Plusnet give 38Mb broadband customers upload speed boost

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According to Plusnet, the boost will be provided automatically to customers at no additional cost, although it's likely that its rollout to all existing subscribers will be staggered rather than overnight.

The boost comes at a time when an increasing number of people are uploading content to the web, with 78% of all adults now posting videos, photos or comments to social media.

However, while it's certainly a good thing that customers are seeing an upgrade, it comes only after Plusnet decreased the upload speed in June 2015 from up to an impressive 19.5Mb to only 1.9Mb.

The importance of uploading

And for those customers who have been with Plusnet long enough to remember such superior upload speeds, their situation may be worsened a touch by the fact that, unlike new customers, they'll begin seeing the boost only "from November".

By contrast, new customers signing up to Plusnet's 38Mb broadband and phone package today will see the 9.5Mb upload speeds immediately.

Either way, Plusnet explain that the boost is being introduced in view of how popular uploading media to the internet has now become, and not to mention how popular streaming television now is.

In a letter their customers, they write, "We know how important it is to be able to upload content quickly, especially to social media, so we're making improvements and raising the maximum possible upload speed for customers on this product".

That said, they're keeping the download speed of "up to" 38Mb exactly where it is, so the ability of customers to download rather than upload content won't see any improvement.

Faster, but...

Yet it's important to note that, internet connections being what they are, not everyone on the 38Mb package will necessarily receive the maximum upload speed of 9.5Mb.

Plusnet point out that the actual speeds a customer receives - both download and upload - are affected by the following factors:

• Distance of property from the nearest telephone cabinet or exchange
• Age and quality of customer's phone line
• Electrical interference (e.g. from power lines and generators)
• Number of users on the network
• Customer's wi-fi and router setup

Because of this, Plusnet advise that customers are likely to receive increased upload speeds that "should fall between your current value and up to a maximum of 9.5Mbps", rather than 9.5Mb exactly.

Rebranding

Still, why some customers won't see the maximum upload speed of 9.5Mb, the boost is significant, and continues Plusnet's recent push to rebrand themselves as something more than a modest "budget" provider.

For instance, back in June, Plusnet launched their own rebranding, led most notably by the removal of their once-unfortunate traffic management policies.

Previously, these had given priority to particular activities - voice over internet calls and gaming - at the expense of more common web uses, such as browsing and downloading content.

As such, "lower priority" customers may have seen slowdown at peak hours, something which isn't the case now.

And combined with the raising of upload speeds, this ending of traffic management makes Plusnet look like not only a good ISP for low-cost broadband, but a good ISP for low-cost, value for money broadband.

Compare all Plusnet's broadband deals here.

Other providers

Yet somewhat predictably, there is a notable "but" following this sentence, and it's not simply the fact that Plusnet practice geographical pricing.

It's that customers on Plusnet's 38Mb broadband had already seen upload speeds faster than 1.9Mb in the past.

In fact, their upload speeds had been 19.5Mb as recently as June 2015, when the ISP bumped them down to 1.9Mb and also hit customers with a price rise.

As a result, the rise doesn't seem extraordinarily impressive or generous, and is likely being introduced as a result of the cheapening cost of the corresponding wholesale product Openreach sell on to Plusnet.

Added to this, most other ISPs already provide their customers with upload speeds of up to 9.5Mb and beyond, with only Sky Broadband still clocking in at only 2Mb.

In light of the above, it would seem that Plusnet's announcement relates more to how they've finally caught up (again) with most other ISPs, than to how they've done something especially rare or generous.

Yet even so, it will still come as a nice bonus to Plusnet's existing and new customers, who perhaps have spent a little too long waiting for their videos and photos to upload to Facebook.