PlusNet gets tough with broadband hogs

Punters revolting

By Tim Richardson, 16th November 2004

Magic Quadrant for Enterprise Backup/Recovery

PlusNet is getting tough with its heavy broadband users who, it claims, are hoovering up too much capacity and making life unbearable for the rest of its punters. Around 250 PlusNet customers received an email yesterday evening warning them that they will be all shunted onto one platform to share it with other broadband hogs.

Said the email: "It has been identified that a small proportion of our Broadband customers (less than 0.3 per cent) are using a significant amount of the available capacity (around 10 per cent). You are within the 0.3 per cent of customers identified above, which means that so far, the platform's configuration has allowed you to use a disproportionate amount of the available capacity.

"We will be making changes to our Broadband platform that will take effect in 14 days' time, at which point you will be sharing platform capacity with other Broadband customers who have similar usage patterns to you."

One reader who received the email told The Register: "Ever since this email was sent to us heavy users, the user forum of PlusNet has been flooded with complaints of this. The users are really outraged. I don't really know what the true impact will be, but if all of us heavy users are stuck to one line, then I can only really expect terrible speeds."

A spokesman for the Sheffield-based ISP - which has more than 77,650 broadband users - explained that the move was fair for the majority of its customers.

Last week, PlusNet scooped a gong for the best consumer ISP at the Future Publishing internet awards. ®