No broadband since upgrading from Unlimited Fibre to Unlimited Fibre Extra

[#1]

I've been a Plusnet customer since April 2016. Up until recently I've had no issues and been happy with my 38Mb unlimited fibre service. However on January 22nd this year I noticed that Vodaphone were offering a good deal so I called Plusnet to see if they would match it. Plusnet offered me Unlimited Fibre Extra on a 12 month contract including line rental which was only slightly more expensive than Vodaphone's offer so I decided to accept the offer from Plusnet.

I received an email from Plusnet confirming the details of the offer with an estimated speed of 68Mbps - 80Mbps.

On Friday February 1st I received an email message to say that my broadband was changing to "Unlimited (contracted)". This should have rung alarm bells but at the time I didn't realise that "Unlimited" wasn't the same as "Unlimited Fibre". At 16:10 on Friday afternoon my wife called me from home to say that she had lost her connection to the office. She was working from home. When I got home later that evening I rebooted the router but it still would not connect so I contacted Plusnet support. Initially I was told that there was no record of me ever having fibre broadband. Then I was told that an order had been placed for ADSL2 (not Fibre Extra) and as a result my connection had been downgraded to an 8Mb connection. She offered to talk me through the router configuration to make it work with ADSL but I explained that it was pointless because the maximum speed I could get was around 2.5Mbps.

She apologised and put me through to "retentions" who said that they would have to place the order again. Again they apologised. I received an email explaining the details of the contract saying that it would change over on Friday February 8th. That was yesterday. When I arrived home there was still no internet so I called Plusnet again. This time I was transferred to the "provisions" team. He said that there was a problem with their supplier but he could not contact them because it was too late in the day (19:30) and they would not be there. He advised me to call first thing the following morning, so I called at 10:19 this morning and was told that there were still "technical issues" with OpenReach and they had opened a "bridge case" which would mean that it could take another 5 working days before being completed.

I am now looking at the likelihood of being without my broadband connection for 2 weeks.

As a result, my wife can no longer work from home for a couple of days a week. She will have to drive to the office. In addition to this, my Amazon Prime Video, Netflix and BT Sport app services are unavailable even though I am still paying for them. Also I am unable to use the online gaming services for my Playstation and Xbox One. I am relying on my mobile phone data for my emails and internet browsing now.

This is unacceptable!

I was hoping that the "bridge case" raised by Plusnet support today would mean that the problem would be solved quickly but I have read other customers' experiences of multiple "bridge cases" being raised which can result in a loss of service extending for weeks or even months.

I have logged into my Plusnet account and noticed a "question" logged by a customer services where they have requested a £13.98 discount on my Fibre Extra contract when it goes live but that's beginning to look more like an insult than actual compensation.

Surely it doesn't have to be like this. I have managed to keep my cool on the phone but this is so frustrating. Is there anything else that can be done to make sure that this is fixed asap?

Moderator's note by Mike (Mav): A duplicate post has been released from Spam Filter and subsequently removed.

[#2]

Hello, @Mr_Morpheus I am deeply sorry to hear about the recent experience you have had with us.

I have responded to your query via a ticket. You can view this by Clicking Here

Should you require any further assistance, please do get back in touch with us.

Many thanks. 

[#3]

Thank you Dumbledore for replying. I read the notes on the ticket you updated against my account and I accept that the current situation is due to a technical issue that needs to be resolved by OpenReach.
I am hopeful that I will have my fibre broadband extra service up and running before the end of next week.

[#4]

I'm really sorry to see you were downgraded to standard broadband in error.

We'll chase this up with our suppliers on the 18/02/2019 after the 5 working days has passed for them to try to fix the system problem.

In the meantime while we're sorting this out, you should be able to connect to the internet albeit at slow speeds of between 1 to 3.5mbps, I'd recommend following these steps to connect so you'd have some form of broadband at least:

1. Open an internet browser and type http://192.168.1.254 into the address bar
2. Press the 'Enter' or 'Return' key
3. Click on 'Advanced Settings'
4. Enter the admin password, which is on the back of the router
5. Click on 'OK'
6. Click on 'Continue to Advanced Settings'
7. Click on 'Broadband'
8. Click on 'Disconnect' if necessary
9. Enter your broadband username, which is in the format of yourusername@plusdsl.net
10. Enter your broadband password, which is your account password
11. Click on 'Connect'

Apologies for the inconvenience caused.

[#5]

I received an email today saying that question (#187315748 ) had been updated on my account so I've just logged in to check the current situation.

I can see an entry from the guy I spoke to on Saturday 9th Feb who raised the "bridge case" at 10:46am where he said:
"This Question is now on hold until Thursday 14th February at 7:00am."

Then there is another update on Saturday at 6:30pm which says:
"The Question 187315748 has been released from hold and sent back to BOT - FTTC Provides"

Now there is another entry for today (Monday 11th) which says:
"We'll chase this up with our suppliers on the 18/02/2019 after the 5 working days has passed for them to try to fix the system problem."

