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Help...After 2 years of dealing with Plusnet I still have unreliable BB service

ernie1
Dabbler
Posts: 17
Registered: ‎04-01-2017

Help...After 2 years of dealing with Plusnet I still have unreliable BB service

Hi I have been a Plusnet customer for many years. Over the last 2 years I have expereinced a decreasing BB speed (now 1.3 download mps at best) and the fact that it keeps disconnecting..often several times a day. Most of the time it has to be reset at engineer level 1. This is a fault that is constant, it has been escalated many times by customer services, level 1 and 2 engineers to the fault team ...with no resolution. BT engineers have changed the copper line and said that it is fine, but that the fault is with the ISP. The router has been changed 3 times and Plusnet have confirmed that that the router  is not at fault.

Please tell me how I can get this fixed as Plusnet do not provide any feedback as what the issue is, all they do is reset the line and keep changing setting...after 2 years there is no resolution and no one has taken any reponsibility for sorting this out............why has Plusnet nor escalation process for resolving this...?

I have spent manay many hours on the phone tryiong to sort out each incident, and I still do not get feedabck as to what is causing it...guess what noboby monitors the line that is unstable, ie falls over sometimes several times a day..its for me to report it and hang on for an enternity each ime on the phone????

Any suggestions folks for getting this resolved, or are Plusnet hopeless in their real world customer service?

47 REPLIES 47
MrSilver
Pro
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Re: Help...After 2 years of dealing with Plusnet I still have unreliable BB service

Hi

Welcome to the forums.

Cant give many suggestinos in how to get plusnet to resolve anything, but if you can give a bit more info on the problem you are having people here might be able to help work out what is going on.

If you go to https://www.dslchecker.bt.com/ and put your number in what speeds does it come back with?

What router are you using?

What is your in-home wiring setup? Are you testing speed and stability while having the router connected to the master socket?

If you go to http://speedtest.btwholesale.com/ go through all 3 tests and let us knwo the results too (screenshots or copy n paste fine).

It is it always bad or is it intermittent?

Jonpe
Hero
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Registered: ‎05-09-2016

Re: Help...After 2 years of dealing with Plusnet I still have unreliable BB service

Presumably you've had to renew your contract at some point in the last two years, why did you?

ernie1
Dabbler
Posts: 17
Registered: ‎04-01-2017

Re: Help...After 2 years of dealing with Plusnet I still have unreliable BB service

cause the only alternative here at that time was BT,...and previous expereince with them was not good, they slammed my phone line.

ernie1
Dabbler
Posts: 17
Registered: ‎04-01-2017

Re: Help...After 2 years of dealing with Plusnet I still have unreliable BB service

Thanks ..will provide the info....

ernie1
Dabbler
Posts: 17
Registered: ‎04-01-2017

Re: Help...After 2 years of dealing with Plusnet I still have unreliable BB service

Ok as promised more info...sorry about the delay, but my BB has been down again for 2 days...

2 years of dropped BB. When up and running the max download was 1.2mps with upload of .3mps. However ping varied between 500 and 40. The download speed when reconnected was 1.2mps max and then dropped over 3 days to 0.50 and then fell over. The throughput speed of .7 avergare was less than 50% of the lines capability.

I have raised more than 50 fault tickets over the last 9 months, spent god knows how many hours on the phone waiting for reset. the most telling technical quote by an engineer was


"I have tested your line today and I have found the possible cause for the connection/speed issues.

Your circuit was set to an SNR margin of 6 decibels on the downstream, because the lines are very sensitive and that margin is to low for the line to cope with, this will reflect in either disconnections or slow speed.

To fix this i have done two things:

-1) I have reset the line which will return the SNR margin target to 9db instead of 6db. Please restart your router after 4 hours to allow the reset to fully complete. After this the router will need to be left on permanently.

-2) I have modified your circuit to prevent the SNR margin from being changed in future automatically by the Dynamic Line management system at the exchange, unfortunately we cant guarantee the settings will stick as this piece of hardware is automated.

