topic Re: Brand new line and no service!!!! in Plusnet Feedback

Brand new line and no service!!!!

Zed — Fri, 19 Jul 2013 18:41:38 GMT

I thought I'd write about and share my experience with moving to plusnet.
I signed up for plusnet because I used to have an account with them many years and was happy with their service. So I decided to move away from VirginMedia fibre broadband to their new fibre broadband.
On 3/7/13, I received a text message from plusnet telling me that an engineer would be visiting on 16/7/13, but the broadband would only be ready before midnight 17/7/13 (more than a day late) and I should not connect the router until plusnet has confirmed the service is up.
The Engineer came on 16/7/13 and did a good job as far as I could tell. He even connected up the plusnet router and we did a test to confirm that it was working. Remembering the text message from plusnet, I stupidly unplugged the router after the engineer left and waited for the OK from plusnet.
While I was waiting for the go-ahead from plusnet, I placed an order for a static IP.
But there was nothing from plusnet. So on the morning of 18/7/13, I plugged in my router and and laptops with ethernet cables, all the lights went up fine. But I could not go anywhere. I could see that machines are connected with local IPs 192.168.1.* but internet was not reachable. I could not even ping google.com. So I raised a ticket on plusnet's portal. I thought they might not have done their test and so I switched off the router and waited for the much delayed OK from them.
In the afternoon of 18/7/13, they did some tests and it seemed all the tests passed, so they could not find what is the matter. They questioned about cable connectivities and I told them the router was off and I then switched it on. Later in the evening, I signed in the router and did a test on the router by clicking on the test link and got the following:
Test Succeeded Ethernet
Test Succeeded PPP
Test Succeeded IP
Test Failed Internet
Enabled/OKConnectivity to Gateway (195.166.128.190)
Disabled/Not OKConnectivity to DNS Server 1 (212.159.6.9)
Disabled/Not OKConnectivity to DNS Server 2 (212.159.6.10)
So it looked like a DNS problem. However, when I pinged 62.253.3.103 (google.com), all packets were lost. So I reported my test to plusnet through their portal.
This afternoon (19/713), I phoned them having heard nothing from them and was told that a fault could take 48-72 hours to fix (according to their SLA). I kind of felt let down.
Anyway, I was told to play around with connecting a laptop directly to the modem, but the results were the same as before: no internet. The guy at the other end just gave up and decided to pass the problem on to someone else and I was told to wait for their resolution.
Now I have two questions:
1. Have anyone got similar technical problems before? If so, how was it resolved?
2. Is the 48-72 hour resolution period real? As this is a new line, even if that is true, should the period not be started with installation?
I shall update with any development.
Thank you!

Re: Brand new line and no service!!!!

pwatson — Fri, 19 Jul 2013 19:03:18 GMT

What IP address does the router report on its WAN port?
Leave the router plugged in and turned on. Try using it after 15 mins.
If it still doesn't work, contact PlusNet again and double check that they have actually activated your account.

Re: Brand new line and no service!!!!

Zed — Fri, 19 Jul 2013 19:42:44 GMT

Thanks pwatson,
The IP on the WAN side is the static IP I have been assigned.
One thing I forgot to mention is that I can ping my WAN IP from anywhere (other broadband, office and so on), but not the other way round (I cannot ping internet from within my plusnet broadband home network).
It is likely that the account has been activated, because when the engineer plugged in the router, we went to speedtest.net and pingtest.net to try out things among other sites.
The router has been on continuously for over a day now.
I also did a traceroute on the WAN IP, the following is the output;
1 10.239.108.1 (10.239.108.1) 89.528 ms 95.759 ms 95.757 ms
2 brnt-core-2b-ae3-1660.network.virginmedia.net (80.2.147.29) 95.754 ms 96.980 ms 99.425 ms
3 brnt-bb-1c-ae12-0.network.virginmedia.net (62.253.174.57) 100.743 ms 106.353 ms 106.354 ms
4 popl-bb-1c-ae5-0.network.virginmedia.net (62.253.174.133) 106.346 ms 110.090 ms 108.756 ms
5 * * *
6 linx-gw2.plus.net (195.66.236.164) 115.651 ms 24.648 ms 40.973 ms
7 te-4-1.ptw-gw02.plus.net (212.159.1.43) 42.346 ms 43.586 ms 49.806 ms
8 link-b-central10.ptw-ag04.plus.net (212.159.2.159) 49.803 ms 51.001 ms 49.776 ms
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Re: Brand new line and no service!!!!

