11 engineers in the last year & broadband still dropping out... does anyone care?

[#1]

I have had an intermittent fault on my broadband for a couple of years. In the last 12 months, we've had 11 Openreach engineers visit the house, but nobody seems willing or able to fix it.

The problem is my broadband connection has periods of good speed (for ADSL) & reasonable stability (sometimes weeks/months) followed by periods of frequent & gradually worsening disconnects. Frequent random disconnects like 50-100 times a day or sometimes simply completely disconnected for several hours.

I have reported it to Plusnet so many times, with the same pattern:

1) I raise support ticket, Plusnet test line, fiddle with line settings - doesn't work, dropouts continue or get worse

2) Plusnet do one of their graphs & it shows the line is indeed dropping out constantly -  they book an Openreach engineer (I know most of them in my area by name now...)

3) Openreach engineer tests line but can't find any fault. Plusnet test line after engineer visit & somehow, despite the engineer doing nothing to repair it, the line appears more stable (!). Plusnet say 'great, all fixed' & close the ticket.

4) About a month later dropouts start again > go back to 1) & repeat indefinitely...

Now, what drives me particularly mad is that every time I report this same problem, we go back to square one as if it's a new fault, rather than it being dealt with & elevated as an ongoing issue that has never been resolved.

I'd really like it if someone at Plusnet just took a little time to look back at the history of my broadband; look at how many engineers have been called out, how much time has been spent reporting faults & phoning up & waiting in for engineers, how much inconvenience & stress has been caused by the fact that I cannot seem to be provided with a consistently reliable internet connection.

Can somebody from Plusnet please sort this problem out once & for all?

[#2]

Only eleven in in the last year? I had more than that in less than six months, plus four lots of traffic lights on four different occasions. Since just last week I think finally it's all sorted but no thanks to anybody, just thanks to time and circumstance. Plusnet in my view have little control over British Telecom, a company that has it seems both themselves and their customers over a barrel.   

Have you considered going through the Communications and Internet Service Adjudication Scheme (CISAS)? It might take some time, but it might also jog plusnet into taking some positive action on your behalf. Call it coincidence but a week after I had made plusnet aware I had contacted them my fault was all of a sudden sorted. Spooky or what!

http://www.cedr.com/cisas/

[#3]

Hi by any chance have you got the white double kit you know the 2 in one package?
I had the same fault today with drop outs and after line tests and also runing a multimetre on the cable into the rear of the white vdsl modem i have worked out that the white modem was faulty, Your fix now is to get a all in one from plusnet and you will be fine> they have sent me one out today but after drop outs constantly i decided to setup my HG633 with plusnet, so far soo good


As per expected its the white extra box that is the issue. Not infact plusnet at all as openreach own the box and they are at liability when you have no service

If you have been bileld then get your money back open reach own that white trash they call " tied down" So its there issue that you have had no service,  Anyways first post here and i have ocme to tell others how to setup a talk talk vdsl modem with plusnet Because plusnet dont tell you the settings needed to convert the modems over

Peace out and wait till you get a vdsl modem   you will be happier than ever

I now will have to telnet into the white box and see what the issue is with these boxes

[#4]

@colleen1985

I rather think this is ADSL, not VDSL (that's why the they posted in here and not the Fibre Broadband board)

[#5]

Thanks for the replies. Yes it's very much ADSL - I'd give my right arm for a fibre connection after all the trouble I've had! Our local exchange has been fibre-enabled and some properties have even been given fibre to the premises, but frustratingly it's not available for my house (no matter how much I plead).

Multiple dropouts again last night. I've been exploring whether it could be some kind of REIN issue. Been walking around with an AM radio tuned to 612 & have managed to identify a possible source of interference. It's a bit of a long shot, but at this stage I'm willing to try anything.

[#6]

I've just been looking through some of my recent service messages & am slightly confused about what they mean. Not sure if they have any bearing on my connection suddenly becoming unstable, but I received the following recently:

7 Aug 2016 - Service Notice #281285662

Ignoring Broadband Unsolicited Cease on service due to either regrade or cancellation by agent.

22 Aug 2016 - Question #132186153 - Your Feedback

Provisioning of your ADSL Account Information
BT Reference Number changed from BBEU19336984 to BBEU23147625. BT Circuit Number changed from BBEU19336984 to BBEU23147625

Anyone know what these mean? I presume the latter is some kind of circuit change at the exchange? Would that have triggered line instability?

[#7]

@al0104

The BT circuit change may have been a move from Plusnet's old network to their new one. If you don't have a static IP then if you check your gateway at http://users.plus.net/@gateway/ , if you see the letters "-IR" in the gateway name, then you are on the new network.

[#8]

Thanks for the info. This is what I get from the gateway checker:

Sorry, the tool failed to identify your gateway; this does not mean that anything is wrong with your connection.

Posting the following information as a reply to the Gateway Checker Issues topic in the Community forums will help us to diagnose the problem.

• core2-hu0-18-0-0.southbank.ukcore.bt.net (62.172.103.24) 4.895 ms
• *
• be2.psb-ar02.plus.net (195.166.129.183) 5.236 ms

Still getting constant dropouts one day, then relative stability the next. I raised a ticket on 17 Aug but have not had a reply from Plusnet technical yet.

[#9]

@al0104

Yep you are on the new network as part of it is based out of Southbank and the gateway hasn't been updated in Plusnet DNS to show a simple name yet. So the checker just returns the long name.