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Plusnet Broadband and TV Options - Barebones or Good Deal?


Plusnet offers a range of Broadband, fibre, phone and mobile deals for UK households and businesses. By using BT infrastructure, Plusnet Broadband can potentially reach 95% of British homes, expanding its appeal. Find out below whether Plusnet broadband deals and perks meet your needs in terms of internet speed. Additionally, take a look at what Plusnet broadband users think of the quality and care the company offers.

Plusnet Broadband

Plusnet offers three Broadband deals to UK households. The main difference in the three Plusnet Broadband options is the broadband speed. Let's take a closer look at the key broadband deal details.

Plusnet Broadband Deals

There is nothing exceptional about Plusnet broadband deals. Plusnet Unlimited is their cheapest broadband deal which invariably means the lowest broadband speeds.

Plusnet Broadband Deals (Updated March 2021)
Plusnet Broadband Deal Plusnet Broadband Details Current Pricing
Plusnet Unlimited Broadband Up to 10Mbps. Line Rental waived. 12 or 18 Month Contract Starting at £18.99 a month*

*£5 activation fee waived during promotions

While Plusnet calls this Unlimited Broadband, it is very much limited by its top speed of 10 Mbps. This will be too slow for most households which rely on their broadband for most of their internet needs, including videoconferencing for work and streaming TV such as Netflix or Disney+.

The description for this broadband deal acknowledges that Plusnet Unlimited Broadband is only really suitable for internet access through a single device in the home.

The one benefit of the slow speed in this Plusnet broadband deal is that you will be able to get it installed in the widest range of areas in the UK. In fact, Plusnet claims that most British households should be eligible to get connected under this broadband deal.

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Plusnet Fibre Broadband

Most British homes will be looking more closely at the speeds offered by Plusnet Fibre Broadband. In fact, the company acknowledges that if you have more than one connected device (computer, mobile or tablet) then these are the Plusnet Broadband deals you are looking for.

Plusnet Broadband Deals (Updated March 2021)
Plusnet Broadband Deal Plusnet Broadband Details Current Pricing
Plusnet Unlimited Fibre Up to 36Mbps. Line Rental included. 12 or 18 Month Contract Starting at £22.99 a month*
Plusnet Unlimited Fibre Up to 66Mbps. Line Rental included. 12 or 18 Month Contract Starting at £24.99 a month*

*£10 activation fee waived during promotions

The Plusnet Broadband speeds that these fibre connections offer are not the fastest out there. However, these Plusnet Broadband deals do provide customers with a useable internet connection for multiple devices on one network.

Depending on the whether Plusnet broadband is running a promotional offer, customers may get cheaper monthly broadband deals if they sign up for 12 month contract as opposed to the 18 month one.

Another thing worth noting is that while Plusnet Broadband line rental is included in the monthly price, you are required to have it as part of your broadband deal. Plusnet is not the best option if you're looking for broadband without landline.

Plusnet Safeguard

Plusnet Safeguard is a parental control that allows Plusnet broadband customers to filter online content in their household. This means that Plusnet Safeguard can stop children from accessing inappropriate or mature content online.

shield protection

However, Plusnet Safeguard is not foolproof and parents or guardians are still encouraged to monitor and set expectations regarding online content with children. This also applies to behaviour online since Plusnet Safeguard cannot stop someone from communicating sensitive personal information online.

Plusnet Safeguard applies a filter on internet traffic. This means that if someone tries to access a website that has been deemed as inappropriate by the account holder, through the Plusnet Safeguard settings, then the browser will show the page as blocked instead of the intended content.

Parents and Guardians can set up Plusnet Safeguard with their Plusnet Login and heading to the Plusnet Safeguard control panel where the following options can be set:

  1. Block whole website categories based on their content
  2. Block up to 30 specific websites individually
  3. Whitelist specific websites that may be inadvertently blocked
  4. Turn Plusnet Safeguard On or Off
  5. Set a timer for Plusnet Safeguard to turn on or off

Be aware that when you turn Plusnet Safeguard on or off, there will be 2 hour delay for the filtering to either start or stop depending on the changes you've made.

Plusnet TV

Plusnet TV has become extremely barebones in terms of options. This is because the Plusnet TV partnership with YouView has now ended.

Plusnet TV now only has one offer, which will only please sports fans. Currently, you can add access to the BT Sport app to a Plusnet Broadband package for £15 a month. The good news is that this is a monthly rolling contract. This means that Plusnet broadband customers need only commit for one month at a time and can cancel at the end of any month without penalty or cancellation fees.

