Phone fault (noise on line) - why no updates? And how does escalation work?

[#1]

I logged a phone fault on Sunday (26th May) as there were hisses and crackles on the line and broadband was up and down every few minutes, and download speed has plummeted - the line noise is so bad at times that it's hard to have a proper conversation. This is the second time that I've had to report this problem - the first time was on 16th May and a BT engineer appeared to have fixed this on 23rd May (it was caused by my line coming into contact with a neighbour's line about 100m down the road). Another BT engineer visited my home yesterday - no faults were found in the home wiring, as expected, but a line fault was detected external to my property (up to 2000m away, apparently). The engineer promised to phone me with an update after he'd checked the line further down the road, but I didn't hear anymore. I posted an update on the support ticket (. #69666471 ) yesterday evening and requested an update but none has been forthcoming. I phoned for an update this afternoon but was told that nothing could be done until BT provided an update. When I asked for this to be chased up I was told this wasn't possible as there was a 72 hour SLA and BT had another couple of days to respond.
I think this is very poor service as it can't be that hard to provide an update on what's going on, or being planned - at the moment, I have no idea whether anyone is even looking at the problem. I also had a look at the Plusnet home phone faults policy and couldn't see anything about the SLA - all I could see that was relevant was this (shown in blue text):-
When we have raised a fault to BTW we will receive an estimated update time, which depends on the type of the fault. Typically this is set to Midnight on the day after a fault is raised, and in most cases the fault is solved or updated before this point. If the fault is not resolved, we will follow up each day and call BT for an update as soon as possible after the next update time is exceeded.
It is rare that updates are not received after the first call to BT, but in circumstances where this occurs, we will instigate a fixed escalation process in order to get the fault progressed as quickly as possible. Once BT advise that the fault is resolved, we will make contact with the customer in order to confirm this. Only following this confirmation will we close the fault Ticket and acknowledge with BTWs systems that the issue is resolved.
Escalation Procedure
Escalation contacts are made by telephone in the first instance, and email is used for follow-ups. The escalation procedure is as follows:
First Escalation - SMC (Service Management Centre)
Second Escalation - SMC Team Leader
Third Escalation - Duty Repair Manager
Fourth Escalation - Head of Assurance
Fifth Escalation - General Manager of Service Operations
Once BT advise that the fault is resolved the customer will be contacted and asked to confirm this, before the fault is marked as 'closed' in both our customer management system and BTs fault system.
So, my questions to Plusnet (or anyone who knows how the process works) are:-
1.  Why aren't regular (daily?) updates applied to support tickets as a matter of course? Even something like "awaiting response from BT, escalating to next level" would show that someone is at least monitoring the situation. So much for "we will follow up each day"...
2. How does the escalation process work? i.e. can a customer request request escalation to the next level, or is this triggered by internal procedures? The Plusnet assistant to whom I spoke this afternoon certainly wasn't prepared to chase or escalate anything, so I'd be interested to see how others resolve this lack of communication (and lack of helpfulness).

[#2]

Hi there,
First I'd like to state that I've added further notes to your fault and will check for you later on today to see if there's any updates - really sorry this is ongoing as long as it is.
To address your questions -
1) When we receive an update it usually has an ERT (estimated resolution time) or a date for an engineer appointment. Once either is received we know we won't get any further updates until that date, so the ticket is usually put on hold until then - that'll be why it isn't being updated daily, though I apologise if you're not getting updates in a timely fashion when the ticket comes off hold. That's why I'm offering to chase this one for you.
2) We can only escalate if our suppliers have been negligent in some way, i.e. missed engineer appointments or the fault going on past an ERT without any further information being added so it's not something we can do on demand really, sorry about that.
Hope that helps explain, as I said I'll check the fault later on today and confirm any further notes/updates.

[#3]

