New Customer Problems - Looking for exit already

[#1]

I am a new customer to plus net and was attracted by the adverts, the prices and offers of good customer service and good packages.

 I have been with BT for 14 years or more but decided to change when I moved 2 weeks ago.

I opted for the unlimited fibre extra with guaranteed 68mb speed.

I ordered the service and I think the money had left my account before I had even finished lifting my finger from the click to confirm the order!

I found out the next day I would have over 2 weeks to wait for the connection to be turned on (house we were moving to already had a line and internet).  Great, new house, wife and 3 kids, no internet and Christmas nearly here - this was going to be fun.  40 minutes on the phone to plusnet to see if they expedite and it was out of their hands - fair enough.  We would just have to get on with it and actually communicate as a family old style.

Activation day came and as you can imagine everyone was super excited not least of all me as my children where driving us crazy (twins 11 and eldest 14) - they have been brought up in a connected world and I had moved them to the country with no internet!

Activation was successful and we had internet, hurray.  No, wait.  Something was wrong.  Websites we taking ages to load.

Speed test time.  0.39 down and 0.54 up?  My old 56k dial up modem used to be quicker.  Can't be right lets leave it to settle.

Left it 2 hours no speed increase.  OK, lets call plusnet.  2 hour wait.  2 hours?  Ok, lets use the web chat.  Erm, Plusnet have disabled webchat.  Email? Nope none available.  So I run through the diagnosing the fault and line testing myself.

I then get told (by automated email) that someone is working on and they'll contact me in 48 hours.  48 hours?  thats like a century for the kids.  In 48 hours are they calling/emailing/texting to let me know they have received the report, to tell me it's fixed or they are working on fixing it?  No doubt it will to close to Christmas so I will need to wait until 2019?

I think my point here is that as a new customer paying for an unlimited super fast internet service I expect the customer service to be a little easier to contact and feel like I am not just "another annoying customer".  I have an expectation that when I have a problem it will be dealt with quickly and efficiently and not have to dread calling for a 2 hour wait time.

As a new customer I really cannot recommend Plusnet for either its customer service or it's actual service - internet provision.  I hope this situation changes rapidly and I find myself being pleasantly surprised and able to recommend this company.  It might be worth investing in a few more support staff, enable the web chat and giving us non-business customers a support email we can use.

It would also be nice if you billed new customers once they had a working, verified service in place.  My internet just tested at 0.09Mbps downstream.  Lets hope that's enough bandwidth to post this comment.

Paul

[#2]

I know that it doesn't help, but this seems to be wise counsel:

https://www.thinkbroadband.com/news/8263-hold-off-of-switching-providers-until-the-new-year

[#3]

I wholeheartedly agree and I wish I could have put it off - I had no choice unfortunately as the house we moved to had the internet switched off prior to us moving in.

Christmas without internet?!?  My children would have sought adoption having absolutely no idea what life was like before mobiles, wifi and internet!

[#4]

Are you plugged into the master socket? Have you tried the test socket?

[#5]

Yes Mustrum,

Although it should be noted that the "master Socket" is not a modern one by any means.  No test socket.

[#6]

@Paul222,

I'm sorry you've had/are having issues with your service.

Initially I've looked into the provision issues you've noted and if I'm honest I actually cannot find any fault. The line was ordered the day after signup and was active and running the day after this - as a stop line provision this is pretty standard stuff. 

The same day the telephone line activated the fibre order was placed and completed within the normal time scales - again there was no delay in completion here that required any human intervention. Automation worked as it should have done in this case. I understand it's unfortunate that it still took two weeks to activate a service, but the bulk of that was the completion and frames activities involved on the fibre order (which has a 7-10 working day lead time).

As part of the order process you pay your first months subscription fees upfront but this covers the full first months subscription (your next bill is a month after the activation of your broadband service). There's not really any way of verifying that your service is working to the standards you would expect without being notified by a customer that this is the case, there's also no way to test this without taking lines out of service and in turn potentially causing problems - on top of this contacting every customer to check if their line is working as they'd expect will then take more front line agents away from contactable methods meaning it would take longer to get through to us and cause even more dissatisfaction. We trialed proactive faults for a while (where a customer didn't contact us) and it just didn't work no matter how we tried it. 

We don't offer an email support channel (for business or residential), and there are no plans to. The ticketing system is the next comparable form of contact. 

With regards the issues you're having with your speed I've just tested your connection and there is quite clearly a problem somewhere. Your sync is dreadfully low:

A 2.3Mbps sync when your estimates are:

So there's a clear issue here. I'm concerned about the line length and initially I'd like to confirm a few things; the router you're using, is it the Hub One? If not then please provide the make and model of the router you're using. Are you using extensions on the line that could be artificially extending the line length when testing is being run, and also causing your sync to drop to an ADSL level. 

It would be useful to give a description of the setup of your kit just so we can give better advice. 

[#7]

Thanks for the response.

To be clear - At no point have i criticised the staff - I have merely discussed my journey so far with plus net and how I feel the general service has led to a not great first time experience topped off with a very poor connection and not knowing what plusnet are actually going to do about it and what time frame.  It is always nice to have a telephone number to call and speak to a helpful / friendly person normally in a few minutes.

I do not think any of that is unreasonable.

To answer your questions;

The router is the one plusnet supplied - similar to bt provided ones but in white.  After getting poor results I switched and tried an openreach dedicated modem linked to a netgear R8000 Router and got better results.

There are no extensions other than the 10m I am using to be able to sit at my desk.

Tested in master (and only socket) same results as using the 10m extension.

I also neglected to mention after I ran the line tests on friday (activation day) a fault was found somewhere;

Thanks for reporting your broadband problem

Our tests have found a fault with your broadband service.

You've given us all the information we need about your problem, we'll raise this to our supplier for investigation.

[#8]

Hi @Paul222,

Thanks for coming back to us with that additional information.

I can see that you have a fault raised here. The next logical step would be to arrange for an engineer to visit your premises.

Before we do so, could you please connect your router directly into the test socket and perform a speed test via a device that is connected by an ethernet connection and post the results (screenshot) on this thread please? We'll attach this to your fault and ensure it's included as part of future diagnosis.

Thanks

Dave

[#9]

Hi Dave,

Here's the screenshot

and bt's

Thanks Paul

[#10]

@Paul222

Sorry if that has already been mentioned, but do you notice any faults on your landline?

I would dial 17070 and do an option 2 quiet line test.

[#11]

Hi @Paul222

Thanks for the screenshots. It looks like one of my colleagues has picked this up and contacted you in the interim as part of your fault ticket here. If there's anything else you need, just drop us a line.

Best wishes

Dave

[#12]

Moderators Note

This topic has been moved from Broadband to Fibre