month, and, as I mentioned, they do not provide customer service in any other way.
Needless to say I would not reccoment Plusnet DSL to anyone. Though it is a few quid cheaper than the next company, it is definitely not worth even half that.
Hi guys,
My name is Mand and I work for the Comms Team here at Plusnet.
The good news is that there is no longer a need for the fee paying upgrades, as we have submitted orders for all the customers who opted in at http://max.plus.net. Going forwards we will submit any new requests on a weekly basis, and expect to have enough order capacity to exceed demand on a week-to-week basis. As such, we have now withdrawn the £5 upgrades, as there is no longer a queue to jump so to speak. :)
With regards to Customer Service, we are more aware than anyone how frustrating the last couple of months have been for our customers, and we have all been working hard to alleviate the issues surrounding support. We do operate a 24/7 telephone support service, on 08451400200, and whilst we appreciate that contacting us via phone has been troublesome for the last few weeks this is now rapidly improving. We are also making significant improvements with ticket response times. We are turning the corner, and massive progress has been made, although we are continually working to improve the situation.
Silvia, I have contacted you directly and would like to investigate further your specific issues, I have supplied my email address, please feel free to use it! :)
Kind Regards
Mand Beckett
PlusNet Comms Team