topic Re: Another re-contracting from FTTP Trial query in My Order

Another re-contracting from FTTP Trial query

RobPN — Tue, 25 Apr 2023 15:06:11 GMT

Following the advice given by @Gandalf at post #4 in this thread I phoned the Customer Options Team to move from the FTTP trial to a contract. My landline is with BT and I was concerned that it might be ceased so I impressed throughout the lengthy call that I did not want that to happen and received assurance that it wouldn't be. Initially I was going for the same 80/20 speed but let myself be persuaded to go for 145/30 as it was only £2 more than the former speed but still £several lower than my un-contracted price.

I'm not convinced the changeover is running as smoothly as it should.

Because of the FTTC label attached to the account due to the workaround for enabling the trial, the system seems to think an engineer visit will be required, although I think I persuaded the sales person that no engineer visit was required, but for some reason the 'upgrade' has been scheduled for May 10th whereas I would assume this should/could be much sooner as it's just a software switchover.

However, after the phone call ended I noticed I'd received a text saying my order has been delayed and to call PN on 0345 140 0200 which I did.

I was very underwhelmed by the person I was eventually transferred to in, I believe, the provisioning team who seemed quite vacant about what she was doing. She kept asking me basically the same question from different angles, i.e. Do I have an ONT installed? Have I always had an ONT installed? Is the ONT near a mains power source? At one point she said I should also have a "another grey ONT" on the outside wall, so I quickly told her that my CSP is not on the outside wall but indoors. I explained to her that the ONT was working just fine, my FTTP was already up and running, and the account being associated with a FTTC product was due to the cludge that was done to enable the FTTP trial; I told her repeatedly that an engineer visit was not necessary but I'm not sure if it went in and IMO she sounded somewhat confused.

With all that in mind, I'd be grateful if a Forum Staffer would look over what's been arranged please, and also confirm that my BT landline won't be affected. (~~Ticket~~ Question number 233354460 applies)

Re: Another re-contracting from FTTP Trial query

jab1 — Tue, 25 Apr 2023 15:10:26 GMT

Oh dear - good job you know what you're doing, @RobPN 😀

Re: Another re-contracting from FTTP Trial query

MisterW — Tue, 25 Apr 2023 15:30:14 GMT

@RobPN there's probably not many people in customer services (even provisioning) who know about the trial, let alone how the accounts were configured!. The automated system can't handle an upgrade, it has to be done manually. Hopefully one of the Help team will be along shortly to handle it...

Re: Another re-contracting from FTTP Trial query

RobPN — Tue, 25 Apr 2023 17:27:12 GMT

Unfortunately that seems to still be the case @MisterW .

The young lady in the COT who I spoke to on the initial call seemed to get her head around it (especially the part about not ceasing the landline) when I'd explained to her about the 'FTTC link', following which she put me on hold whilst she had a word with a colleague in provisioning. When she came back on she apologised for initially saying the landline would be ceased, but that she'd now had it confirmed to her that because I am a trialist with a landline from a third party (BT) that wouldn't happen. She didn't manage to give me a satisfactory answer as to why the change would take place on the 10th May though.

I got the impression the person I was transferred to on the second call didn't really understand FTTP at all and seemed to be scrabbling about a crib sheet.

I guess if things look they're about to go pear shaped there's always the 14 day cooling off period to cancel!

Re: Another re-contracting from FTTP Trial query

MisterW — Tue, 25 Apr 2023 17:37:15 GMT

She didn't manage to give me a satisfactory answer as to why the change would take place on the 10th May though

@RobPN that's because it shouldn't take that long. Although it's not just a PN account change, it does need an Openreach order to change the provisioned speed, but that order does need to be placed manually.

Even though the PN system doesn't know you have an ONT the OR system does.

Re: Another re-contracting from FTTP Trial query

dvorak — Wed, 26 Apr 2023 07:19:02 GMT

Moderators Note

This topic has been moved from Full Fibre to My Orders

Re: Another re-contracting from FTTP Trial query

Gandalf — Wed, 26 Apr 2023 09:47:41 GMT

Hi @RobPN,

Sorry for the underwhelming experience you've had. I've got a spare moment, so thought I'd see what I can do to help.

I've pushed this through for you by placing a modify order to regrade your FTTP service to the 160/30 provision. This should complete tomorrow and your account product should then automatically change to Full Fibre 145.

The 10th of May seems to be a default, provisional date in our systems, however as we're simply regrading an existing FTTP service, it should be a lot quicker, normally within 24 hours, so by midnight tomorrow.

Additionally, I can confirm this type of change won't affect your landline service with BT.

I hope this helps!

Re: Another re-contracting from FTTP Trial query

RobPN — Wed, 26 Apr 2023 10:00:02 GMT

Thank you very much @Gandalf I appreciate your intervention and your confirmation that the BT landline won't be affected.

Coincidentally I'd just checked a few minutes ago to see if there were any updated tickets on my account and saw yours 5 minutes after you'd typed it, came here to comment and saw you'd beaten me to it!

Thanks again for coming to the rescue!

Re: Another re-contracting from FTTP Trial query

RealAleMadrid — Wed, 26 Apr 2023 10:02:32 GMT

@RobPN That's what wizards, namely @Gandalf do.😀

Re: Another re-contracting from FTTP Trial query

Gandalf — Wed, 26 Apr 2023 14:03:35 GMT

@RobPN wrote:

Coincidentally I'd just checked a few minutes ago to see if there were any updated tickets on my account and saw yours 5 minutes after you'd typed it, came here to comment and saw you'd beaten me to it!

