Moved to Plusnet now no phone tone/broadband. Help!

[#1]

Hi There,
Can I ask what happened in the longer term? Did your problem get fixed or did you regularly experience the same complete lack of service? I'm asking as I joined Plusnet (from Sky) 3 months ago and I regularly have no dial tone or broadband. I call Plusnet, they say it's a fault with the exchange, wait a few days, engineer fixes if, seems ok then all happens again. I don't understand why it's so unstable when with Sky over a 3 year period I can't remember any downtime at all?? It's so frustrating!!! The fact that some level of connectivity returns in between the failures almost makes it more frustrating due to the unpredictability of it all. All the family have now exceeded their mobile data allowances as they've become so used to the WiFi not being available. I've found the Plusnet support staff very personable over the phone - but I'd much rather have a stable and consistently available phone and broadband service. Any thoughts or tips to get out of this cycle would be really appreciated. Thx

[#2]

I'd much rather have a stable and consistently available phone and broadband service.

wouldn't we all !

Hi  first off - No idea what happened to the OP. as he hasn't posted since.

Your problem @S_Stan is unlikely to be due to the same reason as the OP : phone line faults can occur at any time for a million dfifferent reasons. Despite what you may think by looking in these forums, most line problems do get fixed to customer satisfaction - in my actual experience - eventually. You need bucket fulls of patience and determination. There is very little difference between ISP providers. From what you have written so far  I would guess that you have been connected to some dodgy Plus Net kit at the local exchange. In fact it sounds like what is often termed a "battery fault" or an earth circuit problem, which could be easily fixed - but I'm not an engineer who is able to investigate.  If the problem persists and you had a better service with your previous provider you can try switching back to them or  to an alternative to ensure that you get connected to different equipment . Good luck!

[#3]

Hi @S_Stan

I'm sorry to hear you're continually experiencing problems with your phone line.

From what I can see we've only reported this once to Openreach. If there are repeated faults raised to our suppliers regarding a service we can look to escalate it with them.

On the broadband side of things, testing your line is showing a lot of errors building up, which can cause drops and in turn slow speeds, so I've made a change to the settings on your line now which should resolve this. What I've done is increase the signal to noise (SNR) ratio from 3dB to 6dB. A low SNR means that the line is running really fast giving you as much speed as possible but sometimes it can essentially trip over itself and cause a variety of problems like the ones you're experiencing.

If you continue to experience problems though we'd need to look into this in further detail so I'd recommend reporting a fault to us at http://faults.plus.net and our faults guys will contact you once you've raised it, though feel free to let us know over here when/if you've raised and we'll be happy to take a look too.

I hope this helps.

[#4]

Thanks for the replies. Tonight has been very problematic again ( I called Plusnet support yesterday eve and was told a fault has been raised with the exchange again.) Still no dial tone (but instead sounds permanently engaged) I have struggled to play anything on iPlayer and even basic webpages have been loading in 'stages' with pictures coming much later ( a bit like old fashioned 'dial-up' connections). It seems as though the previous posters comments about needing lots of patience are spot on as I don't seem to have any way of ensuring that I can get connected to 'decent kit' in the exchange - that I presumably had with Sky? I'm getting close to fighting any cancellation charges and returning to Sky. Again, any further help wud be appreciated. Thanks.

[#5]

I'm unsure as to why you've been advised that as the only fault we've raised with our suppliers has been cleared by them.

As line tests aren't finding the cause of the problem we'll need to arrange an engineer visit for further investigation.

If you can reply to this ticket with the requested info letting us know over here once you've done so we'll be happy to get the appointment booked in.

Thanks

[#6]

Still no dial tone (but instead sounds permanently engaged)

line tests aren't finding the cause of the problem

No dial tone suggests that one of the legs is disconnected which should clearly show as a fault on the line tests.  That raises the possibility of a crossed line - what the exchange sees / is testing might not be the line connected to your property.

Have you tried phoning your number to see what happens?

Broadband is not going to work well if the "phone" line is not working properly.

Please perform a quiet line test - dial 17070 select option 2 using a corded phone plugged into the test socket behind the face plate of the master socket. It should be silent. A noisy phone line (or no dial tone) will have a marked adverse impact on the performance of broadband.

If the line is noisy or there is no dial tone, then a PHONE LINE fault needs to be raised with your phone provider. If this is PlusNet, you can report a fault on line using the button below.  From the Q&A list, choose the one which matches the problem, 'open' the 'section' and click the trouble-shooter link.  NB: If you receive a failure message (rather than a log-in prompt) then log-in to the user portal in a different browser tab and attempt to use the trouble-shooter again.

• Phone Faults

 If you can do this test, confirm that the number reported is your number.