topic Re: What happened to Plusnet customer service and it's Broadband service in Plusnet Feedback

What happened to Plusnet customer service and it's Broadband service

Relica — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 17:58:32 GMT

I have, on and off over the last three months received a less than average service from Plusnet. My speeds currently are laughable even though my line can only go up to 2mb.
I have of course raised an online ticket and I have received the same repetitive responses as I have done at previous times. This includes blaming my router and microfilters with a final statement blaming BT.
I have phoned on several occasions over the last week just to be told that it is in hand. I of course would appreciate an update but was advised that Plusnet receive many calls and problems about its service that we are unable to keep customers posted.
Apparently the issue is in the hands of BT. Apologies for my ignorance but my contract is with Plusnet not BT. The customer service officer last night stated that I am on a financially discounted service; I assume implying that I should stop complaining and be thankful.
Just an average person looking for customer service but it doesn't appear to be forthcoming.
My last speed test was
Download Speed 380 kbps Upload Speed 373 kbps

Re: What happened to Plusnet customer service and it's Broadband service

Relica — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 18:19:27 GMT

Why has my post been moved to rants and raves when it was a genuine attempt at getting a response to my question from other plusnet customers about a speed issue?
(Lets move all the moaning customers into one area.) The move took less than five minutes I just wish the rest of the my issues with plusnet were as as quick to complete.
Again please can I have some customer service as I am a plusnet customer?

Re: What happened to Plusnet customer service and it's Broadband service

Oldjim — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 18:30:46 GMT

As a first step can you post your router stats - attenuation, noise margin and speeds - if you don't know how to get them have a look here http://www.kitz.co.uk/adsl/frogstats.php
Also what does this say https://portal.plus.net/my.html?action=data_transfer_speed
We will look at a BT speed test later depending on what this gives

Re: What happened to Plusnet customer service and it's Broadband service

Relica — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 18:45:19 GMT

Thank you for asking. This is the information that the router provided. Which means nothing to me! I will post other results soon.
System Up Time 25:05:02
Port Status TxPkts RxPkts Collisions Tx B/s Rx B/s Up Time
WAN PPPoA 25:03:36
LAN 10M/100M 25:04:58
WLAN 11M/54M 0 0 0 0 0 25:04:47

ADSL Link Downstream Upstream
Connection Speed 2112 kbps 448 kbps
Line Attenuation 55 db 15.5 db
Noise Margin 12 db 17 db

Re: What happened to Plusnet customer service and it's Broadband service

Relica — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 22:17:11 GMT

24/10/09 I raised my original ticket and no response from plusnet to why I am getting slow speeds since 31/10/09.
Can someone independant explain why it takes so long for the ISP to communicate with BT?
Will wait until Friday and then ask for a Mac key probably t the relief of plusnet. I have not been rude but I have demonstrated assertiveness.

Re: What happened to Plusnet customer service and it's Broadband service

Oldjim — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 22:24:41 GMT

Quote from: Oldjim
Also what does this say https://portal.plus.net/my.html?action=data_transfer_speed

We need this information and also the result from the BT Speedtest http://speedtester.bt.com/ to see if the ipProfile and the Plusnet record shows about 1750kbps or something much less.
Without this information we are really in the dark

Re: What happened to Plusnet customer service and it's Broadband service

scootie — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 22:26:31 GMT

the isp gets in touch with BTw pretty quick, its the isp and end user that has to sit about waiting for action /reply from BTw.
p.s oldjim is independent , the forum mod's are customers just like your self

Re: What happened to Plusnet customer service and it's Broadband service

Relica — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 22:32:14 GMT

the isp gets in touch with BTw pretty quick, its the isp and end user that has to sit about waiting for action /reply from BTw.
So therefore surely it is better to move to BT as any issues will be resolved quicker? I have lost all confidence in plusnet!
oldjim is this the information you are seeking. Thanks for the help.

Estimated line speed:
Not recorded (service activated before we introduced estimates).
Current line speed:
1750
Your estimated line speed
If we've done a line check for you, we provide an estimate of the broadband speed that your line should support.
Please see above for the 'Estimate line speed'.
If we're unable to provide a line check, we give you the option of continuing without a speed estimate, in which case you'd see the Speed Estimate as "Opted out".
What does "Current line speed" mean?
The speed shown above is based on your sync speed. This is always a little higher than the speed at which data will actually be downloaded over your broadband connection. Find out more about sync speed.
adie:quote

Re: What happened to Plusnet customer service and it's Broadband service

scootie — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 22:34:27 GMT

Quote
So therefore surely it is better to move to BT as any issues will be resolved quicker?

nope bt retail still have to deal with BT wholesale. BT broadband and plusnet are both owned by bt group

Re: What happened to Plusnet customer service and it's Broadband service

Oldjim — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 22:41:05 GMT

The current line speed is Plusnet's equivalent to the BT ipProfile and is what I would have expected from your sync speed
I assume that when you say your speeds are laughable that you are referring to the results from speed tests.
From the information you have given I would have expected a result of about 1500kbps.
Can you run this test and advise the result http://www.mybroadbandspeed.co.uk/
By the way from the attenuation reported by your router your speed isn't far wrong with a default noise margin of 12dB

Re: What happened to Plusnet customer service and it's Broadband service

Relica — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 22:44:47 GMT

Date Download Speed Upload Speed
Today 22:43 726 kbps (90.8kB/s) 380 kbps (47.5kB/s)

This the best its been for days. Before all the problems started I was getting a download speed of 1500 plus. But if what you say this is normal and plusnet come back to me and say the same then then I may as well cancel broadband and just use dial-up.

