Fibre speeds limited to 55mb. 4 months of going in circles, 6 engineers and no fix!

[#1]

4 months ago, upon purchasing a new router, I noticed a drastic drop in my previously solid 80mb connection down to the low 40's.  I reconnected my plusnet hub and with no change raised a ticket.  An engineer was booked and carried out the usual barrage of tests only to confirm that there is no issue on my wiring or equipment.

Fast forward 4 months and it's been a complete nightmare! 5/6 engineer visits (with two not showing up despite me being asked to wait in for the duration of the window) and we are still no further forward.  I have been assured that the case has been escalated with the supplier (openreach), although thy have several times refused to attend as the speeds "are within their acceptable limits".  All credit to the support team here, as they have pursued this due to it clearly NOT being within the suppliers "acceptable limits".  However, the constant rinse and repeat of engineer visits, confirming the same information, and the severe lack of communication provided to me by support has completely worn me down.  I'm done!

So far, as way of compensation, I have been provided a partial refund on 1 month broadband supply and provided with the information for to contact the ombudsman, thats it!  I repeatedly ask for further information, and I'm stonewalled.  4 or 5 days later, I get the usual text message, requesting me to provide 3 windows for yet another engineer to visit my premises.

On top of this, I was asked on the 4th visit to sign the engineers pda upon the completion of his tests.  After saying I hadn't been required to sign at any of the other visits, could he confirm the reason.  I was assured that this was just to confirm the visit had taken place (surely the test results on the network alone are sufficient?) and not for any other reason.  It turns out the supplier had indeed used my signature to confirm I was happy with the resolution and accepted the situation.  I have to say, being misled like that was completely out of order!  When I mentioned this to support, it was completely ignored.

I have now asked several times to speak to a manager, retentions and high level/executive complaints, to discuss compensation and termination of my contract.  As per standard, support have completely ignored these requests.

I have to say, so far my experience certainly hasn't been 'doing me proud' rather than 'doing my head in'.  You promise a lot and deliver very little!  

[#2]

Hi,

A warm welcome to the forums.

At the end of everything, the speed you get is not within the control of any ISP.  I guess you are reporting line sync speed here, rather than the results of a data speed test?

If it is sync speed then its is a line problem - either a fault or cross talk - it is though all in the hands of BT Openreach and will remain the same no matter which ISP you use.

If it is data speed then possibly there is SVLAN congestion - which is in the hands of BT Wholesale.

I agree that BTOR's attempt to get you to sign off the work was (to be polite) under-hand.  Getting BTOR to sort issues can be very problematic, no matter how hard the ISP pushes, as you so clearly note...

All credit to the support team here, as they have pursued this due to it clearly NOT being within the suppliers "acceptable limits"

[#3]

To be fair, this is the only credit due to the team as they continuously refuse to provide updates after any engineer visit, nor do they respond to any requests to escalate.

Regardless, openreach (bt) are the providers supplier, so the onus is on them to provide a fix, solution or compensation. None of which have been provided!

[#4]

The forums are staffed by some of the best support people in Plusnet, who I am sure will review what has happened and advise of what more might be possible.  As for feedback and escalation - all too often there is very little in the reports BTOR send back to ISPs - and if ISP service tests do not show specific fault then it becomes very difficult to escalate.

Back to my prior post - are you reporting sync speed (from the modem) or data speed from on-line speed tests?  Synch speed points only to the line, whereas data speeds being less than expected could point to very different causes.

[#5]

Speeds are from the modem, engineer test results and isp tests. The speed has gone from 43ish to 55 and has been stable at that since the first engineer visit.

[#6]

Hi absintheboy, 

I'm sorry to see things have become so protracted with this. 

We need to intervene the standard process of booking another SFI. I'm off shift tomorrow so I'm going to make sure one of the team picks this up and sees what other options we can take for you. 

[#7]

While I appreciate your efforts, all this achieved was placing the case in hold for a week and then another request for an engineer to be booked.

All faith in the customer service provided by this company is lost!

[#8]

Hi @absintheboy,

I'm very sorry that this intervention hasn't gone the way that we would have hoped and that you have received another request to arrange an engineer visit.

One of my colleagues is currently contacting our suppliers to try and get a more suitable outcome to this and will be back in touch shortly with an update.

[#9]

OK, so the next response was to ensure I'm not worried about engineer charges!

"As long as everything is currently setup as previously advised within the property (i.e the router is connected into the test phone socket) then there shouldn't be any reason to be concerned regarding any engineer charges..."

I'm absolutely NOT concerned about charges as I've now had 7 engineers to my property over 4 months. Every one has confirmed my wiring, property or equipment is not at fault!

My concern is the constant non admission of faulty by the supplier and the cookie cutter reply from support to ask for another engineer visit.

I think its time to cut my losses here!

[#10]

HI @absintheboy

Thanks for coming back to us and for reviewing the most recent ticket update that has been provided by Alex. I've just spent some time discussing this with Alex and reviewing the history of both the fault and your account in general.

I can see that the fault you have on ticket 169872510 has been ongoing for a very significant amount of time, so I absolutely understand and to some degree share your frustration. As you are aware, we've raised this to our suppliers on a number of occasions and haven't been provided with the desired outcome at various stages. My colleague Alex has been escalating this consistently on your behalf and I can see that he has provided more detail on this via the above ticket.

As things stand, we want to get this resolved for you and then deal with the downtime elements that you've previously mentioned. In order to do this, however, we need to liaise with our suppliers and allow them to investigate the fault as they feel is appropriate. Hence, my colleagues response on your ticket.

I can appreciate why you'd want to leave - honestly I do, but my only concern is that you would potentially face this issue further down the line with a new provider if they use the same supplier/infrastructure. If this is a route that you did want to explore, you can discuss the cancellation of your account on 0800 328 4624.

Alternatively, my colleague Alex is monitoring your ticket and will arrange further action via our suppliers should you feel that this is appropriate.

Please let us know how you'd like to proceed. 

Best wishes,

Dave