Which fibre ISPs do not throttle or data manage?

[Funk]

My current fibre supplier is taking the piss with pricing. I've been with them for about 8 years and they've recently announced they're hiking their prices by £2.50 a month. This has caused me to look at what I'm paying overall as I now have the opportunity to leave the contract early as a result.

What's annoying is that my brother has been offered (and has taken) the same package I'm on for £33.49 a month all-in. The ISP will only offer me £48.99/mo (down from the current £51.49/mo) despite the fact I've been with them for years, never missed a payment etc. I can't, on principle, pay £190/yr more for the same thing and the ISP have stated that they can't offer me anything better so I'm going to exit the contract.

I've looked at Plusnet but need to be sure they don't throttle or restrict in any way (I don't think they do) but are there any others I should be looking at? My usage is high so I'll be looking at the 80mb down/20mb up unlimited options. Any recommendations would be gratefully received!

[Funk]

b2hbm said:

We've just moved from Plusnet BB to their fibre package. They rang me as our previous 18 month contract had ended and they wanted to sign us up for another one so they offered the Fibre for less than our previous 8mb deal.

I specifically asked about monthly download limitations, capping, traffic shaping, fair use policy and all the other weasel worded ways that ISPs have used in their small print. Every response was "our unlimited BB packages really are unlimited, do what you like". Given the amount of hammering Mrs B2HBM has been giving it since it's been changed, I think it's fair to say they were right and it's not throttled.

Excellent, this sounds like it might be the perfect solution.

It looks like A&A cap at 1Tb with throttling and are pricey to boot. Plusnet's top fibre package is £30 including phone line and totally unlimited it seems.

[Funk]

Thanks for the info wiggy but I think it's definitely going to be Plusnet for me. Their customer service seems to be well-rated (which can be invaluable when things go wrong) and they definitely don't throttle or restrict. I can even continue to use my BT Smarthub with a couple of minor tweaks. Their forum seems to be very good as well with plenty of knowledgeable people and staff posting there.

I had a thought last night that I ought to check with BT that I can move the landline as well (and that they wouldn't try and sting me on that as there isn't, technically, a price increase on the line rental). Turns out I can - I'll be getting the move to Plusnet for both line and fibre underway tonight.

Can't complain - I've just saved nearly £290/year!

[Funk]

Thanks bodhi but I wouldn't touch Sky again in a month of Sundays...

Wasn't aware of the cashback offer - even better! Thanks Your Dad.

[Funk]

sjg said:

Happy enough with Plusnet although they do traffic management.

I looked into this very carefully and they say they don't restrict your traffic compared to other users (ie. drop you from 76mb to 35mb etc). What they do do is effectively QoS on your internal traffic - if you have someone on VOIP or online gaming (which are ping/time-sensitive) it will prioritise that traffic on the line.

Anecdotal feedback from other high-traffic users on the forum seems to suggest that they've never encountered any reduction in line speed.

https://www.plus.net/help/broadband/about-traffic-...

Plusnet said:

Traffic prioritisation helps prioritise different types of broadband traffic to your house. It’s used to create the best possible service when you or your family are trying to do more online than your line can physically support at the time. Your service remains unlimited and we don’t limit your line speed, usage or downloads because of prioritisation.

For example, if one person in your house is on Skype and someone else is downloading a file, bandwidth priority would be given to the person using Skype as this is the most time sensitive application. Likewise, if you were streaming a film or gaming online, priority would be given to you, rather than to file sharing or music downloads. So rather than all of these activities buffering or struggling to complete, your Skype call should run smoothly and the file download will just take a little longer to finish.

By prioritising time sensitive traffic we’re providing the best possible service and experience we can, particularly if you’ve got a relatively slow broadband speed. To find out more about things that can affect your broadband speed, take a look at our speed guide.

I guess if I run into issues I'll have to live with it for a year and then move away to somewhere else. I also live on my own so any traffic will all be mine anyway; looking at it it may even be a sensible thing to have as long as it doesn't wrongly-identify the traffic.

The ~£300 saving should soften any blow though and I'd move away from BT out of principle at this point.

sjg said:

You won't get "unlimited" without it for any kind of sensible price.

FWIW, BT's service is genuinely unlimited with no traffic management (which was one of the reasons I went with them in the first place and why I'm being diligent about understanding what other ISPs might do before I sign up).

Edited by Funk on Thursday 23 February 12:48

[Funk]

tankplanker said:

With Plusnet you can pay to upgrade the priority of your traffic, see the Pro and Business offerings here: https://www.plus.net/help/broadband/about-traffic-...

I tried the Pro option when I first switched to Plusnet fibre, turned it off after a couple of months as it seemed to make no difference to our performance, which has always been excellent. I'd consider us heavy users as well, around 1Tb of usage per month.

Good to hear, I'm probably around 1Tb/mo plus as well these days. I saw the Pro option but I also don't think I'll need it.