Oldjim — Fri, 19 Jul 2013 19:51:44 GMT

What the heck - that is from a Virgin Media cable connection - is that from another connection or yours
If yours -a very silly question
Is your router connected to the Virgin Media terminal or the BT one which should have been installed - note they should be totally separate wires and terminal boxes

Re: Brand new line and no service!!!!

pwatson — Fri, 19 Jul 2013 19:59:15 GMT

I think the OP is currently using his Virgin connection as it's still live and the PlusNet connection doesn't work
The point of the traceroute was to show an attempt to get to the WAN address on the PN router from Virgin...

Re: Brand new line and no service!!!!

Oldjim — Fri, 19 Jul 2013 19:59:53 GMT

Understood

Re: Brand new line and no service!!!!

pwatson — Fri, 19 Jul 2013 20:03:49 GMT

Deleted

Re: Brand new line and no service!!!!

Zed — Fri, 19 Jul 2013 20:34:33 GMT

Thanks again pwatson,
You got it in one!
Not sure how useful traceroute is though as most admins turn the feature off and we get only ****

Re: Brand new line and no service!!!!

Oldjim — Fri, 19 Jul 2013 20:39:47 GMT

I just ran a tracert to a Plusnet customer IP address and this is the result - I have changed the actual address to IP address

Tracing route to IP address plus.com [IP address]
over a maximum of 30 hops:
1 80 ms 99 ms 99 ms 192.168.1.254
2 34 ms 32 ms 31 ms lo0-central10.ptn-ag01.plus.net [195.166.128.190]
3 32 ms 32 ms 32 ms link-a-central10.ptn-gw01.plus.net [212.159.2.128]
4 32 ms 32 ms 34 ms xe-1-2-0.ptw-cr01.plus.net [212.159.1.28]
5 32 ms 32 ms 32 ms te2-3.ptw-gw01.plus.net [212.159.1.57]
6 32 ms 32 ms 33 ms link-a-central10.ptw-ag02.plus.net [212.159.2.149]
7 40 ms 40 ms 40 ms IP address.plus.com [IP address]
Trace complete.

Re: Brand new line and no service!!!!

dvorak — Fri, 19 Jul 2013 20:47:16 GMT

i've just tried a traceroute from pn-pn and a US connection to pn and neither worked past link-b-central10.ptn-ag01.plus.net (unless you've turned your router off oldjim )

Re: Brand new line and no service!!!!

Zed — Fri, 19 Jul 2013 20:49:16 GMT

Interesting results you have got, Oldjim,
I am assuming you did that traceroute from a box on the plusnet network.

Re: Brand new line and no service!!!!

Oldjim — Fri, 19 Jul 2013 21:41:00 GMT

I did

Re: Brand new line and no service!!!!

pwatson — Fri, 19 Jul 2013 22:39:11 GMT

So to recap...
Your router WAN is set to DHCP and the status shows 'Connected', and IP addresses for the WAN, Gateway, and DNS servers. The mask is 255.255.255.255.255?
Your test PC is also set to DHCP, has the router LAN address as its gateway and a mask of 255.255.255.0?
Ignoring the router tests - From your test PC can you ping the gateway? Can you ping the DNS servers? Can you ping 8.8.8.8?
What response do you get for traceroutes from a machine on your LAN to:
Your WAN IP address
The gateway
PlusNet DNS server
8.8.8.8

Re: Brand new line and no service!!!!

