topic Re: Like talking to a brick wall in Plusnet Feedback

Like talking to a brick wall

Minivanman — Fri, 11 Mar 2016 14:37:44 GMT

Trying to get some sense as to why my phone and internet cannot be sorted after ten days is like talking a brick wall.
Even though we have had two telephone engineers call (with all the attendant hassle of arranging it and then having to wait in) we are still unable to dial out and our internet is uber slow. Watch or stream videos? forget it.
Yet another telephone engineer is to call next Monday but no doubt we will be told the same as last time, that they cannot find what the problem is and that it must be something to do with the internet. Our request for an internet engineer met with - you've guessed it, another visit by a telephone engineer. Arghhhh!
Here's another thing, we live in west Wales, and the engineer (so he said) had come all the way from Norwich - seems Plusnet puts these guys up in local hotels or whatever so no wonder it's hard to get some decent service.
Biggest fear? That I am going to have a repeat of last year when both our phone and internet line was off....... for five weeks.

Re: Like talking to a brick wall

chenks76 — Fri, 11 Mar 2016 14:39:15 GMT

if you can't dial out then that's clearly not an "internet problem".
you may have two separate issues, but the dialling out issue does not resolved by a "telephone" engineer, not a "broadband" engineer.
also, plusnet have nothing to do with where an engineer comes from. that is openreach.

Re: Like talking to a brick wall

Minivanman — Fri, 11 Mar 2016 14:50:58 GMT

I agree, but that is what the telephone engineer told me. He also told me that he would arrange for a 'broadband' engineer to call but he did not. I then contacted plusnet to ask for one and they are sending another telephone engineer!
So what the heck am I supposed to do?

Re: Like talking to a brick wall

chenks76 — Fri, 11 Mar 2016 14:54:47 GMT

your "telephone" problem needs fixed first.
then once that is sorted the broadband issue can be looked at.
it may be the telephone issue is the root cause of all the issues.

Re: Like talking to a brick wall

Minivanman — Fri, 11 Mar 2016 15:15:58 GMT

So how many telephone engineers does it take to fix a phone?
A retired pensioner now but I worked as a television engineer for most of my life so I have a fair idea of how service should be given and conducted - and this is far from satisfactory. Maybe it's the age we live in but that does not make it any more acceptable.

Re: Like talking to a brick wall

Chris — Fri, 11 Mar 2016 15:18:36 GMT

It seems you spoke to someone yesterday and an engineer is booked for Monday, the phone fault needs fixing and often this will resolve any broadband faults too.

Re: Like talking to a brick wall

AlaricAdair — Fri, 11 Mar 2016 15:22:01 GMT

If your contract has expired, consider moving to another service provider such as Zen Internet. PlusNet do not seem to be very effective at motivating their sister organisation Openreach and their long telephone queues for their own helpdesk doesn't help.
If that option is open to you ring the PN Cancellation Team to warn of your intentions before committing, be sure to ask for compensation for the missing service. Keep accurate contemporaneous notes of your interactions with these organisations.

Do PN provide your Voice service?

Re: Like talking to a brick wall

Minivanman — Fri, 11 Mar 2016 17:28:57 GMT

Reply to:Chris
Plusnet Staff
That's fine Chris, but I have the telephone engineer telling me the phone problem is caused by and internet fault and yet now you saying the opposite.
This has the makings of getting bounced back and forth and as an ex service engineer I have seen this all to often from guys not willing or not knowing how to take responsibility for the job in hand - just get your job sheet 'ticked' and off to the next one.
Perhaps the only way when these double issues occur is to get a double engineer visit, one for the telephone and the other for the internet.
What a pity and what a surprise we cannot believe what we are told and how often it seems that fixing a fault really is rocket science.
Fingers crossed for some progress on this.