The two orders should take a total of 24 working hours to complete and for the new settings to initiate on the line. Following this it will take up to 10 days to the line to settle back down

If however you still experience connection issues after these have completed then please get back to us so we can investigate further.

To find out what an SNR margin is please click below;

SNR Margin

Thanks for your patience."

The fault continues despite the engineers, they claim they dont know why the lin keeps dropping....no software on lines they are actually fault monitoring that tells them what the line behaviour was just before it drops....actually thats pretty incredible in todays technology world....

SO to summarise 2 years of faults, BB outage for much of the that time, no offer of compensation....no one takes responsibility for sorting the fault out (I have paid for my own engineers to test all my equipment and lines and they are ok....3 routers later (all Netgear)....all I can say is that PlusNet is a shambolic orgainsation that doe snot take customer service seriously, had inadequate diagnostic equipement, no service recovery strategy ...and is frankly a pretty appalling supplier...I have given up and thrown the towel in...after 2 years no fault resolution and no customer service (although to be fair most people that I have spoken to have been pleasant)

oh my neighbours on both sides get a steady service of 2.5 mps.....Fibre is coming in a few months and I will sunscribe to it via another ISP as can no longer trust Plusnet

MrSilver
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Re: Help...After 2 years of dealing with Plusnet I still have unreliable BB service

My limited knowledge would say setting the SNR to 9 would increase the speed on your line, but but stopping DLM working all it will do is generate lots of errors on the line as if it should be running slower it cant, and so taht will give terrible performance.

 

Plusnet don't run any of the kit that connects your line to the exchange though, so they cant run any software to monitor what is going on just before the drop happens. I cant imaging Openread would either, as there are so many in home issues that could cause a line to drop and with around 25 million broadband connections that is a lot of monitoring when most are fine.

 

Can't really comment on Plusnets performance with you, but you can move to any other provider, not just BT in the same way you are for FTTC. FTTC will still be provided by Openreach as your ADSL service is so if there is a fault that no one can find you may have ongoing issues there too.

You might want to try http://aa.net.uk/broadband-trial.html if you feel you want a switch but also want a guarentee of it being fixed. @jelv move there so can probably answer nay questions/concerns over them. they also do fttc so can upgrade with them if needed.

ejs
Aspiring Hero
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Registered: ‎10-06-2010

Re: Help...After 2 years of dealing with Plusnet I still have unreliable BB service

Changing the target SNRM from 6dB to 9dB would reduce the line speed, not increase the speed.

The advice to restart the router after 4 hours "to allow the reset to fully complete" was complete garbage.

It's not Openreach, it's BTWholesale who operate the ADSL equipment in the exchange, and yes, the DLM does monitor every line and collect data continuously, graphs of the data should be available to ISPs, with the smallest time interval being 15-minute blocks.

Without seeing any line stats or anything, there's not a lot anyone can say about the problem. I'm guessing it's a very long line and it's never likely to be particularly good. It's fairly normal for a broadband connection to disconnect occasionally, but when it does it should re-connect immediately.

ernie1
Dabbler
Posts: 17
Registered: ‎04-01-2017

Re: Help...After 2 years of dealing with Plusnet I still have unreliable BB service

Thank you both....yep I asked for many times for stats on the line that were collected by Openreach, Plusnet eachtime stated that no such stats were collected....anoither lie by them. I am on a long line but the throughput of both neighbours was twice mine and little in the way of droppage. Most drops had to be manually reset by PlusNet (after an average of 30 mins me waiting on the phone)...what a shower.... to cap it all, they only tried to offer me a cheaper rental when I told them I was leaving....two weeks ago I asked for the same thing as compensation for the hours that I spent and disruption and they refused it.................sorry but they are both incompetent and dishonest....taking a new line and new provider, with the prospect of Fibre ttc....