Zed — Sat, 20 Jul 2013 09:28:38 GMT

The router is indeed set to DHCP. All the lights are green. There seems to be some development because when I rebooted both boxes (modem and router), and did a test in the router, it showed green on the DNS connections. When I pinged google.com, it resolved to an IP, but then hanged.
I can also ping WAN IP, the gateway and Plusnet DNS. But not 8.8.8.8.
Traceroute to 8.8.8.8 hanged.
Traceroute to WAN IP returned a list of three stars, there were 30 steps;
Traceroute to gateway generated the following:
traceroute to 195.166.128.183 (195.166.128.183), 30 hops max, 60 byte packets
1 dsldevice.lan (192.168.1.254) 82.621 ms 82.490 ms 82.409 ms
2 lo0-central10.pcl-ag02.plus.net (195.166.128.183) 7.248 ms 14.534 ms 15.487 ms
Traceroute to DNS got:
traceroute to 212.159.6.9 (212.159.6.9), 30 hops max, 60 byte packets
1 dsldevice.lan (192.168.1.254) 98.233 ms 98.137 ms 98.079 ms
2 lo0-central10.pcl-ag02.plus.net (195.166.128.183) 10.040 ms 10.689 ms 11.049 ms
3 link-a-central10.pcl-gw01.plus.net (212.159.2.164) 9.944 ms 10.588 ms 10.580 ms
4 196.core.access.plus.net (212.159.0.196) 13.251 ms 13.276 ms 13.246 ms
5 po2.pcl-gw01.plus.net (195.166.129.41) 10.500 ms 10.886 ms 10.470 ms
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Re: Brand new line and no service!!!!

Zed — Sat, 20 Jul 2013 09:35:32 GMT

Also I do not know if this is significant, when I connect my windows 8 box to the router via WIFI, the box displays "Limited" next to the WIFI signal strength bar. When the box is connected Virgin Broadband through WIFI, it displays "Connected".

Re: Brand new line and no service!!!!

Zed — Sat, 20 Jul 2013 10:01:05 GMT

Another thing, on the browser I can grab anything from www.plus.net. However, the pages take a long time to display because some included resources (e.g. google analytics stuff) are not reachable as they are outside of plus.net.

Re: Brand new line and no service!!!!

ScottStorey — Sat, 20 Jul 2013 10:44:06 GMT

Hi Zed,
Sorry to read abbout the trouble you are having.
I have seen this problem before (although be it rarely, this would be the 3rd one in 12 months if I'm correct) and I think it is all going to be down to the static IP.
I'm honestly not sure what causes it but it seems that every now and then a static IP just gets "stuck" for want of a better word and all traffic terminates in our network instead of being routed correctly. You've confirmed that is happening with the traceroutes and the original story of it was working while the engineer was there on a dynamic IP and then after the static IP order was placed it all suddenly stopped really just reaffirms my suspicions.
If I was in the office (sorry, off ill at the moment and posting from home) what I would normally do is test your details from our side to 100% confirm the issue and would get the IP address changed for you or just remove the static IP completely.
As you have a connection up and running with virgin at the moment it is probably best to wait for Monday for one of the DCT to pick it up and get it fixed for you as not many people will have come across this particular problem as it happens that infrequently. I've dropped them an e-mail so they pick it up as soon as possible for you.
Cheers,
Scott

Re: Brand new line and no service!!!!

Zed — Sat, 20 Jul 2013 11:07:58 GMT

Thanks Scott,
It is really nice to come across someone from plusnet who knows what I am trying to say. I really appreciate this especially since you are ill at home.
I shall wait until Monday.
Thanks again!

Re: Brand new line and no service!!!!

Zed — Sat, 20 Jul 2013 11:39:37 GMT

Hi Scott,
I would be much obliged if you could pass the Question ID: 72136769 to your colleagues. It was raised on 18 Jul 2013.
Cheers!

Re: Brand new line and no service!!!!

Zed — Sun, 21 Jul 2013 16:51:42 GMT

The line seems to be working fine now. I am happy with speed test and ping test results.
I'll watch it for another day before I connect my home network to it.
Thanks to everyone.