No Internet Access

[#1]

We are new customers to plusnet after being recommended the service by family, our first experience has been a nightmare, we spent best part of four hours turning off on the modem, resetting it and every other thing mentioned in the manual including trying to get through to customer support, a call which lasted 1 hour and 40 mins and we still didn't get to speak to anyone, this was at 10pm and i terminated the call at 11.40pm this evening so it wasn't as if it was at a busy time.

I'm tech savvy and have dealt with all sorts of modems and routers from most of the big companies but i've never experienced anything quite like this, even when i logged in online through my phone which has unlimited broadband when going to the https://faults.plus.net i eventually reach a page to report the fault only to get a page saying "ERROR" we cannot fix your fault, whereby i had to leave my number for them to contact me tomorrow evening.

The service is at my mothers address who is elderly and i live quite a distance away, is there a way we can get this rolling without me having to travel the 25 miles back and for?

All the modem/router lights are green except for the internet access that just stays red, she can make calls fine, the wifi connects and so does the ethernet but we don't have any internet access, any help would be appreciated.

[#2 · Accepted solution]

Hi there,

I'm very sorry for the issues experienced. Assuming the service is related to the account linked to this forum profile, it looks like the service only activated at 6am this morning and the connection has been up and online since then. Please do let us now if there's anything further we can help with.

[#3]

I can confirm the internet light is on now after a call with my mother, i'm unable to check that it's all working correctly until i go down on Thursday, so i won't confirm that this issued is resolved until then, thanks for the help so far.

[#4]

I've taken a look over everything I can see and looks good now. Please do let us know if there's anything else we can help with.

[#5]

@MichaelU,

A warm welcome to the forums - good to hear that your mum's service is working now.

There are a couple of process / expectation issues here which the Superusers are discussing.  May I ask some details around what happened here?

• Is this a new service installation or a migration from another provider?
• If a migration, who was the previous provider?
• If a migration, is it like for like ADSL to ADSL or FTTC to FTTC or an upgrade from ADSL to FTTC?
• What activation date were you given?
• Did you see the message which says "activation could happen anytime up to midnight on..."?
• And the one which says "do not try to connect until you receive notification of activation"?

I fear that there is a lack of clarity about when a user should attempt to connect their router to the line and expect it to work.  There are various job hand offs from BTOR to BTw, from BTw to the ISP and then tasks for the ISP to do.  The time those job hand offs take can depend on the nature of the migration.

this was at 10pm and i terminated the call at 11.40pm this evening so it wasn't as if it was at a busy time

It might not have been expected to be a busy time ... but 10pm is the hour when the call centre shuts.  I'll ask someone to look at why the call was accepted into the call centre queue and not serviced.

[#6]

Thank you for the warm welcome...

- The service is a migration from Sky

- It's ADSL to ADSL

- Activation email and text was given for Monday 6th November

- Had a email saying your broadband is ready to use on Tuesday morning at 6.10am 7th Nov with all the connection information

- Had the "do not try to connect until you receive notification of activation"? on the 23rd October

After back tracking through the emails and text messages just now there was a message saying the 7th for broadband activation that was sent on the 23rd that was somehow over looked, i didn't really take too much notice of the texts and emails because they we're sent over a fortnight before the service was due to start, the phone line was my immediate concern as my mother needs that more than anything and there was an initial worry that you might not be able to carry over her old number, i read those initial emails and texts and conveyed it to her that all would be ok as far as the number was concerned.

The message that the phone line was activated was mistaken as the broadband would be operational at the same time, so it's my error, was just extra frustrated with not being able to get through to the customer support as well as they would have cleared that up in no time.

I feel a bit of a plum now, i didn't think of going back through the emails and texts until you mentioned it, we had so many issues with Sky and their service whereby my mother was left for months without internet in my haste i posted this early hours of Tuesday morning.

I'm still unable to confirm the service is operating correctly as i'm not due down there until tomorrow evening at the earliest, i can confirm all lights are green though so hopefully it should be fine and i'll come back and apply the this fixed my problem button as soon as i've checked.

Thank you all for your assistance, it's most appreciated.

Yours sincerely,

Mike.

[#7]

Good morning Mike,

First to be clear I’m not PlusNET, I’m just another customer helping out around here. Secondly don’t feel like a plum! There is a lot of communication material and sometimes it can be confusing.

Migrations from Sky are a bit more complicated as there is a physical wiring change required inside the exchange. Consequently the phone line has to move first (which also disconnects the Sky broadband) and then the new broadband is connected ... which then needs activation.

Seems like everything did go to the plan ... aside from your attempt to get support close to close time.

Hope that your experience will now be trouble free ... if you do have problems the forums are a good place to get help. In addition to Plusnet’s A Team being here there are lots of customers with years of experience abkevto advise and guide through stuff you can fix yourself.

Useful hint: install Teamviewer 12 on both your and your mum’s PC so that you can connect to it remotely. Might save you the need to travel there every time she has a problem.

[#8]

If the account is in your mother's name it is also worth getting her to register you as someone authorised to discuss her account with PN. If you don't do this you may find that PN refuse to discuss future problems with you if you phone in.

[#9]

I set up the account via telephone for her and all the messaging has gone through me so far, even the contact email address is mine, the only thing my mother did was give her payment details, do i still need to setup a PN  account and if yes how do i go about it?

Really appreciate all the help and advice you all give, many thanks to you all

[#10]

Hi,

You do not need to register a separate account.  If the account is in your mother's name a CS agent could "because of DPA" refuse to talk to you about anything.  Therefore it would be beneficial to have your name authorised on your mother's account as being authorised to discuss TECHNICAL matters.  However if anything arises which might involve a charge to the account, the CS agent will require your mother to approve it.

Exactly how such authorisation is achieved is not clearly defined.

[#11]

All went well today at my motheres and i'm happy to say that the internet is working great, many thanks again to you all.

Have been added to the account for technical matters so thanks for that bit of advice too.