PlusNet Open Day

PlusNet have announced the date of their 2008 Open Day as Friday 25 April.

If it's anything like the one last year it will be well worth attending:

• Meet the staff
• Technical presentations
• Future products
• Q & A Sessions..... and more - the opportunity to put faces to many of the names who seldom appear in the forums.

Generally a very good day.  There are not many companies that will have senior staff ready to mingle with visitors and gave straight answers to questions posed from the floor.

Some PUG members will be present  to answer your questions on what we represent.

Sadly space is limited and only 30 lucky people get to make the visit - fill in the survey here to ensure your place at the event.

Using the more agile procedures in the new Rules of Association approved on Monday evening the Full Members have completed appointment of the first Coordination Team. This consists of the following 7 members:

• biondani
• bud
• dhookham
• Liam
• MauriceB (Chairperson)
• pjmarsh
• spraxyt

What Happens next?

The primary objective of the Coordination Team is to provide effective organisation of UserGroup activities. With freshly charged batteries the first challenge for the newly appointed team is to focus on the way ahead.

Suggestions from all UserGroup members are welcome at any time. Please post these in The PUG Place forum. Note that Contact Us is currently disabled since spammers have targeted this in furtherance of their activities.

At an Extraordinary General Meeting held on 17/03/2008 (minutes) PUG unanimously adopted new Rules of Association (link) to replace its previous Constitution which was good in parts but inappropriately bureaucratic and unworkable in others. The structure of the UserGroup was also unclear, particularly to new members.

The new Rules (as a draft) were made available for comment here at the end of last month and the draft modified as a result of the feedback received - PUG are grateful for that feedback. An updated FAQ (here) accompanies the new Rules.

The next stage

The process to appoint the first Coordination Team under the new Rules is underway. The new Rules allow a more pragmatic and flexible means of accomplishing things and the appointment process is expected to be completed by next weekend.

For information - an up-to-date list of PUG members can be found here. This link, as well as those to the Rules and FAQ can be found under 'About Us' on the left hand Navigation menu.

The glue is scarcely dry on the last bit of shelving, but it looks like PlusNet will need an entire cupboard for the latest set of awards.

uSwitch, the comparison site announce the winners of their latest broadband awards today, and of the 11 awards up for grabs, PlusNet have won an impressive total of 9.

The categories were:

• Best overall customer satisfaction
• Most likely to be recommended
• Best customer service
• Best technical support
• Best quality of connection
• Best for speed satisfaction
• Best for ease of use
• Best for setup support
• Best value for money (joint with Sky)

This is the third set of awards in as many months in which PlusNet have triumphed and signals a return to the standards for which they were once renowned.

Gaining all these awards is not without problems though - the cabinet is now full!

Breaking news

Following on from their success at the Broadband Choice Awards it seems that PlusNet haven't been resting on their laurels, and have been named as Best Consumer ISP at tonight's ISPA Awards ceremony at the Grosvenor Square Marriott.

In a contrast to many long-winded Oscar acceptance speeches, Neil Armstrong accepted the award with the words "We’re back".

Good thing there's a sale on at IKEA next month... you're going to need a bigger cupboard!

2008 looks like being PlusNet's renaissance - keep it up, guys!

PlusNet has been rated as Top ISP in a review conducted by broadband comparison service, Broadband Choices.

The UK's leading ten broadband providers were tested in six categories: quality and reliability, download time, clarity of billing and pricing, after sales support, value for money and speed of service activation.

PlusNet topped the table with an average of 79% of users saying they were satisfied with their broadband service across all six categories.

Folowing on from the awards won during 2007 this is good news to start off 2008

See the full text here