Long-standing customer with fault, but PlusNet say I'm with BT so what now?

[#1]

Indeed. I've literally just had a phone call from a BT engineer confirming that. They think it's all fixed now, but wouldn't say what they found!

And I took a call on the landline which didn't break the broadband. So I think we've got there eventually.

All very confusing.

[#2]

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@HPsauce wrote:

Though oddly the move to "fibre" (FTTC round here, no FTTP) means that there are more spare wires in some of the big cables and less cross-talk. My connection had definitely got faster over the last few years as a result.

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The above interested me. It certainly sounds logical yet, when I was last on ADSL, I kept on finding it increasingly irksome and frustrating as, over the years it kept mysteriously degrading slowly in maximum data rate. Even, at the end, my line being continually banded so the maximum speed was capped even though no fault was ever identifiable and nobody could really explain the reason.

My impression eventually was that this was 'policy' (of BT/Openreach). I felt my ADSL line could 'go faster', it just seemed it wasn't allowed to. I felt ADSL was being allowed to slowly wither away, the main reason I changed to FTTC.

Since moving to FTTC I don't have these issues, it seems to keep on running at more or less the same speed week after week (hope I am not tempting fate here!). This is how my ADSL line used to work, back in the day.

At least seems to show there aren't any significant issues on the copper line from the cabinet to my home.

[#3]

I don't know for sure that my comments about cross-talk and ADSL speeds are correct, I'm just surmising from my scientific knowledge.

As for my line, about 40 minutes after I spoke to a BT/OR engineer and posted here the broadband went down again!

However the phone was OK and the broadband came back after a minute or two (I decided to reboot the router too) and I then received an email from BT "Your service should be back to normal now" timed at almost the exact moment.

So my guess is (why don't the engineers tell you this?) that after the engineer spoke to me they "signed off" the job which triggered some sort of line reset and the email.

The email incidentally said you might need to reboot your router to reconnect! Errrrr... Catch-22, reboot to connect to pick up the email that says you need to reboot! 👹 Why didn't the engineer tell me this too? 

[#4]

Re FTTC vs ADSL, for me FTTC is a waste of time. My cabinet is MUCH nearer to the exchange than to my house and the likely speeds are not that great. I already get a more than adequate and (usually) reliable 21mbps sync on ADSL and unless I'm offered fibre at the same price as ADSL it's of no interest. 

[#5]

Just to (hopefully) close this down, my connection has stayed up since (presumed) BT-initiated reset yesterday afternoon.

There are a few lessons here for PN/BT/OR about communicating with customers, but I see absolutely no likelihood that they'll actually learn anything that will improve the "experience" for others. 😞

[#6]

@HPsauce    for what ever reason you have your phone with BT and broadband with PN, you reported faults with both suppliers, yet you seem surprised you had two different sets of engineers working on your fault.

I think it is you that needs to learn from the experience - just a suggestion!

[#7]

@Mustrum, maybe I didn't make myself clear, I ONLY reported a single broadband fault to PlusNet, I did not report anything to BT retail.

And I'm neither surprised (given what I was told) that multiple sets of engineers were involved, nor hopefully need to learn much; IMHO it's the various suppliers that need to learn how to communicate better.

I've had plenty of experience in the past of "managing" BT and various other IT/Comms suppliers, at least I no longer have to do it in the Corporate world. 😀 So my expectations are hopefully realistic, but there's always room for improvement.

From PNs perspective they did well once we were able to communicate verbally. There seems to be a problem in their systems that if, like me, you only have broadband with them (over a BT retail phone line) and report a BROADBAND fault they assume you're a BT Broadband customer or have very recently transferred one way or the other so lob the problem straight to BT.

My best guess would be that any engineers who worked on this were Openreach anyway, just triggered by different routes, so probably don't see the full picture - but maybe they don't need to?