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I'm out of contract with current ISP (Force 9/Plusnet) so have started looking for other deals as I feel their prices are quite high.
Never had any bother with it in 10+years.
I'm working from home, and both kids need connectivity for school /college.
Vodafone are offering good deals but have seen mixed reviews.
I haven't tried haggling with Plusnet yet, but doubt I'll be able to get much off.
Even going to BT as a new customer I would get a better deal than probably staying with Plusnet.
Just wary of disruption to connectivity.
Not a question per se, just thinking out loud.
I swapped from Plusnet to NowTV about a year ago. I lost my connection for 1.5 days. If you can work of a phone hotspot it's not too bad.
After a tree took down the actual phone line for a week I've ended up with a 4G router so would be covered now. It'd wipe out your savings to get one though.
try it, I did! Was moving house so I told them I was cancelling as the new customer discount with a competitor would be cheaper, they gave me the same deal AND paid the Openreach fee to have a new line installed!I haven’t tried haggling with Plusnet yet, but doubt I’ll be able to get much off.
As above as long as your 4G signal is good you'd be fine for a few days anyway even with really heavy use.
As per the above, you may lose connection for a day or two but once it's done it's done. Personally I value outright speed, stability and most importantly a tech support desk that answers the phone and can understand the fact that you have half a clue as to your technical capabilities and is will to skip the restart your router etc and get straight to the nub of the issue and if this is important to you then I highly recommend Zen Internet.
They provide a proper SME 🙂
We were with Vodafone for a year. would have stayed with them had they been able to offer anything useable in our new place. Paying for minimum 60mb and the best they could offer was 12 average!! Went virgin for 200mb. 18 month contract so lets see what they try to pull when the time comes.
Why don't you think haggling will work? Tell them the price you can get elsewhere and they'll almost certainly match it. It might be instant, or they might go and "check with their supervisor" [have a cuppa / deal with the next customer] to see if you get bored - presumably on the basis that the customers who can't wait 10 mins are also the ones who don't really defect. But I'd be amazed if they said no - and go all in, give them the monthly average you could end up paying INCLUDING stuff like cashback, prepaid credit cards etc. It should even work by online chat nowadays if you can get to the right place.
I switched to Vodafone last year as it’s saving me about £35 per month, only loss was in the day I switched over waiting for me to plug in the new router.
When our minimum term expired on Plusnet I logged in to the account and get option to renew at the same cost as a “new customer” was there.
We transferred from BT to Plusnet a few years back and landed up having no broadband for 6 weeks due to the inability of BT Openreach to find and fix the fault.
I would personally either leave the contract to run as-is and switch later or renew it rather than run the risk of a transfer that fails whilst WFH.
It's pretty slick now between Openreach (down a phoneline) providers - just do it all via the new provider, don't quit or give notice on the old. Can take up to a day but I find once it goes dead on the old provider it's back up on the new one within an hour. Just like mobile number porting, the winning provider does the legwork and at the end of the port, the losing provider closes your account.
Try out tethering via your phone as a stopgap (just in case it goes wrong), on 4G it can be pretty workable.
No issues with Vodafone here, you can easily get your details from them if you want to run your own router too.
I've found Plusnet pretty reliable and helpful when we've had issues in fairness, however we now have FTTP available on my road so we will be off when our contract ends as Plusnet don't offer a FTTP plan and I want MOAR SPEED!
as Plusnet don’t offer a FTTP plan and I want MOAR SPEED!
Zen do 😉 . I'll stop plugging them now 😀
I was with PlusNet paying about £36 I think, I told them I was leaving and they offered about £6 off and tying into another 12mnth contract.
I'm now paying £21/mnth with Vodafone and it's slightly quicker (probably down to the router tbh as I was having issue with the old one).
Switchover was seamless, I'm sure it was only an hour or so it was down for.
Thanks all.
Will try haggling and see what they offer.
Just a warning, the Vodafone systems controlling such things are a bit shit. I just moved house, rang them with plenty of notice to organise the move. Next day I get 4 emails with the wrong move date. Ring them back and get told it's because I chose a Sunday (why did they let me choose a Sunday if they can't move you then!?). So rearranged the date to the Friday. Next day, 4 more emails all with the wrong date. Too busy to ring them, so the next day we woke up to find they had disconnected us 2 weeks earlier than asked! Can't reconnect, they said, so they sent us a 4g dongle which only managed 2mb/s in the middle of a town (my phone got 40mb/s right next to it). We ended up paying for unlimited data on a phone to keep working, but even that was coming up to the tethering limit by the time we moved. It's been about 5 hours total of phone calls to get us moved and working in the new house, yay!
That is the sort of story that I can't afford at the moment, despite them potentially being nearly half the price I'm currently paying.
To be honest I could have saved a lot of hassle if I'd just recognised they were useless and paid the £25 for data on my phone in the first place.
