Kitz Forum
Broadband Related => ISPs => Topic started by: grahamb on February 15, 2019, 06:06:20 PM
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(Not sure if i'm posting this new thread in the right area of the forum but happy for it to be moved if it isn't. :))
So anyway, I've been reading through this thread: I’ve just signed up to 3’s SIM only unlimited everything (http://forums.thinkbroadband.com/mobilebroadband/4606674-ive-just-signed-up-to-threes-sim-only-unlimited-everything.html?view=collapsed) on the TBB forum with great interest and, having done some tests with a couple of games consoles on my current 4G package, have taken the plunge and ordered.
Now, if it all works out as planned over the 14 days "test" period, I'll be wanting to end my phone and broadband package with PlusNet, which I've had for about 6 years and so am well out of contract.
If/when I phone up PlusNet to give them the bad news, should I be asking for a cessation of service to both phone line and broadband or should I word it some other way and are they likely to charge me for said cessation of service (not that that's going to cause me any problems)?
Also, if my landline/broadband are ceased, will this cause any problems if I decide to revert back in the future if 3 make a mess of their unlimited service?
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Nobody will be taking over the service, so you will have to instruct Plusnet to cease both Internet access and telephony. I'm sure you will be charged . . . as Openreach will charge Plusnet and the charge will be passed on.
If, at any time in the future you wish to return to a wired connection, you would have to take out a new service . . . which will just use the existing infrastructure.
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Ok, thanks for that B*cat, I'll be looking forward to everything going as planned and saving myself 25 quid per month. ;D
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If you have an FTTC service and there's plenty capacity in the fibre cab then when they cease your service they will leave your line jumpered to the fibre cab.
This means if you order FTTC again then it should hopefully be a quick activation as an engineer won't need to visit the cabinet.
Be aware that if your FTTC cabinet is full you will lose your port and won't be able to reorder unless further capacity is added.
I would leave the fixed line broadband active for the first month if possible.
As long as you intend on staying under 1TB/month I don't see any issues.
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Please do provide updates as to how you find the new access method and service. I'm sure that many members will be interested.
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@ John
It's an ECI cab, I won't be sorry to lose it. And if say, in a year's time I do need a wired connection then hopefully someone else will have my connection and I'll somehow find myself on a Huawei cab. ;)
And my average is around 100 gigs per month so I don't foresee a problem with that, given what I've been reading on the TBB thread.
The selling point for me is the "Go Roam Around The World" part of the plan. I'm in no way any sort of globetrotter but I am off to New Zealand for a month later in the year so getting the sim means I don't have to faff about getting a sim over there. :)
@ B*cat
Will do. :)
My current mobile service is with PlusNet too and it seems to give me around about the same speeds up and down (~10Mbps). I'm hoping (fingers, toes... and eyes... crossed) that looking at coverage checkers for both services, I'll get that bit more out of 3. :hmm:
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Plusnet no longer apply the 'Cessation charge' so they'll end up owing you money when you leave :P
See reply #5 in this thread (https://community.plus.net/t5/My-Account-Billing/Leaving-PlusNet-Cessation-Fee/td-p/1570965) for staff confirmation.
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Plusnet no longer apply the 'Cessation charge' so they'll end up owing you money when you leave :P
See reply #5 in this thread (https://community.plus.net/t5/My-Account-Billing/Leaving-PlusNet-Cessation-Fee/td-p/1570965) for staff confirmation.
Ha! You know what, I read that yesterday and around 24 hours later, I'd forgotten I'd read it. :-[
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Plusnet no longer apply the 'Cessation charge' so they'll end up owing you money when you leave :P
See reply #5 in this thread (https://community.plus.net/t5/My-Account-Billing/Leaving-PlusNet-Cessation-Fee/td-p/1570965) for staff confirmation.
I read that as leaving Plusnet and going to another provider, not leaving Plusnet and ceasing the connection/usage of BTWholesale equipment. Also, as that thread is dated 2017, it could have been changed, once again, by now! ::)
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it was posted in September 2018 and what part of 'the £30 cease fee is actually no longer applicable' do you find difficult to understand?
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I think B*cat is right. The OP in that thread just wanted to move his service, I want to terminate mine, both landline and broadband so I reckon I will get charged. Thing is, will I get stung twice?
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I searched their forum to find a staffer saying the cessation fee no longer applies.
I won't bother in future.
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https://www.plus.net/help/legal/cancellation-policy/
Looks like they no longer charge the £30 fee, as confirmed on the forums.
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I've looked at my PlusNet account and finally found out how to access my account summary (they don't make it easy :wall:). Anyway, that bit in the middle appears to confirm things...
Account Summary
Date Order Number Product Cost Order Status Other Links
13/08/2014 BP02156680 Unlimited Fibre £15.99(monthly) Complete
View order status
Upgrade
Data transfer usage
Update payment details
- - Cessation charge £30.00(upon cancellation) Activated
What's this?
30/04/2013 HW26716244 Technicolor TG582n Fibre Router £40.00 Delivery
View order status
Set up guides
02/09/2014 N/A Evening and Weekends Included £18.99(monthly) Active
Change product
Home Phone control panel
@ Browni
Thank you for your help.
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On the other hand, I found this message on my account from the PlusNet support team from August 2016:
A LLU PSTN cease has been placed on this account. This is due to complete on 26/08/2016 23:59:59.
I seem to remember something about PlusNet putting their own equipment into cabinets or something back then. Is that right and does it mean that because it is their own equipment they don't have to request a cessation of the service from BT and therefore I won't get a cessation charge? :fingers:
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OpenReach own and operate all the FTTC DSLAMs on their network.