MrSilver
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Re: Help...After 2 years of dealing with Plusnet I still have unreliable BB service

kind of depends what stats you are talking about, I think ejs was more talking about the current running line stats now (correct me if you were thinking about something else though..)

Plusnet can run a xdsl test that will give details of the line now, that would show things like the SNR ratios etc but wont give a nice graph of the data for the past 2 years, so not sure there is much stats collected by Openreach that plusnet have that they are not sharing with you, but can understand when you think they are lying about everything that will tint the view of all interactions.

In quite a few threads here people ask for things like their GEA test data and plusnet share it, they are generally very open and not sure why they would have any benefit in lying to you.

@Anoush can you run a copper line test/dsl test and share the results at all? 

Plusnet also cant reset your DSL sync, they can't kick you off the DSL network. Once you have sync and are connected your router then makes a connection to plusnet over that link, Plusnet can reset that link but it shouldn't kick your dsl sync off.

If neighbours either side of you have a higher speed, and you are all connected to the same small black box distribution point outside (up the pole or in the ground) then it would indicate probably a weaker connection on your line, causing more interference /noise.

I have 2 DSL lines in my house from 2 different ISPs, same DP, same cab. One runs at 78mb solidly (the plusnet line) and the other wont budge above 65mb, but as the slower one is in the speed range I know I wont get an engineer out to fix.

 

If you want to get 100% confidence that its Plusnet end that is being slow you can run the BTW speedtest (http://speedtest.btwholesale.com/) make sure you do test 3 as that connects you into BTW not Plusnet and so completely bypasses them and any of their systems. In theory that should give you your best possible speed test as it isolates all of plusnet out.

ejs
Aspiring Hero
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Registered: ‎10-06-2010

Re: Help...After 2 years of dealing with Plusnet I still have unreliable BB service

The only stats collected by Openreach would be measurements made by a visiting engineer, and perhaps a few details like the line loss measured periodically. The BTWholesale DLM on ADSL collects data on the line performance all the time. No, it won't go back 2 years, but there should be graphs covering the last 28 days.

I can't really think of any situation where there would be a total loss of broadband service, that could simply be fixed each time by Plusnet resetting something.

@MrSilver

On ADSL, Plusnet, like any other ISP, are capable of kicking your DSL sync off, and changing parameters like the target SNRM, which certainly does not require the end user to restart their router for it to take effect. Doing an intrusive line test will disconnect the broadband.

Anoush
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Re: Help...After 2 years of dealing with Plusnet I still have unreliable BB service

Hello @ernie1 I'm really sorry to hear of the ongoing problems you're having with your connection. Sad

 


@MrSilver wrote:

My limited knowledge would say setting the SNR to 9 would increase the speed on your line, but but stopping DLM working all it will do is generate lots of errors on the line as if it should be running slower it cant, and so taht will give terrible performance.


Manually increasing the SNR essentially helps maintain stability and reduce errors by lowering the sync speed. It doesn't turn the DLM off, so the target can always be moved automatically as the DLM sees fit.

 


MrSilver wrote:

@Anoush can you run a copper line test/dsl test and share the results at all? 


I'll post the results of a KBD test including status check and the copper line test here tomorrow.

 

@ejs wrote:
The only stats collected by Openreach would be measurements made by a visiting engineer, and perhaps a few details like the line loss measured periodically. The BTWholesale DLM on ADSL collects data on the line performance all the time. No, it won't go back 2 years, but there should be graphs covering the last 28 days. 

As part of a KBD test that's run, we can see the DLM data. I'll try to post them up, however we can't generate a pretty picture of it like a visual radius graph.

 

I can't really think of any situation where there would be a total loss of broadband service, that could simply be fixed each time by Plusnet resetting something.

I've seen a copper line test fix a no sync issue before. It's only happens very rarely, though.

 

I'll take a look at things tomorrow. If the connection is still dropping and you've tried an alternative router/the test socket it's likely to require another engineer I'm afraid.

