Extremely frustrating experience

[#1]

With the greatest respect to Tom Howells and also sympathy for his personal circumstances in dealing with this debacle, I have to say that intervention by a Director or senior manager at PlusNet is long overdue.
The lack of continuity of Technical handovers at BT has cost this customer his time and remuneration in addition to the loss of service and emotional distress. IMHO, this trail demonstrates "negligence" in the context of the contract and despite any "consequential loss" exclusion clauses, makes PlusNet and their subcontractor BT liable for proven costs and liquidated damages.
Thesheep would be well advised to take this documented trail to the CAB who would probably advise him (her?) to consult a solicitor. I say this because the fault seems no closer to resolution than when first reported.
IANAL and Thesheep should take advice before incurring further costs.

[#2]

Hi Wheelnut/thesheep
Sorry, I'd meant to update this thread earlier after speaking to Tom.
We have a formal escalation process within our CSP (Customer Service Plan) which shows the relevant steps that need to be followed when escalation is required and I can promise you that since Tom's return this has been followed to the letter.  It's currently sat with the Escalations Team Manager and a formal complaint has been raised with our Account Manager.
There are further steps to take should that not help and we will continue to escalate as required.
Don't get me wrong - The amount of time that this has taken is completely out of order but I can assure you (both) that the matter is in hand, and I believe that Tom should have spoken to thesheep today or will shortly be doing so.

[#3]

Yes I've spoken to Tom today who was helpful.
I have another Openreach engineer visit booked for tomorrow morning, so that is a hopeful sign. They are apparently going to change my master socket to one that combats RF interference, as well as replace the line that goes from my flat to the telephone poll.
I am cautiously hopeful that things are beginning to move. However, I should probably stay cautious for my own sanity, since things appeared to start moving 4 or 5 times already over the past couple of months. Fingers crossed!

[#4]

Just a thought. Have you tried sweeping the house with a MW Radio and scanning the MW and LW bands for interference?
I say this because I had a switched mode power supply go noisy a couple of years ago and it brought my sync speed down to ~ 3000Kbps. It was only when a neighbour who is a radio Ham asked me to help him trace the source that I found that it was the PSU supplying my CCTV camera. I replaced the PSU and have been sync'ing at ~ 8000Kbps ever since.
If the RF supression faceplate helps, you may want to check this out.

[#5]

The BTO engineer is here now and it is a complete shambles:
(1) He has no history or understanding of the fault. He's just been told to check the broadband signal, and check the line back to the exchange. I have to try and explain everything from scratch and he doesn't seem very interested.
(2) I said I'd been promised a line box that suppresses RF. He has put on an ADSL adaptor linebox (model number is NTE5), which he says he thinks is just like a normal ADSL filter but integrated into the box. When I asked him about the RF aspect, he said he doesn't know about that kind of stuff (!!!)
(3) I mentioned I'd been told he might be changing the line between the flat and the pole, and he simply said straight off (just looking at it, before he'd plugged anything in) "I won't be changing that, there's nothing wrong with it".
(4) When I try to ask him about stuff like RF or explain the problem with the dropping line affecting the IP profile, he said to me (I'm not kidding): "I'm just a line engineer. I don't get involved in that kind of technical stuff".
(5) He seemed to get a bit annoyed with me for 'distracting' him from his job of checking the line, by trying to explain the problem to him.
Since this guy has no appreciation of what the fault is, and apparently no interest in it, how can he try to solve it? It is clear, he's just here to do a specific task, and not to think or investigate anything. He's just going to check the connections in the green boxes, apparently, then go home. Great.
He will not talk to me, because I'm not his customer. His customer is BTW. BTW won't talk to me, because I'm not their customer, PN is. PN cannot talk to the BTO guy. I am PN's customer, but I can't call them while he's here, because there is a 15 minute queue to get through. PN aren't willing to give me a direct line. The whole thing is completely f***ing insane. And by the way, I am using up my precious annual leave allowance by taking the day off work to let this guy in.

[#6]

WTH?
My understanding was that the engineer was going to be installing an SSFP RF3 filter and to replace your drop wire.
Am I right in thinking that that hasn't happened?

[#7]

Quote

Am I right in thinking that that hasn't happened?

Right.
Although actually he didn't know what an 'RF3 filter' is, nor did he know whether it is the 'latest' linebox, so we don't know whether that's what he put in or not.
What he says he has done is change a couple of bits in the green box, which he thinks might clean up the line a bit. However, he only ran a 5 minute test and was unwilling to stay any longer as he had another job to go to, although he promised to phone me later and see how it has gone.
He said, as he left, "what you need is someone who's got a bit more time to come here and test it for longer and put a bit of time into the fault"... Classic.

[#8]

Hiya,
I think Tom called you either while the engineer was there or shortly after he left?  The understanding I had from Tom is that BT will be sending someone else out ASAP.
Has what the BT engineer person did made any difference?

[#9]

Interesting, here are the results from BT speedtester:
Test1 comprises of Best Effort Test:  -provides background information.
Your DSL connection rate: 8128 kbps(DOWN-STREAM),  448 kbps(UP-STREAM)
IP profile for your line is - 7150 kbps
Actual IP throughput achieved during the test was - 951 kbps
The actual throughput has improved from about 100k to 951k. Let's see if it lasts.
Why would the throughput be so much lower than the IP profile?

[#10]

I've given your profile a nudge from our end.
Can you try rebooting and retesting?

[#11]

Hello
We are still chasing down the engineer is question and trying to arrange someone to get back out there and do the work.
From what i can see the line card looks like its been reset again as the classic 7.1MB profile is assigned instantly again, when you run multiple tests you can see the SNR is bouncing up and down every second trying to compensate for the problem i feel  is still effecting the line.
If this follows suite as the last times this was done then the line will soon start erroring and then dropping again.
In fact as i have been typing this post i can see this has already started to effect you again in the same way.
Ill keep on it and call you when BT get back to me

[#12]

Hi Tom, I know you said another engineer would be out here this afternoon - I'm waiting in now, delaying a drive down to Sussex, so I really hope they do turn up!

[#13]

Hiya,
I'm really sorry that that engineer didn't turn up.
From speaking to Tom I understand that this has been rebooked for Saturday.  Hopefully this may be the end of it!

[#14]

James has he gone to Sussex for weekend?

[#15]

Thesheep,
Hi, Assumed you have disconnected the bell wire just to make sure that is not your problem ?