The one thing to be aware of is that the Plusnet BT Sport offer only gives you access to the BT Sport app, not the channels themselves on a Smart TV or TV box. However, that doesn't mean you have to squint at your phone to enjoy your sports. All phones, Apple and Android, come with an option to screencast the contents of the phone screen to a big screen over WiFi. This is how you get BT Sport App content on your big screen.

tv broadband

The downside here is that your TV needs to be set up to receive screencasts from tablets or mobiles. If it doesn't have that feature, you will need to have an Apple TV or Google Chromecast connected to the TV in order to be able to output the signal from your phone. This set up does involve a bit of extra hassle when compared to just having the channel accessible from your TV remote.

Alternatively, for Plusnet customers who also have a Sky Digital subscription, for the same £15 a month rolling contract conditions you can get BT Sport on Sky Digital and on your TV with less hassle.

Both of these Plusnet options deliver BT Sport content in Standard Definition, not HD. If you want BT Sport HD, that is only available through the Sky TV option for a monthly cost of £17.50.

Our verdict is that Plusnet TV Broadband bundles are only good for sports fans who are happy with BT Sport coverage. If you are look for a broader TV Broadband package with more channels to choose from you have to look at a provider like Origin or TalkTalk.

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Plusnet Reviews

Plusnet pricing is pretty competitive when compared with other UK Broadband providers. However it is disappointing to see that a lot of that is due to promotional pricing. When Plusnet deals are not available, the value for money aspect is much less appealing.

While Plusnet provides a wireless router to new customers it's worth noting that only Plusnet Fibre Broadband customers get the fancier and faster Hub Zero and Hub One models which support faster WiFi standards.

Unlike other broadband providers, like Sky, Plusnet Safeguard protection is fairly barebones, limiting itself to just web content filtering. If you want to protect your connected devices from malware-infected sites, you will need to pay an extra £2.

While Plusnet touts its customer service award from USwitch, Ofcom figures tell a much different story. According to Ofcom, Plusnet received the second most complaints out of all the UK broadband providers surveyed.

Which is better BT or Plusnet?

While Plusnet promotional prices are slightly cheaper than BT ones, Plusnet offers a limited set of options for broadband, TV and mobile. On the other hand, BT has full set of options for households looking for more choice when it comes to broadband, streaming TV and mobile from one provider.

Spent hours being passed from pillar to post on hold never call back when they say they are going to. Customer service is shocking.

When it comes to customer service scores, both BT and Plusnet score badly. Trustpilot reviews shows that both companies have averages of below 1.5/5 stars.

Across both BT and Plusnet, reviewers complained about being consistently tied up in long call wait times and general indifference to resolving recurring issues. Clearly, contacting Plusnet does not yield stellar customer service.

These complaints of long wait times for calls are backed up by Ofcom’s most recent annual report on broadband providers’ service quality, where both BT and Plusnet performed badly. Not only was Plusnet the worst performer in this regard, but the 6 minutes and 47 seconds average reported was over 4 minutes longer than the next worst, and over 5 minutes longer than the average.

There’s more to this story, but not much of it good. For a fuller sense of what people think of Plusnet’s service, head to our Plusnet reviews page.

Plusnet Pros and Cons Verdict

Here is a summary of Plusnet benefits and drawbacks so you can decide whether this broadband provider fits your needs.

Pros Cons
 Plusnet prices slightly cheaper than competition.  Horrendous reviews for Plusnet customer service.
 Promotional pricing on shorter contracts.  Long call wait times for Plusnet help.
 Simple Plusnet broadband options without frills  Prices will be rising for new and existing customers when promotions end.

Plusnet Business and Mobile

Plusnet Broadband is also available to Business customers. For these deals, Plusnet does add some business-specific features such as a static IP address and 24/7 customer service. These are features that are not that useful for Plusnet residential broadband customers.

Broadband aside, Plusnet Mobile is also a thing. Plusnet offers SIM-only deals for those customers looking for mobile service. For Plusnet Broadband customers that also want SIM-only mobile service, it's worth noting that Plusnet is currently offering an extra 2GB a month of data allowance for free, to sweeten the deal.

Who Owns Plusnet?

While Plusnet started off as an independent dial up internet provider in the late 1990s, Plusnet was bought by BT in 2007. This means that BT owns Plusnet outright, currently.

What Network Does Plusnet Use?

Plusnet broadband uses the same BT Openreach as BT - one of the perks of being bought out by BT. Plusnet Mobile however uses the EE network which offers a 90% availability across Great Britain.

Read more articles about Plusnet

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