Plusnet don't own any. Neither does anyone else though.
WarwickNet being the only exception I'm aware of.
That would only be relevant for ADSL.
Plusnet don't own their own ADSL MSAN's either though and use BT Wholesale equipment.
I would query any £30 charge on their forum linking to the staff post saying it wouldn't be charged.
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Found this thread (https://community.plus.net/t5/ADSL-Broadband/Cessation-charge-quot-active-quot/m-p/1579858#M327459) on the PN forum from last October which appears to make things much clearer.
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Will be very interested in this. Updates much appreciated
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Weaver any news on you signing up? would love to see you try out 4G.
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I am keen to explore this but have been so ill that I cannot make any progress. Morphine more than doubled which has been extremely effective but has knocked me out for good. I haven’t worked out what high-quality modem I need.
Also extreme problems with DSL seem to have improved hugely and thanks to our own Johnson’s SNRM monitoring software baked into the custom ZyXELs, I can watch the problems that are causing instability. It turns out that these are spikes in the d/s and u/s attenuation about ~8-11dB high, from 63→74dB d/s and 40→48dB u/s, thus weakening the signal amplitude either for a very brief period or - very occasionally - for most of a day. This seems to me to be a short-term high resistance thing. (Recte ‘impedance’, I suppose.)
Anyway, that has taken the immediate pressure off.
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So, time for the update.
I received the sim, finally, last Friday, having had to wait nearly two weeks from the opening of my account to receive it as the original appeared to have been lost in the post.
It's been in my phone for a week and, frankly, I am unimpressed with the network speeds (average 4Mbs down, slightly more than 10Mbs up) and the fact that the LTE signal appears to keep dropping in and out. In fact, I am so disappointed with the service that I've just cancelled the account under the 14 day cooling off period, which 3 agreed to. Obviously, I appreciate that it's probably down to my location (largish town on the SE coast of the UK) but, from reading the TBB forum thread, I was hoping for so much more.
Ho-hum...
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That's disappointing for you. We're also considering going 3G instead of DSL. Using my phone on EE I can get a 30meg download speed in the kitchen, unfortunately that's not a brilliant place for a router though. Three coverage used to be non-existent at home, but now their coverage checker says we're covered. I've just ordered a free SIM to check it out, I can borrow a 3G dongle from work for test purposes and we'll see what we get.
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Yeah, it was disappointing. The sim would have been especially useful later in the year, as I said in my OP. I did use the coverage checker before ordering the sim - my postcode appears to be on the cusp of excellent indoor/outdoor coverage, the experience showed that it was on the wrong side. ;)
Good luck with yours.
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I'm now wondering if I misunderstood their availability checker. It asks what device, and if I put in Iphone SE its says I'll get brilliant service. If I put in B331 which is their standard 4G router it says it's not compatible. If I put in "Three HomeFi" which is another name for the same thing it says it is "is compatible with our 4G network, but not with our 4G Super-Voice network, which is available in this area." So it seems maybe we don't actually have real 4G at all here, just 4G Super-Voice, whatever that is.
Anyway they should be sending a SIM with 200Meg of data so I can see what that does.
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So I got the SIM today, so without looking at anything else I stuffed it into my phone (Iphone SE) and it showed 4G but just one bar of signal strength. Running a speed test upstairs for best signal, it got 7.15 meg down which was disappointing although still nearly twice as fast as DSL. However the speed was all over the place, RTT 228ms and upload speed of zero. At that point I reckoned it was a non starter. Then I read the instructions which gave a process for registering to get some free data, so after I did that I got a download speed of 25meg and upload of 5meg. Not as fast as EE but still miles faster than DSL if not officially "Super Fast". I need to test with some proper data equipment and maybe buy a bit of PAYG data to play with.
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I'm now wondering if I misunderstood their availability checker. It asks what device, and if I put in Iphone SE its says I'll get brilliant service. If I put in B331 which is their standard 4G router it says it's not compatible. If I put in "Three HomeFi" which is another name for the same thing it says it is "is compatible with our 4G network, but not with our 4G Super-Voice network, which is available in this area." So it seems maybe we don't actually have real 4G at all here, just 4G Super-Voice, whatever that is.
4G Super-Voice is just a fancy term for VoLTE. Beware that VoLTE (Super-Voice) on Three is only using 800 MHz (Band 20). Also, coverage for Band 20 will show greater on the map but because it only has a bandwidth of 5 MHz it will be somewhat slow. 1800 MHz (Band 3, which has 15 MHz bandwidth) is just their normal, non-VoLTE frequency which is going to be a lot faster but less coverage, of course. If you do get a 4G modem in the future, ensure you can force it to 1800 MHz.
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Cheers, next test will be using a Huawei E3372 dongle. I've just tried that in the office and it works with the 3 PAYG SIM, tested in a Meraki Z1 (homeworker appliance). So I'm reasonable confident it will work in either my Zyxel or Billion routers. I've got 137Meg remaining after my tests so far. If I read their terms and conditions correctly it seems to be offering 200meg per month free of charge.
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Those free data SIMs get 200 MB a month for free. I've had one for years (I think over 2 years) and it's still giving free data to my knowledge.
By the way, tests (speedtest.net mobile app) for me can use up to around 120-130 MB each at approx 65/20 Mbps.
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I think I've managed to empty the SIM before I got the router/dongle combination working, although the 3 account still shows 24meg remaining. I may have to top up, or order another SIM