Re: Like talking to a brick wall

Gel — Fri, 11 Mar 2016 17:41:40 GMT

In my area (rural Berkshire ) BT/Openreach no longer have separate phone/broadband engineers - they all multi task now

Re: Like talking to a brick wall

Minivanman — Fri, 11 Mar 2016 17:44:15 GMT

To: AlaricAdair
Thanks for your reply and your advice and that other matter.
I am keeping notes on this, it's a case of having to these days otherwise I'll end up chasing my tail!
As for moving that will be on the cards as will demanding some compensation.
By the way do you know if BT actually owns plusnet only you say they are a "sister organisation". If a separate entity then presumably plusnet gets compensated by BT/Open reach and customers should not have to twist the arm or cajole plusnet into getting the same same for themselves.
This 'threat' of a £50 charge should it be 'my fault' does not sit very well with me either, but there you go.
PN doe not provide my Voice service.
Cheers

Re: Like talking to a brick wall

Minivanman — Fri, 11 Mar 2016 17:52:35 GMT

To: Gel
Much better! If only they all did that

Re: Like talking to a brick wall

x47c — Fri, 11 Mar 2016 19:33:52 GMT

@Minivanman
Plusnet is a wholly owned subsidiary of BTplc.
Just as BT Retail is a wholly owned subsidiary of the group parent company BTplc
Plusnet and BT Retail are run as totally separate companies and being a regulated industry there will be some additional requirements that they operate at arms length from each other with no data sharing.
(When people say they get their phone broadband whatever from "BT" actually they are purchasing it from BT Retail)
The infrastructure of cables,exchanges and cabinets is owned and maintained by BT OpenReach - again a wholly owned subsidiary of BT plc.
BTOR is required to be totally neutral in its dealing with ISP like Plusnet and BT Retail and indeed any other ISP/phone provider using their network so as not to give any favourable treatment to customers of BT group subsidiaries companies compared to those of other non BT companies.
Edit:
Cannot dial out and internet is very slow is usually a "single line dis" fault.
so one wire of the pair that comes into to your house has broken somewhere
Broadband can work albeit very badly with one wire connected many are surprised to find.
If PN does not provide your voice line I can see why there is a mess up as you should have reported this as a voice failure to your voice providor.
there most likely is no BB fault at all - once the voice fault has been fixed the BB will come back by itself.

Re: Like talking to a brick wall

Mustrum — Fri, 11 Mar 2016 22:42:06 GMT

Not sure how many more times this needs to be said, but your phone provider needs to sort out the phone service, before PN can sort out a broadband issue - that's if there still is one after phone issue gets fixed.
Broadband runs over the top of a phone service, no phone service no, or at the very least limited broadband service, get back to your phone provider, don't let an engineer go until they can show you that your phone service is working.
Hope this helps!

Re: Like talking to a brick wall

nadger — Sat, 12 Mar 2016 09:12:12 GMT

Quote from: x47c

Edit:
Cannot dial out and internet is very slow is usually a "single line dis" fault.
so one wire of the pair that comes into to your house has broken somewhere
Broadband can work albeit very badly with one wire connected many are surprised to find.

Happened to us a few years ago. OR engineer did temporary fix by using wire from other pair until a new cable could be run from pit in road to house.

Re: Like talking to a brick wall

AlaricAdair — Sat, 12 Mar 2016 17:26:17 GMT

</Geek Warning ON>
Voice is transmitted over the copper wire by slightly varying the voltage in the same frequency as the sound which makes the voice. The ADSL (or VDSL) signal uses similar techniques but at a much higher frequency, but the little dongle thing at your phone socket filters out the ADSL signal from the voice. So if the phone wire cannot reliably transmit voice, it can't usually handle the Broadband signal (ADSL) either.
</Geek off>
It seems in your case you have two suppliers involved, but both using the same pair of copper wires. The voice will have to be fixed first before PN can fix the Broadband. So you need to go to the company supplying the voice and get them to fix their part first.
If you have some badly wired/illegal extension wiring on your side of the phone socket this can screw up the voice/Broadband signal. It normally needs a BT technician to visit to spot and fix the problem. In this case you might have to pay extra,

Re: Like talking to a brick wall

Townman — Sat, 12 Mar 2016 18:18:32 GMT

Quote from: Minivanman
PN doe not provide my Voice service.