This is followed by another entry saying:
"This Question is now on hold until Monday 18th February at 7:00am."

So it looks as if you were planning to chase the supplier on 14th Feb but this morning you're saying that you have no plans to chase the supplier until 18th Feb. This is madness. I only wanted to increase the speed of my existing fibre broadband.

Wouldn't it be easier to reconnect me to my original 38Mbps fibre connection and leave it at that?

[#6]

Unfortunately we can't place any other broadband order on the line due to the order to fibre extra being stuck. There can ever only be one order in place on our suppliers systems at any one time I'm afraid.

I've moved your ticket to my ownership to check back next week so once it comes off hold you'll notice it goes back to "SM - AM" which basically is "Social Media - Anoush Mortazavi".

[#7]

Thank you Anoush for the quick reply.

In your experience, is there any likelihood of OpenReach resolving this issue before you have to chase them on Monday 18th? 

[#8]

In my experience I've seen stuck orders take as little as a day or as long as months to fix to be honest so it'll be difficult to advise in your case. All we can realistically do is make sure we're chasing this up at every opportunity and if it's on-going then we'd request that it's escalated further.

When i chased this up this morning I was pretty much hard turned back due to still being within the initial 5 working day lead time for a bridge case. A bridge case is basically a request for a back-end team to investigate the system issue affecting an order. 

[#9]

Thanks Anoush. I appreciate your honesty.

Whilst I would much prefer to stay with Plusnet I've had to look at other options. It seems that there is no point moving to BT because they still have to use OpenReach so I would still have the same problem. This only leaves Virgin as a viable option. I originally left them to join you (Plusnet) because they were too expensive. Unfortunately I am reaching the point where I have no choice. My wife needs the ability to remotely connect to her place of work and I want access to all of the online services that I am currently paying for.

If the situation is unresolved by Monday 18th, can you confirm that I would be free to cancel my contract with Plusnet and go to another supplier without incurring any charges? 

[#10]

No problem. It's unlikely that the problem will be 100% resolved by Monday, because we'd need an engineer to go out to reconnect your line to the fibre equipment at the cabinet following the system issues being resolved.

Regarding allowing you to leave your contract term without penalty, I hope it doesn't come to that, but I'd need to discuss this with my line manager though we'll see where we are next week first.

As an interim (and very slow) solution, have you tried connecting to the standard broadband we've got in place at the moment?

[#11]

Connecting to the slow broadband is pointless. I used to have ADSL2 before I swapped to Virgin. The fastest speed I can get is 2.5Mbps which is only good for general browsing which is something I can already do from my mobile phone (faster) via 4G.

Thank you for staying on top of this but I can't help being angry and frustrated at the fact that we wouldn't be in this position if someone at Plusnet hadn't made the mistake of ordering ADSL instead of Fibre Extra. 

I will keep an eye on my emails on the off chance that OpenReach get back to you before the 18th. 

[#12]

Ah fair, if you've got access to 4G (and probably even 3G) then I appreciate that'd be a better interim solution than the speeds that standard broadband on your line can achieve. While we can't cover the costs you've incurred because of this, I'll be happy to offer you a gesture of goodwill (I think my colleague Wakas mentioned this on the ticket) once this is resolved which could be used towards those costs.

With regards to your service being downgraded in the first instance, I'll ensure feedback is passed on to the advisers line manager.

[#13]

Hello Anoush,

Seeing as there is still no news from OpenReach, I decided to take a look at the activity on my Plusnet account to see if anything had changed. I spotted this in the "Closed Questions" :

Service Notice #403306299
8:37am, Monday 11 Feb 2019
A router has been created
Model: Plusnet Hub One Type A

I didn't ask for a router.

Is this some sort of automated process which kicked in as a result of my Fibre Extra order?

[#14]

That's just a notification indicating that your router has been re-added to the hardware management platform. I actually did that which triggered that notification. Occasionally this can help a router authenticate into our network.

I've also checked the fibre order and we've received no new updates unfortunately.

[#15]

Thanks Anoush.

If OpenReach/BT haven't made any progress when you chase them for an update on Monday 18th then I will have to cancel my contract with PlusNet. I honestly believe that you are trying to resolve this issue as quickly as you can but at the end of the day you (PlusNet) have not provided me with the service I ordered.

It started it with PlusNet ordering the wrong broadband service from OpenReach/BT which resulted in me losing my existing PlusNet fibre broadband and since then it has been further compounded by some sort of technical problem with OpenReach/BT which may or may not be fixed by Monday 18th.

It will be 2 weeks tomorrow (Friday) since PlusNet disconnected my fibre broadband service.  That's 2 weeks during which my wife has been unable to remotely connect to her place of work and 2 weeks of Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, BT Sport and Now TV that I've paid for but not been able to access. 

Yes, I know I've already mentioned this before but you have to appreciate just how frustrating this is. Offering a discount as a goodwill gesture is a nice idea but it doesn't guarantee that I am going to get what I ordered any time soon.