Thanks for the offer, Matt - this is appreciated. I understand what you say about waiting for updates from BT but if you look at it from my point of view, I was kept in the dark for more than a day when a simple courtesy update would have been appreciated. That said, when I phoned the PN faults team this morning  for an update I spoke to a helpful and sympathetic guy who actually read through the BT engineer's notes and told me what was going on. Apparently, another engineer did check the line in my road yesterday but found no fault - I can't imagine what checks he did as there is still a lot of noise on the line and broadband is extremely unstable. If I was being cynical, then I could suggest that his willingness to investigate was diminished by the rainy weather that we had yesterday...
My main concern, though, is that BT will keep batting the problem back and forwards until I'm lucky enough to get an engineer who is prepared to follow standard fault-finding techniques and diagnose the problem properly - I dread a repeat of the fiasco of about 4  years ago when more than 10 BT engineers visited my home, armed with all sorts of diagnostic equipment, but seemingly little knowledge of how to interpret the results. That problem was only finally resolved when an old-fashioned linesman actually bothered to check the physical condition of the line at various points from my property to the nearest "green box" - he eventually found that my line was making contact with a neighbour's line about 100m down the road. Much the same as the problem that was discovered last week, although the engineer wasn't so good at fixing it this time around..
I, along with most people, cannot afford to keep taking time off work in order to allow BT to repeat tests within the home - I had to do this more than 10 times when this problem first appeared about 4 years ago and I'm just not prepared to do this again. If one BT engineer says that the home wiring is fine then that should be good enough - there should be no need to bother me again and they should concentrate on finding faults elsewhere in the network. The phone line from the nearest telegraph pole to my house is wired in to a connection box under the eaves, so any further tests that BT need to do could be done at that box (or at the telegraph pole connection) i.e. without requiring me to be at home. The engineer who visited on Tuesday confirmed that the fault was apparent at the connection box under the eaves, and he also confirmed that this meant that my home wiring could therefore be excluded from subsequent investigation.  If they need permission to enter my garden to access this connection box then I'll happily provide this as it is infinitely preferable to having to take yet more time off work.

[#4]

Thanks for that, we'll certainly do what we can. One of our phone faults agents is looking at the fault now to see what can be done regarding the engineer and someone will be in touch with you a bit later on this afternoon to advise what should be happening.

[#5]

Should be good news coming your way shortly - it looks like we've been able to task an engineer to fix the external fault without a visit being required. I believe details regarding this'll be on your ticket very soon.

[#6]

That's great news, Matt - much appreciate your help with this.

[#7]

Well, the good news is that another BT engineer arrived today. The bad news is that he declared that there was no fault on the line - not even any noise. And there was more bad news in that the engineer ignored requests from PN to just check the wiring outside my property as that's clearly where the problem lies - he turned up on my doorstep just as I was leaving for work and, against my better judgment, I let him in to conduct some tests at the master socket. My reasoning was that this surely wouldn't be as bad as the last time BT tried to fix a similar problem 4 years ago (10+ home visits...) that I mentioned in a previous post.
However, I've just returned from work and noticed that there have been several disconnections since this morning (and several in the last few minutes), and there is still noise on the line - so, no, BT haven't fixed the problem and I've asked PN to get this checked yet again. This really is beginning to smell very like the similar fault that occurred in a very similar place about 4 years ago, so I'd very much appreciate it if Matt could have another go at getting BTW to see if they can beat the last record of 10+ visits before they fix the problem (and I mean much fewer visits, not more....) .
My personal opinion, for what it's worth, is that BTW send the wrong people to fix this sort of error - I don't think it needs a broadband engineer with lots of fancy test equipment; it just needs an old-fashioned engineer who doesn't mind getting his (or her) hands dirty when physically checking the cabling. Today's "engineers" seem to prefer doing their work in comfort - I can't say I blame them, but I do think they place too much reliance on their test equipment and not enough emphasis on investigative techniques. If computer says "NO", then that's it as far as they're concerned...

[#8]

Is it Broadband engineers being sent? You've reported a noisy phone line! Are Plusnet talking to Openretch or BTw?

[#9]

Well, two of them were more interested in the broadband than the line noise, and did various tests on this. PN have apparently been speaking to Openreach as it is classified as a phone fault, so who knows what's going on?  Still no resolution, by the way - the line's still noisy with lots of crackles and clicks, and broadband download speed is currently just 287kbps. Waiting for engineer #5 to add their twopennuth - maybe tomorrow, if I'm lucky...

[#10]

Well when they come you really want to rub it in about the crackling on the line - forget mentioning the broadband - that'll come right when the line's fixed. Tell them you are sick on not being able to hear the people you call and those that call you as it gets so bad now and again!

[#11]

I've told PN that I'm not taking any more time off work to see these time-wasters - they know how annoyed I am with the lack of progress. The PN support guys have confirmed that they can hear the bad noise on the line when I have reported the issue to them, and they have seen evidence of the frequent broadband disconnections (and BT should be able to see this too as it's on their system...) The engineers can check the line in my road without me being at home, and the weather has improved enough to maybe entice even the more fragile types to venture up a telegraph pole or have a look under an inspection cover 

[#12]

Assuming they can get any of the covers off because they've seized up through lack of use