Switched from plusnet ( no issues at all, just pricy) to Vodafone last year. Lost connection for 2 weeks as Vodafone were useless. Said I had a line fault (I didn't), then couldn't find my account so had to create new. Faulty router was next, had to get a new one (which is crap too). They gave me some "compensation" in the form of a few months free service, but I had to call them every month and get a refund as they didn't seem able to just not bill me. AVOID VODAFONE would be my advice, but there will be plenty who disagree I'm sure 😉
I've changed a couple of times whilst WFH (I've been WFH for several years).
It's always been okay for straight switches. Had a few issues going ADSL->FTTC.
My experience of plusnet is that they'll offer you a slightly better deal if you call them, but not as good a deal as you'd get elsewhere/as you'd get as a new subscriber. You gracefully decline and tell them you'll switch. Two weeks later, they'll call and complain that they could have offered you a better deal after all if you'd just given them a chance.
Even going to BT as a new customer I would get a better deal than probably staying with Plusnet.
I've moved quite a few times over the years and while I was a BT Customer they managed to routinely make a right balls up of setting up my account at the new address. Almost to the point of it seeming like they had never carried out this task before. On one occasion they even managed to turn off my line without warning after it had been set up and I than had to raise another order and wait for weeks for it to be processed.
Other people's experience with BT may differ but I have vowed to never, ever, be a customer of theirs again whilst there is breath in my body.
Vodafone on the other hand have been faultless.
I switched from Plusnet to Zen. Just did it by placing the new contract with Zen who then cancelled the Plusnet contract on my behalf. From memory my internet was down for about 2 hours.
Zen cost the same as plusnet but they're a bit more techy. Although they both come through the same OpenReach line whilst the peak speed is the same the higher speeds are more stable.
Couple of other points:
1. I expect that PlusNet will haggle with you, they did with me in the past.
2. If you're moving to vodaphone and you have a phone contract with them they're likely to just bump up your data allowance so you can tether, if the switchover is taking a long time.
But yeah I'd be looking at using 4G on your phone in the interim if there was a problem.
Just changed from ee to Zen last week. Been paying 39 Inc phone with ee, you have to ring them to switch product, despite the fact that all their other products are switchable online.
Anyway, I arranged the switch to Zen for 29.95 per month with decent router.
Ee then wrote to me with an offer of £30 per month - which is actually their standard "No phone" offer.
Then an email offering £23 (no phone).
And a final pair of letters offering £20! Absolute ****wittery.
Really pisses me off that sort of random made up pricing.
Anyway. To answer the op we had 2 of us wfh and 3 kids. Alexa went down at about 8am and by the time I'd sorted breakfast out, plugged in new router and turned it back on, everything just worked!
I had an email from plusnet yesterday letting me know that as I was out of contract I was paying £36 for their unlimited fibre and did I want to lock in for another 12 months at £22.
Quite surprised at how proactive they were and as I've had no problems with the service I've renewed.
TL:DR I reckon you'll be OK haggling with them.
Another happy Zen customer here. Went from Virginmedia as their un-super hub was unable to sustain a workable streaming HD TV service when in modem mode.
Just come to the end of that contract and the new one is £9 a month cheaper for the same service, they emailed to advise that they could do a better deal.
Support has been needed once when a network card their end died and cut us off for 10 hours one Sunday. I spoke to a very helpful chap who apologised before we even started. Unlike Plusnet they also offer some reasonable technical support if you're not using their router.
Latest Martin Lewis broadband deals here.
PlusNet is basically BT anyway. My advice would be to switch to BT as you will get zero interruption whilst you change over and better performance. I was with BT and swapped to PlusNet because I thought it would be the same service but cheaper but it was not so I swapped back.
I told EE I'd like to leave as the price was higher than comparable providers (I'm in an area where we only get standard, there's no fibre yet).
Miraculously, the price went down considerably and I got a new and much improved router.
Being with EE for broadband is good because my mobile is with them and if you take mobile & broadband, you get an extra 5Gb data on your mobile plan free of charge.
So yeah, always worth haggling. I've done the same with car insurance every year as well, I just regard it now as one of life's little embuggerances to put up with.
Went BT to Now TV last year mid pandemic, lost a day
We've now done our minimum 12 month contract with Post Office BB and landline, was £23pcm before any calls that were not evening or weekends.
The Three 3-2-1 sim that we have both used for years, is becoming 10-10-5 mid February.
Seriously thinking about ordering two Three unlimited calls/texts/data sims, 12 month contract, £16pcm with ~£55 cashback per sim (so effectively ~£22.80pcm for two sims).
We ended up with Vodaphone. They have a speed checker on their app which showed that they weren't providing the minimum guaranteed speed so automatically gave me a discount off the bill each month until they rectify the issue.
They messaged me at one point saying it had been resolved so my discount would end but conveniently (for them,) their speed checker stopped working.
Nothing had changed so complained and discount is continuing no doubt until my contract is up and can switch to someone else.
Ben with Plusnet for years. Rant them about. Year ago and said they were too expensive and could they make it cheaper. They said Yes. It was that easy. I was really pleasantly surprised!