Phone kaput

[#1]

As you can see from the previous post my phone line will not be fixed today, maybe tomorrow. So that's almost two weeks without a phone line, so frustrating. I pay my line rental for the year upfront could someone at Plusnet tell me what compensation I can expect and when will I receive it.     

[#2]

Yes I'm back again. If you have been following this thread you will no that I have been waiting nearly two weeks to get my phone line restored.  Well its now two weeks. Plusnet said because of a high work stack in my area it would be repaired on the 1st March. I had no contact from Plusnet the day before the repair was supposed to take place to confirm this or on the day of the repair. So I emailed Ben Tribble to ask if he could confirm this. He emailed me back to inform me that it was not his departmnt ( so much for a company going that extra mile). He suggested I phone customer support, I will Ben when I get my phone line repaired. I had a reply on this thread from Chris Pettitt apologizing for the delay stating it was because of a high work stack in my area (that phrase again). I have tried to send a private email to Chris but his email is hidden, I wonder why. I have been a Plusnet customer for quite some time and have both my phone and broadband with them. I have recommended them to friends and family. But this incident and the lack of support from Plusnet means i will be leaving at the end of my contract. The service I have received from the BT group is deplorable. Is there anyone at Plusnet who can resolve this problem.   

[#3]

Whilst Ben may have appeared to have not been over-helpful, he isn't a DCT member. Whilst he can answer and perhaps deal with things related to Plusnet's phone packages and costs, Faults don't come within his area of responsibility.
Openreach are responsible for the maintenance/installation of the phone lines & also Fibre equipment and they still have a backlog of work from all the bad weather we've had since last Summer & Autumn,never mind the Winter! They are also a separate organisation.
See http://community.plus.net/forum/index.php/topic,112300.msg965771.html#msg965771
If you been a Plusnet customer for sometime,I'm surprised that you haven't experience the good support they provide - yes they can get let down by their supplies, but like all other ISPs/CPs (except Virgin Media Cable) they have to rely on BTw & Openreach, there is no choice.
If you look at the top of the board, you'll see a row of Forum links in the middle there's one called "Messages". If you look there shortly you'll find one from me!

[#4]

So I assume that means despite the original repair date yesterday and the rescheduled repair date today, you have no phone and two appointments have been missed.
Can anyone explain the escalation now - I assume as part of the SLA there is an escalation once appointments have been missed? I am also intregued to know as, as I have been harping on about, my first external appointment was missed, Support said they could not escalate until two appointmens have been missed
So now it can be escalated apparently!?
As for BT Wholesale - if we are saying they still have not caught up with the back log of work from summer last year - nearly five months later, then maybe they need to stop installing new fibre connections untilt their repair backlog is finished - perhaps that will train their mind when they can no longer earn the money to pay for the fibre network... If as stated the government and the ofcom can't sort them out then hungry shareholders will. Interesting to check the lead time for new equipment... Are people waiting 5 months to get fibre installed?

[#5]

We probably need James or Ben Trimble to explain about these SLA's. Chris Pettitt may be able to explain about escalations.
As for BT Wholesale & OpenRetch come to that, in fact more so them, in one of the posts where the delays have been mentioned I have said that there should be MBORCs still in place and stating the areas affected. At least the customers/potential customers would be aware there could be delays. Anyway there isn't any MBORC, so you'll all be able to claim some compensation yes/no?

[#6]

Let me answer your point's Anotherone.
Ben may not work in that department but any employee of any company should go that extra mile to assist a customer.Please don't make lame excuses for Openreach. If they have such a backlog of work I would suggest they hire more staff. As to your point concerning good support, I suggest you read my post again. where I state that I have recommended Plusnet to friends and family. You state that they are a separate organization. But Openreach, BT and plusnet are all owned by the same group. And the BT group have a monopoly on repairs. Your not a frustrated customer who has been without a phone line for two weeks. Once again I ask is there someone at Plusnet who can resolve this problem.    