Ok here's some sound advice.
The absence of a dial tone means that there is a fault on the copper pathway (as BT Openreach call it) between your home and the exchange.
Voice (phone) service is the PRIMARY telephony service and (under BTOR rules) management of the copper pathway falls to the retail provider of your voice service. If the copper pathway is damaged, broadband is never going to work overly well. It is a surprise to many to learn that ADSL can limp along with only one side of the copper pathway pair still connected - but the phone will never work in this situation.
In simple terms, the BT 'Voice' (POTS) engineer told you unbridled lies - if there is no dial tone, that is not a broadband fault, it does not need a broadband engineer, indeed a broadband engineer might well walk away from such a job, and require a lines man to attend. If you instead think that he was a long way from home and did not want to go cross fields up and down poles tracing your line looking for a bad joint, you might understand better why he ducked the issue. You need to have stern words with your phone supplier; grumbling here cannot fix that issue for you.
If you have separate suppliers for voice and broadband NEVER tell one that you have a problem with the other service - they will try to play ping pong with you. However in this case, the PlusNet guys are being honest. No dial tone = line fault = talk to your phone line provider, or move your phone to PlusNet or your broadband to the phone provider. That way it will be one organisation's problem.
An observation on AlaricAdair's suggestion about moving to Zen: if BTOR have no engineers in your neck of the woods, then no ISP can fix that resource (and in deed skill) issue.

Re: Like talking to a brick wall

Minivanman — Sun, 13 Mar 2016 17:07:50 GMT

Cheers Townman and others, lots to think about and feel better at putting my case to those engineer/s. Perhaps it's time to demand that both the phone and internet guys attend at the same time!

Re: Like talking to a brick wall

Townman — Sun, 13 Mar 2016 18:00:52 GMT

Hi,
That is never going to happen, especially given that your phone and broadband services come from different RETAILERS.
Yes it is shear madness that all of the infrastructure is owned by BT Openreach and they cannot arrange to fix whichever service is broken without direction from a reseller of capacity. Situations such as yours really do illustrate just how broken BT Openreach and BT Wholesale as a purveyor of a telecommunications infrastructure.
The fundamental flaw is that BT Openreach treat these as being separate services separately provided. They might be sold separately, but the are delivered over a single delivery channel. There is no reason why (especially in the case of ADSL) that ANY engineer cannot resolve your problem. Joining wires to a good enough standard to deliver ADSL does not need a specialist trained engineer. All copper pathways ought to be of a quality capable of supporting ADSL. If they are not, a specialist engineer cannot magic up better circuits if there are none!
Hope your phone provider gets this sorted for you soon.
@CRT - given that PlusNet will be loosing ADSL revenue here until this service is repaired, is there anyway that Plusnet can push BTOR for a copper pathway fix? Whilst resolution of this issue is allowed to remain outside of Plusnet's control, Plusnet has no means of mitigating their losses.

Re: Like talking to a brick wall

ejs — Sun, 13 Mar 2016 18:27:10 GMT

I think Openreach are introducing a "Harmonised Repair" service, where an engineer visit will fix whatever the problem is, voice or broadband related, and do the typical master socket optimisation, obviously this whole service costs extra.
http://www.fcs.org.uk/image_upload/files/Harmonised%20Repair%20FSC%2019012016.pdf

Re: Like talking to a brick wall

Chris — Mon, 14 Mar 2016 08:41:50 GMT

Quote from: Townman
given that your phone and broadband services come from different RETAILERS.

Not sure why this is being mentioned? I don't think anyone has said they are not both provided by Plusnet.
@Minivanman
Don't mention broadband to the engineer. Get them to fix the phone line so it works correctly when you pick up a handset and dial out. Once that's resolved it's likely to fix the broadband issue anyway, if it doesn't we can investigate further.