Re: What happened to Plusnet customer service and it's Broadband service

Oldjim — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 22:53:56 GMT

No it's not normal and is far too low.
The problem is that BTw will just say that it is completely acceptable - so going through the fault report from that perspective is a waste of breath.
Just so we cover all bases can you check the following.
If you put your telephone number or exchange into here http://usertools.plus.net/exchanges/ is the exchange VP capacity green
From the router can you advise the number of errors and the time period

Re: What happened to Plusnet customer service and it's Broadband service

w23 — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 00:50:30 GMT

Not all routers will give all the error statistics but, please, post any router statistics you can.
If you have difficulty getting this information then, please, let us know your router model and someone can tell you how to get the information the experts need to provide further help.

Re: What happened to Plusnet customer service and it's Broadband service

Spider — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 06:46:40 GMT

Quote from: Relica
Date Download Speed Upload Speed
Today 22:43 726 kbps (90.8kB/s) 380 kbps (47.5kB/s)
... then then I may as well cancel broadband and just use dial-up.

With the speeds quoted being at least 12x faster than dial up (max 56kbps) I would stick with broadband. Although not the max achievable the speeds quoted are better than what I had to use for my works connection on a fixed line speed. At the time my employer thought it was all you needed, but as websites got more graphically intense and emails got bigger the connection became more unusable. This however was still a lot better than dial up which I had up until 12 months ago when I had to go away and let my emails download.
A couple of other useful bits of information in problem solving are which gateway are you on (http://usertools.plus.net/@gateway/) and which product have you subscribed to. It also would be helpful to see if their is any difference in speed in the morning and evening. In theory you should get you best speed in the morning as their are less users on the network.. The problem with evening speedtests is that the network is busier and as a consequence you speeds slower. As Oldjim mentioned it is best to use http://www.mybroadbandspeed.co.uk/ and you can link directly to the results.

Re: What happened to Plusnet customer service and it's Broadband service

pierre_pierre — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 08:04:07 GMT

this page tells you how to get line stats for lots of different routers http://www.kitz.co.uk/adsl/frogstats.php

Re: What happened to Plusnet customer service and it's Broadband service

Oldjim — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 08:44:47 GMT

One other thing I forgot to ask - is your connecting to the router wired or wireless.
If wireless can you try a speed test when connected by wire

Re:What happened to Plusnet customer service and it"s Broadband service

Mand — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 10:31:41 GMT

Hi,
Firstly I'd like to apologise for what sounds like some particularly poor customer support.
Your speedtest results clearly show a problem.
Can I ask if you have followed the advice of our faults team and had the voice side of things checked out (it's important not to mention broadband when contacting your phone supplier)?

Re:What happened to Plusnet customer service and it"s Broadband service

James — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 10:47:57 GMT

Hi Relica,
I've reviewed the information that the faults team has received from you and I've run a check on your telephone line. Unless your fault was raised via a telephone conversation, or you have spoken directly with our faults team, you appear to have given us practically no information other than "my speed is slow".
Looking at your line itself, it is behaving as I would expect it to, for a relatively long line, albeit with a high target noise margin, presumably down to noise being present on the line. I would however, expect you to see faster speeds than that of which you have quoted given your 1750Kbps profile. We are seeing a few errors on your line which could contribute towards your problems, but I still wouldn't expect it to be the cause.
Can you confirm that you are connecting to your master socket via a filter, that you've changed the filter and tried with all of your other telephony devices detached?

Re: What happened to Plusnet customer service and it's Broadband service

zubel — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 11:59:25 GMT

Quote from: Spider
Quote from: Relica
Date Download Speed Upload Speed
Today 22:43 726 kbps (90.8kB/s) 380 kbps (47.5kB/s)
... then then I may as well cancel broadband and just use dial-up.

With the speeds quoted being at least 12x faster than dial up (max 56kbps) I would stick with broadband.

<pedant mode>
I'm gonna wade in here and just clarify that 56k modems never transmitted at 56k (it's a bit like 'up to 8Mbs'). Their base rate was 33.6k, with the option to be able to use inline compression to increase downstream rates above that (depending on whether the downloaded item was compressible or not)
For most downloads, the maximum achievable rate was 3.4 kilobytes per second, basic rate.
So, in this instance dialup would be approximately 26.71 times slower than the throughput achieved.
</pedant mode>
That being said, the throughput isn't what it should be on a speed test, so please follow the advice given to see if you can track down where the slowdown is occurring
B.

Re:What happened to Plusnet customer service and it"s Broadband service

Relica — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 17:04:55 GMT

Quote from: Jameseh
Hi Relica,
I've reviewed the information that the faults team has received from you and I've run a check on your telephone line. Unless your fault was raised via a telephone conversation, or you have spoken directly with our faults team, you appear to have given us practically no information other than "my speed is slow".
Looking at your line itself, it is behaving as I would expect it to, for a relatively long line, albeit with a high target noise margin, presumably down to noise being present on the line. I would however, expect you to see faster speeds than that of which you have quoted given your 1750Kbps profile. We are seeing a few errors on your line which could contribute towards your problems, but I still wouldn't expect it to be the cause.
Can you confirm that you are connecting to your master socket via a filter, that you've changed the filter and tried with all of your other telephony devices detached?

Very unfair that comment as I have given all the information required. This includes speed tests results information regarding my router and microfilters, Virus check and confirmed no change in settings. It sounds as if you are saying I have to be a fully trained telephone engineer to have a Broadband contract with Plusnet. Of course it's your companies word against mine. The best thing is I change suppliers as like I say i have lost total confidence in your company.
My broadband router is wired and is connected in the master socket as instructed.