Ridiculously long set-up time for fibre optic

[#1]

Hello Plusnet,

I recently moved into a new house, and I've decided to go with Plusnet fibre optic broadband.
My phone line was activated yesterday, yet my broadband is apparently going to be activated on the 4th of July.
This is shy of a fortnight since my phone activation, and 16 days since I paid you for a month of service.
I understand there may be some delays with regards to engineer availability, but this is ridiculous.

My last house had virgin media fibre optic, and was activated on the same day.
Is there any reasonable explanation for your service being 1600% worse than Virgin's?

The internet is integral to the work I do at home, I can accept a delay up to a week (which I am pretty sure was promised in an earlier correspondence), but anything more than that is unacceptable unless there are exceptional circumstances.

Could you either ensure that I will be receiving my service sooner that the 4th of July, or provide me with a temporary means of connecting to the internet while I wait two weeks?

Many thanks,
Tom

[#2]

Hi @mancity511,

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@mancity511 wrote:

My phone line was activated yesterday, yet my broadband is apparently going to be activated on the 4th of July.
This is shy of a fortnight since my phone activation

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@mancity511 wrote:
I can accept a delay up to a week (which I am pretty sure was promised in an earlier correspondence), but anything more than that is unacceptable unless there are exceptional circumstances.

I'm afraid the minimum lead time on fibre is 5 working days (Or one week providing their are no bank holidays)

While I am sorry to hear there has been around a 1 week delay on top of the minimum lead time, unfortunately engineer availability is out of our control.

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@mancity511 wrote:

and 16 days since I paid you for a month of service.

Any charges for the service while it has not been active during a housemove should be refunded once the housemove orders have completed.

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@mancity511 wrote:

Could you either ensure that I will be receiving my service sooner that the 4th of July, or provide me with a temporary means of connecting to the internet while I wait two weeks?

While I understand this is not the response you're hoping for, I'm afraid we wouldn't be able to get you on fibre any sooner and we have no options available to us for providing temporary access to an alternative connection. Apologies for any inconvenience this causes.

[#3]

While the answer is incredibly frustrating, I'd like to applaud your swift and comprehensive response.

I'd appreciate it if you could answer a few more questions for me, please:
- Are activation dates fixed, or prone to change?
  If they are prone to change, can I expect to receive a text message notifying me of this?

- What am I waiting for exactly? You mentioned a reliance on an engineer, what are they doing?

- Will the refund you mentioned be automatically processed, or does it require me to provide you with dates and proof?

Many thanks

[#4 · Accepted solution]

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@mancity511 wrote:

- Are activation dates fixed, or prone to change?
  If they are prone to change, can I expect to receive a text message notifying me of this?

Activation dates are generally provisional initially, then confirmed by our suppliers. If our suppliers notify us of any delays etc. we should be notifying you appropriately.

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@mancity511 wrote:

- What am I waiting for exactly? You mentioned a reliance on an engineer, what are they doing?

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Work would be required at the cabinet/exchange to connect the service.

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@mancity511 wrote:

- Will the refund you mentioned be automatically processed, or does it require me to provide you with dates and proof?

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My previous response was based off of the housemove process, having double checked your account, I've realised that it's not actually a housemove with ourselves, but a new provide on a new account.

As such, the charges for broadband should only start from the date the services activate and any time in between the phone and broadband activating should be automatically adjusted on your next invoice.

Further to this, although it's not a huge amount of time there has also been some confusion surrounding the activation date.

Your order is actually due to complete on the 3rd. The notification you've received advising of by midnight on 04/07/2017 actually refers to 00:00:00 on the 4th, as the order can actually complete any time up until 23:59:59 on the 3rd.

I hope this clears things up.

[#5]

It's now been well over two weeks since I paid for the broadband, and a full day since the service was supposed to have been set up.

When can I expect to receive the service I ordered and paid for last month?

If it's a case of relying on engineers, can you please contact those engineers and ask them why the order has been so severely delayed.

I am staggered that it's taken so long for what appears to be a simple job. As said previously, virgin media set up my last internet on the same day! Blaming external engineers suggests to me that you should invest in your own service, or give me some form of compensation for having no internet and no indication of when I am likely to get it.

The lack of internet has cost me money in trips to libraries and friends' homes to borrow theirs, overlapped university deadlines which could not be submitted at home, and used my entire roaming internet on my phone. Frankly, no compensation feels very unfair.

[#6]

Unfortunately there was a further delay due to engineering resource in your area.

We've been advised that a engineer will be going out tomorrow to complete the order.

Once everything is sorted we'll see what we can do with regards to a gesture of goodwill.