Craikeybaby said:

I'm being dicked around by Virgin, after being happy with their service for a nember for years. So this thread has been helpful. I think I'm also going to switch to Plusnet.

What is their router like? Does it do both 2.4 and 5 GHz?

The Plusnet router is a re-badged BT HomeHub 5 (which yes, does 2.4 and 5Ghz) - I was never impressed by the HH5 but you can always swap it out for something else of your choice. According to the Plusnet forum it's possible to use the new BT Smarthub 6 (which I have) on the Plusnet network so that's what I'll do.

Andehh said:

Just to add, we have been with BT fibre for the last few years and have been very impressed with it.

I am a heavy user at 300-400gb a month, every month, mostly streaming occasional torrents & fair gaming usage and never had any issues.

I signed up with Plusnet, found out about their prioritisation bks, cancelled & re-signed with BT. I dont want anyone to fiddle with whatever it is I am doing online!! :


edit: BT renewal were adamant the best they could offer me was a £29/month for their mid package. After 3 weeks & being signed to plusnet they dropped that down to £20/odd.

I'm expecting BT to try and retain me when they get the cancellation notice from Plusnet but it's too late - they've have their chance and the very fact I have to even do all this is enough to make me adamant I'm going. They should've just recognised they fked up and done a deal. I said, politely, to the guy I spoke to, "You need to choose whether you put me on the same pricing as my brother and lose £250 a year or I leave and you lose £625 a year because those are the only two options." I've never had an issue with BT's Infinity product (or customer service to be fair to them), I just won't pay £300 a year more than my brother is for the exact same thing.

Regarding 'fiddling with what you do online' it isn't about Plusnet restricting overall bandwidth from what I've understood. All they do is prioritise so that you aren't sat there wondering why your Skype video chat is st because someone's PS4 is downloading a 40Gb game update and hogging all the bandwidth.

I may move to Plusnet, find it's awful and I hate it. So be it. I'll dry my tears for a year with wad of cash I've saved and then look again in 12 months' time. All the comments I've seen so far though seem to suggest it won't be an issue at all as your overall bandwidth is NEVER reduced - only how it's sliced and diced for your traffic.

Edited by Funk on Thursday 23 February 14:47

[Funk]

loudlashadjuster said:

Funk said:

FWIW, BT's service is genuinely unlimited with no traffic management (which was one of the reasons I went with them in the first place and why I'm being diligent about understanding what other ISPs might do before I sign up).

I was going to chime in to say that while BT don't make a big play of their service being unfiltered/unmanaged I can't say I've noticed any issues in what is nearly six years on Infinity 2.

We're heavy streaming users, up to 4K and multiple devices at a time, and I know I've gone over 1TB/month many times. I guess when you have sufficient bandwidth shaping becomes less of an issue.

As long as you turn off the parental controls and don't use their DNS it's great.

Of course, BT own Plusnet so I would be staggered if the provision was markedly different.

Yes, i highlighted that irony to the BT person I spoke to!

Fully agree about the parental controls and DNS (which was useless). The annoying thing about the SmartHub 6 is that you can't alter the DNS for all traffic, only on a per-device basis (I set Google's DNS in my network card settings on the laptop and PC). Actually that raises a good point - I need to check that the DNS settings on the SH6 change when I move to Plusnet, I'm assuming it'll pick up that info from them when it connects for the first time...

[Funk]

PH XKR said:

Off topic but I recommend OpenDNS over google as if you can get your hub to assign to all clients it gives you great filtering options and is a good preliminary step against botnets and ransimware (not a cure)

That would be good if the option to alter it at hub level were possible.

I've been toying with setting up a Pi-hole (I even have one knocking about somewhere) and using that to handle DNS and network-wide ad-blocking.

[Funk]

tankplanker said:

Funk said:

That would be good if the option to alter it at hub level were possible.

I've been toying with setting up a Pi-hole (I even have one knocking about somewhere) and using that to handle DNS and network-wide ad-blocking.

Get a decent router and you can do it direct on the router, or even on your wireless access point if it'll run something like DD-WRT.

I know I should, I almost bought a Billion a while back but never did. It's one of those things you don't really think about until something irks you and it's never irked me enough to want to spend £100 to sort it...

I use uBlock Origin on PC and laptop and they have various anti-malware/virus stuff on. I don't normally use wireless for anything other than my Nexus 7 and I rarely use that since I got my Nexus 6P. The 6P has oodles of 4G allowance and is about twice as fast as my fibre connection (in both directions!) so I never stick it on wifi.

[Funk]

I move over to Plusnet on the 10th.

I didn't do the cashback in the end, I'm reluctant to share too much information online unnecessarily - the £300/yr saving will have to suffice!

[Funk]

loudlashadjuster said:

BrownBottle said:

Great input thanks.

Well, it does have the exact information you're after, so...

I'll admit, I did snort involuntarily when I clicked the link..!