After an absence of some 3 years Unlimited returned to the Plusnet stable in this morning's (19/12/2012) long awaited product refresh. However unlike its previous incarnation, which could perhaps have been better described as unmetered, the new product is truly unlimited - no protocols are rate limited at any time, and there is no FUP or AUP (Fair or Acceptable Use Policy). The new product does have traffic prioritisation, but this is for Quality of Service reasons and does not impose rate limits within the Plusnet network.

Complementing Unlimited is a new Essentials product, which is identical to Value though 50p cheaper in Market 2 and 3 areas for those willing to commit to a 12 month contract.

Both the Unlimited and Essentials families include ADSL and fibre variants with contract and non-contract options available for the ADSL version. However non-contract will cost more.

With the launch of Unlimited and Essentials the Extra and Value products have been withdrawn from sale; customers currently on these products can stay on them with unchanged prices and service if they wish. Plusnet will not be making changes to anyone's current product - if customers wish to change to a new product they will have to specifically request it with, as usual, the change taking place on their next billing date.

Pricing for the new products is as follows:

ADSL contracts are 12 months whilst fibre packages are contracted at 18 months.

See Plusnet's website (www.plus.net) for full details of the new products including attractive half price offers for new customers taking Plusnet's Home Phone service.

See also Community blog Unlimited broadband is here and FAQ.

The UserGroup advises that two evenings of site maintenance are planned for Tuesday and Wednesday evenings this week - 13th and 14th November 2012 - to update the server software. The work will be carried out between 8pm and midnight each evening.

During the maintenance periods both the UserGroup (http://usergroup.plus.net) and UserTools (http://usertools.plus.net) websites will not be available and attempts to access them will time out. A side effect will be that any RSS feed and email notifications of service status updates raised during the maintenance period will be delayed; these should be delivered when the sites return.

• EU Visability of Line Stability
• Extend the available options on the Broadband firewall
• |Improved House Move process
• Incorrect links on Community sub-forum Icons
• Billing system needs to adapt to expansion of products
• Direct access to mySQL databases
• Allow business acct to be used for DD on new sign up
• Improvement to VMBU Tool
• Add Direct Debit facility to PAYH web hosting
• Improvements to new user setup instructions