Problem calling a number abroad

[#1]

@shermans FTTP is Fibre to the Premises, the same as FTTH.

[#2]

adamwalker

I have now tried to call the number on my neighbour's telephone, and it rings without issue.  I have tried my line using another handset and it does not ring.  I have rung other numbers in France in the locality who are with the same service provider as both my French line and the person to whom I am having difficulty trying to connect in France. So therefore the problem has to be associated with my Plusnet line only.

Can a ticket therefore be raised to have this investigated ?  Or should I add this problem to the broadband fault that is already being investigated by Plusnet ?  As the broadband fault has been on-going since 1st March, I am actually getting a bit fed up that it has still not been resolved.  Openreach have visited five times, but it is never the same crew and they are never briefed when they arrive each time.  So rather than get to the bottom of it, they just do the same old cursory checks and find nothing, although their own records show that the problem is on-going. They just shrug their shoulders and go away.  It is about time that this fault was dealt with properly by getting to the bottom of it.

Can you flag it for me as part of the Plusnet Help Team ?

Thanks for your interest.

[#3]

@shermans

I have now tried to call the number on my neighbour's telephone,

Do you know who provides your neighbours phone service by any chance ?

Apologies shermans, if the following is over your head, it's really addressed at the other posters on the thread

I'm thinking if it's an LLU or Cable provider i.e SKY/TT/VM then is there different call routing involved than for a BTw provided line?

[#4]

Yes, it is BT - same basically as Plusnet which is why I used them particularly.

[#5]

Thanks for that shermans, well that eliminates any call routing differences I would have thought. 

[#6]

Sorry to hear you're still having issues.

I can see your line is set to withhold your number when you call out. Have you tried not withholding the number when you call it? It may also be worth trying 1280 before the number. These may not fix it but they are things we can rule out

[#7]

Problem solved !!   I tried 1280 as a pre-fix but it made no difference.  However, when I normally suppress the "number withheld" service, I dial "1470" and not "1280".  So I tried "1470" and lo and behold, it worked.  I have tried several times since, and only "1470" works, which is interesting.

However, my friend has not changed any of his settings at his end with regard to not accepting "number withheld" calls.  The only thought is that there was a big thunderstorm in his locality, and he is wondering if his system got zapped and changed something !  As his phone is "MIMO WiFi", like mine in France, that is quite likely as it may be more susceptible than conventional fibre.

For those who do not know what "MIMO WiFi" is, it is a broadcast system for rural areas in France.  The fibre goes up the church spire in our village, from where a broadband signal is broadcast to various repeaters in the locality like other church spires, water towers and even masts on the opposite hillside.  My house has a 6" x 6" receiver mounted on the chimney which is directed at a repeater 4 km distant; it has to be line-of-sight.  We get a constant 25 mbps broadband service, including telephone which I assume is VOIP, but you would never know as the calls are crystal clear.

[#8]

1280 is to force routing over BT systems. As you suggest this looks like a remote party anonymous call reject issue. The message (or absence of one) does not help.

[#9]

I don't know how modern landline phones work, though mine are 12 years old now are starting to play up so they could be due to be replaced.

I've seen recent ones advertised which have a facility to block (what they call) nuisance calls.

I'm wondering if there is something enabled on their phones which blocks calls with CLID withheld.

[#10]

MatthewWheeler

Thanks for fixing the French dialling issue.  That is now resolved by using "1470" as a pre-fix.

However, what remains UNRESOLVED is my broadband cutting out.  Ironically, when I tried to post my last message, the broadband cut out and I had to re-write it when it came back on !  Not very convenient.

My ticket has just been updated again with the usual excuses - the same old thing, over and over and over again.  I have tried to contact Support by Chat but it is not even available.  I have tried to telephone but there is no answer.

The situation has now got so silly that I have replied to the ticket (which no-one will read any way) giving formal notice that if my ticket is not escalated to management within the next 24 hours and management has not got in touch with me, then I will make a formal complaint to OFCOM.  This is so ridiculous.  It has gone on since the ticket was first raised three months ago, on 1st March, with no improvement.  Each time that Openreach visits (fives times so far) it is a different crew and they do not know what the previous crew has done.  They just do the same old line checks and because it is working, off they toddle having done nothing. The fact that an hour after they disappear it falls out again does not seem to bother anyone. 

I went away for two weeks and agreed with Plusnet that I would - at some inconvenience to me - unplug all my equipment in my absence and connect the router directly to the TEST socket, which I did.  I have now discovered that my line was not monitored by Plusnet as agreed during my absence, and so I was wasting my time.

So I have had enough.

I hope that someone from the Plusnet Help Team reading this forum will take some action to get my ticket 169521461 addressed, as I do not want to have to go down the route of complaining to OFCOM.  But if I get no reply to my ticket by MANGEMENT within the next 24 hours, that is what I will do.  I am simply not prepared to take this any longer.

[#11]

I'm glad to hear that the phone issue is resolved.

With regards to your broadband issues I'm investigating this further and will update your ticket shortly

[#12]

MatthewWheeler

Thanks for your help.

Sorry if I have sounded off about this, but I hope you will appreciate that it is frustrating that no notice is taken of my replies to the tickets.  The failure to respond to my question as to whether Plusnet had been monitoring my service during my absence, and the the realisation that there was no Radius report posted on the ticket for the period that I was away was the last straw. 

I went to a lot of trouble to disconnect the router (which is not very accessible) and then to re-locate it so that I could plug it directly into the TEST socket during my absence, having disconnected also the telephone and the three ethernet networks normally connected to the router.  It meant that a friend staying in my house while I was away could not use my telephone but had to rely on her mobile phone, and as we have no mobile signal, that meant going into the village to connect to her service provider.  So please understand my annoyance when I discovered that it was all a complete waste of time and achieved nothing.

If Plusnet had monitored my connection in my absence as requested by Plusnet and agreed, we might have got clues as to what might be precipitating the drop-outs - i.e. neighbours coming home from work increasing demand etc.  But now we are back at square one, because I am using the internet myself and therefore my usage cannot be eliminated from the puzzle.

If Openreach are coming out again, please can you request that they send someone who has been here before, to save re-inventing the wheel yet again.  This will be their sixth visit !

Anyway, thanks for responding.  It is most appreciated and I keep my fingers crossed that there might be some real action this time.

[#13]

Hi @shermans,

I'm very sorry for the length of time that this issue has been ongoing and for the inconvenience that this has caused you. Due to this, and the number of engineer visits that you have had, Matthew has raised an escalation to our suppliers to ensure that any future engineers are fully briefed on the history of the fault and he has updated the ticket here.

Regards,

Emily