Yep. I updated the ticket and posted here at precisely the same time.

Re: Another re-contracting from FTTP Trial query

MisterW — Wed, 26 Apr 2023 14:22:20 GMT

Yep. I updated the ticket and posted here at precisely the same time

Multitasking and Wizardry eh!

the mans talents show no bounds😄

Re: Another re-contracting from FTTP Trial query

FttpPeter — Wed, 26 Apr 2023 18:49:32 GMT

Hi Gandalf,

I'm in the same position as RobPN. I'm a triallist on full FTTP and have being forced onto a new contract.

This was agreed on 18/4/23 but have been told it won't take place until 4/5/23, whereas I'd expect it to be a quick switch over.

I've multiple tickets, but the last one is number 233231894.

Could you help to fix this please, as you have for RobPN?

Thank you.

Re: Another re-contracting from FTTP Trial query

Gandalf — Thu, 27 Apr 2023 07:25:34 GMT

Hi @FttpPeter,

Sorry for the difficulties you've had.

I've placed a modify order to regrade your FTTP service to the higher speed profile, which should go through tomorrow. That should then move your account off the trial and onto our proper full fibre product.

Re: Another re-contracting from FTTP Trial query

RobPN — Fri, 28 Apr 2023 07:18:55 GMT

Well my regrade happened yesterday as promised and although the changes appear to be reflected in my account details on the PN Portal, I don't seem to be getting the higher download speed. The upload has increased to circa 30 Mb/s, but the download is only a smidgin over what I was getting before, and I suspect that's only because I changed the setting in my DrayTek router which I'd previously had configured to just below my 8 Mb/s connection speed to reflect my new expected speed.

I suspect (BICBW) that this may be because I have a 'static' IP address and ISTR a configuration change has to be made manually to enable the new download speed. If so, could that be done please?

Re: Another re-contracting from FTTP Trial query

MisterW — Fri, 28 Apr 2023 07:48:01 GMT

I suspect (BICBW) that this may be because I have a 'static' IP address and ISTR a configuration change has to be made manually to enable the new download speed. If so, could that be done please?

@RobPN that should have happened automatically with the product change.

What does your account show as current line speed ?

What model draytek router ? and have you tried it with the QoS disabled ?

Re: Another re-contracting from FTTP Trial query

Gandalf — Fri, 28 Apr 2023 08:47:19 GMT

Yeah I can confirm all settings have updated when the product change completed and the router rebooted at ~9pm last night, so doesn't seem to be anything our side that's restricting the speed.

Checking QoS would be what I'd do first too.

Re: Another re-contracting from FTTP Trial query

MisterW — Fri, 28 Apr 2023 08:40:20 GMT

@RobPN looking back on some of your earlier posts you mention a 2920. Are you still using that ?

Not connected to WAN1 are you ? ISTR WAN1 is only 100Mb .

WAN2 is Gigabit but the quoted throughput is still only around 150Mb.

I had a similar problem some while ago with a 2830 , even though its WAN was Gb it still maxed out around 100Mb NAT throughput

Re: Another re-contracting from FTTP Trial query

RobPN — Fri, 28 Apr 2023 09:52:36 GMT

@MisterW wrote:

... that should have happened automatically with the product change.

What does your account show as current line speed ?

@MisterW - that's something which was puzzling me as my Current Line Speed is showing correctly as 160 Mb/s

What model draytek router ? and have you tried it with the QoS disabled ?

It's a long in the tooth 2920Vn with the WAN2 port being used configured as Gigabit but I would've thought it could handle a fairly lowly 160 Mb/s, but perhaps not.

QoS per se is disabled, but the setting I was referring to is as shown below under Bandwidth Management which I did have enabled and set to 160 Mb/s (previously 79 Mb/s), I've now disabled it as shown which may have made a slight difference as subsequent speed tests were slightly higher.

However, I'm embarrassed to say that connecting my PC direct to the ONT, speedtest.net shows that my download speed is just under 150 Mb/s whilst the AAISP tester shows 155 Mb/s

During testing it crossed my mind to investigate my LAN cables etc. although I don't think they're the problem as I don't have any LAN speed problems that I'm aware of, but worth double checking I guess. The cable used to connect the PC to the ONT is the one which normally connects the router to the ONT so no problem with that one.

Perhaps I'll have to reluctantly ~~use~~ try the PN Hub2 sent to me a while back which still lives in its sealed box.

Thanks for your interest @MisterW and apologies for diving in before testing without the router!

Re: Another re-contracting from FTTP Trial query

RobPN — Fri, 28 Apr 2023 09:57:22 GMT

My apologies @Gandalf, all's well with the speed after all, please see my post #18 above.

Re: Another re-contracting from FTTP Trial query

RobPN — Fri, 28 Apr 2023 10:09:50 GMT

@MisterW wrote:

I had a similar problem some while ago with a 2830 , even though its WAN was Gb it still maxed out around 100Mb NAT throughput

Before the 2920Vn I had a 2820Vn which IIRC has a 100 Mb WAN2 port, which is what prompted me to get the 2920Vn.

The VoIP is handy on those but doesn't seem to be as widely available on DrayTek routers as it once was, although as I now mainly use my Gigaset N300IP the accounts in the DrayTek (up to 12 accounts as you probably know) don't get used as often as they used to. Perhaps time to bite the bullet and look on eBay for a more up to date DrayTek, probably having to forego the VoIP facility. If neccessary I could always continue using the 2920Vn with SIP accounts registering via LAN instead of WAN.