Plus.net Fibre

Third Opinion · 11 Oct 2015 at 21:11

Anyone else got this?

Fibre was just installed in my area so I placed my order with my current supplier Plus.net.

All went well and a very helpful BT engineer turned up first thing in the morning on the agreed installation date.

I un-boxed the Plus.net router I was charged £6.99 for and began reading (lucky I did) whilst the engineer was setting up.

He tested the line and then said it was over to me but I then realized a big problem, he had no Openreach Modem?

When I asked him he looked blank and said they have been obsolete for about a year but the instructions clearly stated I needed one.

The guy went out to his van and found a very used one which luckily worked.

Talk Talk etc all have all in ones, why is Plus.net using obsolete technology?

They supplied me with a Sagem 2704N.

Anyone else had this?

Danny091 · 11 Oct 2015 at 21:35

The openreach guy is ment to bring a new one with him for you (modem that is).

bremen1874 · 11 Oct 2015 at 21:40

It isn't obsolete technology. The separate modem can be a better option as it allows much more flexibility if you want to use your own router.

If it really was an actual Openreach engineer then he's an idiot. It was quite possibly a third-party contractor.

Uther · 11 Oct 2015 at 22:05

Yep, down to Openreach to supply it. I would be contacting Plusnet about it, as you might have been given a knackered old one, when you should be getting a shiny new one.

Caged · 11 Oct 2015 at 22:07

bremen1874 said:
It isn't obsolete technology.

It's not obsolete yet, but I'm amazed that Plusnet have not got an integrated option like most other large providers. Especially considering that the Openreach modems are (to the best of my knowledge) being withdrawn from new installs in January.

Third Opinion · 11 Oct 2015 at 22:23

Caged said:
It's not obsolete yet, but I'm amazed that Plusnet have not got an integrated option like most other large providers. Especially considering that the Openreach modems are (to the best of my knowledge) being withdrawn from new installs in January.

Thats my understanding. I could have configured my existing router with this set up but wrongly assumed I was getting an all in one.

I am not worried about the £6.99 just feel a bit miffed I had to order this.

Liquidfox · 11 Oct 2015 at 22:45

We found that PlusNet and Gamma were probably the last few still to require modems as part of the install of their business packages. Gamma are phasing that out come the start of next month which is a bit of a bummer so we've stocked up on Modems as we've replaced them with Draytek 2860s

Caged · 12 Oct 2015 at 00:20

I'm hoping that the end of the Openreach modem means more suppliers have a go at making them. At the moment we have to buy DrayTek 130s and they aren't particularly cheap.

It's annoying because not only do UTM boxes have quite a high cost before they start having interface cards as options, the ones that support VDSL2 tend to be really bad.

bremen1874 · 12 Oct 2015 at 00:40

Just having the opportunity to purchase the standard Openreach modems (preferably Huawei) without having to resort to auction sites would do me. They could just license someone to sell them.

Caged · 12 Oct 2015 at 21:15

That would do it. There are a few "router set to bridge mode" options but I very specifically don't want something that comes back as a router with Wi-Fi turned on when it factory resets.

swain90 · 13 Oct 2015 at 09:26

Just chucking my 20p in, but it looks like Sky do the same as what the OP mentioned. I went to view a house on Friday which has BT Fiber, but I thought it was strange that they had a Sky router as well as a BT one?

bremen1874 · 13 Oct 2015 at 09:29

Originally all connections used the seperate Openreach modem. Since then most ISPs have started to use routers with internal modems.

Terrier_Jimlad · 13 Oct 2015 at 09:46

swain90 said:
Just chucking my 20p in, but it looks like Sky do the same as what the OP mentioned. I went to view a house on Friday which has BT Fiber, but I thought it was strange that they had a Sky router as well as a BT one?

Not really any more, for the past 12 months Sky have sent out the SR102 which has integrated VDSL modem (the black Sky Hub). They originally sent out their SR101 and then the install engineer (Kelly Comms / Quinns etc) would usually bring the BTOR Modem.

Space Monkey · 13 Oct 2015 at 13:49

Terrier_Jimlad said:
Not really any more, for the past 12 months Sky have sent out the SR102 which has integrated VDSL modem (the black Sky Hub). They originally sent out their SR101 and then the install engineer (Kelly Comms / Quinns etc) would usually bring the BTOR Modem.

Can confirm this, recently had Sky Fibre installed and only had the SR102, they no longer use the BTOR modem

divuk83 · 14 Oct 2015 at 17:35

Openreach engineers are freelance (or the one I had was). I had plusnet fibre installed after moving house and got given another openreach modem despite already having one from a previous property. That was just over a week ago.

Dave

Terrier_Jimlad · 14 Oct 2015 at 18:35

divuk83 said:
Openreach engineers are freelance (or the one I had was). I had plusnet fibre installed after moving house and got given another openreach modem despite already having one from a previous property. That was just over a week ago.

Dave

They're sub-contractors, usually Kelly Communications or M J Quinns and are different from the BTOR engineer(s) you get when there is a fault

Driving around moaning they're only getting £16 per install even though it often takes them 5 mins tops

matthab · 14 Oct 2015 at 21:40

Our open reach guy put a modem in which was new out of the box. This was in august.

I think if you take the router option its built in.

divuk83 · 15 Oct 2015 at 12:11

I was actually really impressed with our openreach engineer, really nice bloke. Only thing he grumbled about was that he could only get rubbish, less than 1mb adsl where he lived!

Separate modem works fine for me, I have a cat6 socket next to the phone socket and feed my network across that with the router in the cab in my garage.

Dave