[#7]

Well, dates came and went with no input from Plusnet (due to the 72 hour response law I was told).  However managed to talk to two OpenRetch workers working on fibre Green box, who very helpfully looked up my details, were horrified by the two week delay and promised they would talk to their manager.  No promises.  But within 2 days, the full team was outside with cherry picker and by the end of the day had fixed the line.  :).  Open Reach guys most helpful, unlike .....  Signing off for now.  (Hope you managed to get yours fixed soon)

[#8]

@prisoner, well done for that. Most of the guys on the ground are great and will do things like that. It is Openreach systems and senior management and BTw systems that are the pits.
@gerdren, I am NOT defending Openreach at all, where did I say that. I am their biggest critic - read some of my posts, so please don't try to make out I am. I was merely stating what the situation was, and we've all got to lump it unfortunately or complain to OFCOM.
You may have recommended Plusnet to friends & family but I didn't see you say anything about their Support apart from the criticism about this issue & rightly so - what I said was

Quote

If you've been a Plusnet customer for sometime, I'm surprised that you haven't experienced the good support they provide

Clearly on this occasion they haven't provided good support.
As for Ben, yes there are times when I've experienced that he comes across as not being too helpful, but I've also experienced him being very helpful.
Did you read my PM?

[#9]

Here is a quote from Nanotm from another subject being discussed on this forum. (the problem here is we "privatised" all the infrastructure companies then split htem up with regulators paid for by the industry...the industry is a cluster**** because its interoperability is governed by paid services (bt retail for instance has/had a 12hour responce sla with btor/btw but most other companies only have a much cheaper 40 or 72 hour sla, this means the time btor/w have to respond to the isp when a ticket is raised and includes a nominal best guess at resolution based on locality and nature of initial ticket raised ) this is then relayed to the consumer as an estimated time of completion for any faults/jobs.)  It seems the answer is to go back to BT for a speedier service. The package is going to be more expensive, but would I still be without my telephone for two weeks.
 

[#10]

I camped on a farm years ago and could not get my car to start. I asked the farmer if I could call, explaining it was a free phone number so there would be no cost to him.
"ah, nothing is free in life"... he explained, wondering over to the car. I called being told a three hour wait whilst he returned with a lump hammer, hit the starter motor and dislodging it so the car would start.
I thanked him and cancelled the call.
Naively and without the data available, I transferred from BT

• to save a £25 installation fee for fibre


• to make the occasional evening call free (even if plusnet rental + callerid is 75p more per month)


• based on my previous experience of a line fault affecting my broadband whereby I had to wait for plusnet to tell me to call BT, I believed that being under one banner, things would run smoother.

If nothing goes wroing, then plusnet are fine. However.... going back to the farmer when I was moaning about the wait time and cheap car breakdown, he nodded saying "remember, you only get what you pay for...".

[#11]

Quote from: ismoore999

to make the occasional evening call free (even if plusnet rental + callerid is 75p more per month)

Like for like, PN is £2.57 less than BT (where "free" evening calls are £3.30 pm). Otherwise ... 

[#12]

Quote from: gerden

........but would I still be without my telephone for two weeks.

You might have got an "update" within 12 hours, but who knows, as you still have to wait for OpenRetch to get off their ......

[#13]

Use 18185 Peegee. I think its a disgrace if its true that BT customers wait 12hrs for a update, but Plusnet customers wait 72hrs, I was with BT at one time and if I remember correctly they text you to keep you up to date with the progress. So I will be switching back to BT at the end of my contract after this fiasco. 

[#14]

Depends on how many "free" calls you make as to which is the most cost effective.

[#15]

the only reason bt retail has the higher grade sla is because they monopolise the buisness end of the market, buisnesses require much faster "fixes" to faults or generally have heavy penalty clauses for bt (like gettng free service for a month) this gives them the option to utilise this on the retail customers however thats far more location dependant (some rural locations can wait up to a week for a responce as theres no buisness cover and there sla is 72 hours as well)  sla's are not generally over the entire network but per exchange (allowing other service providers ot also have buisnes grade units) and in certain large exchanges there provisioned on a per dslam basis so litteraly two people living next door to each other can end up receiveng a vastly different service from the same provider
if your unhappy with the general sla system then complain to ofcom, and the service provider, the resolution of everyone getting the same provision regardless of S.P or locality will be a much higher line rental and possibly higher calling costs (to cover the costs of running a more responsive openreach/wholesale service)
of course doing this will be the deathnell of competition in the phone and broadband market across the uk as everyon ebut BT would be forced to charge far higher prices (thats the market share at work) it might suck somewhat but realistically unless plusnet is provideing a decent ammount of buisness services in your locality then your not likely to ever see there service being upgraded.
me i'll probably stay with plusnet no matter the faults or the time delays purely because they have a uk based call center and speaking to monkies in overseas locations who struggle to comunicate is nevre worth the "speedier" resolution (oh and i had ot wait 1 month for my phone to get fixed when i was with bt and they still failed to fix on the first call out, it actually took them 4 call outs over 4 months to finally resolve the issue.......