Best way to advance a fault? Stuck between Plusnet and Openreach.

[#1]

Hi

Can anyone offer me any advice on how best to proceed with a fault? I seem to be stuck between Openreach and Plusnet.

Recently moved house to a rural property, Plusnet expected my speed to be up to 17Mbps. I was getting about 5.5Mbps so logged a fault.

Openreach came out and found several faults on the line. They changed my socket and moved us over to another 'pair'. They tested and were getting 10 to 11Mbps - great! However when I tested 6.7Mbps (so an improvement), Plusnet confirmed the sync speed was in line with that at about 7Mbps. So they said it was faulty and sent another (the same) Openreach engineer out.

This time he found a worn cable in a tree and moved us to another pair on this section of the line. He never visited the house and never tested from our end. The result is the speed was reduced down to about 5.4Mbps.

Logged this with Plusnet who said that Openreach had reported that the line would only run at that speed and the fault was effectively not a fault. End of case.

My problem is that Openreach fix 'something' then disappear - they don't look at the whole problem. And after two visits seem not to be too interested in looking any further. They then tell Plusnet that's it and Plusnet say tough. It doesn't make sense as the service was degraded by the engineers second visit - and they won't even come back to put us back on that pair.

Today has been windy and wet and the speed is terrible, I think there is a leek in something somewhere

Anyway what do I do now? I've been a Plusnet customer since the 90's but I can't face another evening on hold. Is there anyway to escalate a fault? Or even get an independent engineer out to asses the line?

Thanks for any advice.

Rob

[#2]

@CptnEarwig

If you want to stay with Plusnet then https://www.plus.net/help/legal/complaints-code-of-practice/ , it probaby wont speed anything up though and once you start a formal complaimnt, they will not discuss it on the forums. Find the email for the head of Plusnet , openreach and BT plc and complain to them directly is an option.

Move to an ISP which has the reputation for fighting the customer's corner and is willing to take on lines with issues. That is AAISP http://aa.net.uk/ but they do charge more the Plusnet.

[#3]

Thank you @SpendLessTime

Appreciate the recommendation of alternative ISP, I hope it won't come to that - I'll start on the complaints policy this weekend if nothing further develops.

Cheers

[#4]

I think it's a matter of perseverance, I am also on a long line and things have been going from bad to worse over the last 6-12 months, at first I thought it had to do with my cabinet being upgraded to offer superfast even though I am to far away to benefit. I was suffering frequent interruptions during the day and again at night, the latter turned out to be caused by the exchange software (DLM). Nothing seemed to be resolved by fault tickets but one day I was lucky enough to find someone on the new chat service that actually understood what the DSLSTATS charts I had been submitting in tickets meant and they were able to lock down the DLM and prevent it from interfering. Since then the line has been more stable and it has been possible to more clearly identify the fault. I am now awaiting my 2nd BT visit and hopefully that will finally put this thing to bed.  As I say it's a matter of patience and luck, in my case it's an intermittent fault and I know as an engineer that is always difficult.  At this stage I can say that I don't honestly think plusnet is worse than anybody else might have been, it's just a very frustrating experience. But then I have just been doing my tax return and that was pretty frustrating too!!