This is my personal Community Forum account to help out around these parts while I'm at home. If I'm posting from the 1st March 2020, this means I'm off-duty with no access to internal systems.
If this post resolved your issue, please click the 'This fixed my problem' button
Jonpe
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Re: Help...After 2 years of dealing with Plusnet I still have unreliable BB service

@ernie1 " ... a shambolic orgainsation that doe snot take... "

I notice you've done a couple of edits but the "doe snot" is still there; sooner or later someone is going to have to clean up after these female deer.

 

Anoush
Aspiring Hero
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Re: Help...After 2 years of dealing with Plusnet I still have unreliable BB service

KBD test results coming up.

 

xDSL Status Check
Circuit ID: CBUK######## Service ID: BBEU########
Telephone NO.: NA Test Executed On: 09-01-2017 08:42:22
xDSL Status Test Summary
Sync Status: Circuit In Sync
General Information
NTE Status:   NTE Power Status: PowerOn Bypass Status:  
 
  Upstream DSL Link Information Downstream DSL Link Information
Loop Loss: 39.5 52.6
SNR Margin: 12.0 9.6
Errored Seconds: 0 1
HEC Errors: 0  
Cell Count: 1128423 5776099
Speed: 440 1301
 
Maximum Stable Rate (KBPS): 1152 Fault Threshold Rate (KBPS): 921
Mean Time Between Retrains (Seconds): 79130 Mean Time Between Errors Upstream (Seconds): 86400
Indicative Line Quality: R Mean Time Between Errors Downstream (Seconds): 196

 

The Copper Line Test has passed. The connection is still dropping, though:

 

 

And, the 28 days data as requested:

 

 

 

It looks like you've requested to cancel your account yesterday @ernie1 Sad If you decide to stay with us please let us know and I'll arrange another engineer appointment for you to take another look at the line.

This is my personal Community Forum account to help out around these parts while I'm at home. If I'm posting from the 1st March 2020, this means I'm off-duty with no access to internal systems.
If this post resolved your issue, please click the 'This fixed my problem' button
ernie1
Dabbler
Posts: 17
Registered: ‎04-01-2017

Re: Help...After 2 years of dealing with Plusnet I still have unreliable BB service

Thank you all for yr input, very much appreciated.

I have got v frustrated with such a bad service, and although individually the plus Net staff are by and large very helpful, just hit a brick wall of same processes gone through time and time again...no one thinking outside the box..I assume.I cannot believe after raising so many fault tickets the fault cannot be diagnosed...hey ho.

The line I use is just for BB data, no voice is used. Over the couple of years I had several engineer visits and they say that the copper line is fine and the issue is at the ISP end.Interestingly each engineer has no PN briefing document as to the fault and issues raised.

I have an Openreach built in filter socket and this has been changed a couple of times. Interestingly, 36 hrs ago I plugged in an additional filter to the test port for the latest tests to be run ......and havent unplugged it, and the line remains stable.....may be coinicidence?

The problem is I that I have been told I cannot ask for an engineer to visit (yet again) as I have given notice (although service not being disconnected for a couple of weeks) and if I rejoin I have to sign up to a year contract...that I cant get out of for 1 year,.....classic catch 22..................duh!!!!!

.I am sad to leave but cannot put up with such a disconnect service. Most of the time when the connection drops, resetting the router wont help,,,I have to call PN, wait along time to get through to level 1 and then then reset their end..the day before yesterday I spent almost 1 hour waiting until I got through to tech support....this has happened several times in the last week...just cant go on, esp when it has been 2 yrs of faults.

I would have loved to stay with PN and a UK call centre but really unless its fixed i have no option. The only good thing is that I have documented the last 2 years and will send the information to the Chief Exec office as to how not to run customer service and how Level 2/ Faults engineers and customer service escalation needs to work together with escalation points and responsibilty. In the end it was always me that had to run around and wait hours on the phone, even when fault tickets were open no one spotted my line down and reset it......

Thanks again