Is it always this bad, or am I unlucky?

[#1]

I'm totally new to broadband but happily had just a landline from BT for 14 years without any problem.

1. Placed order with PlusNet for home phone and broadband & got an eMail from BT telling me when they would relinquish my line to PlusNet (today).
2. Got an eMail from PlusNet at circa 4am this morning saying my phone had been transferred across - theoretically great, except that it's not strictly true: my phone hasn't worked all day (no dial tone).
3. The first guy at the Call Centre (circa 11am) told me it would definitely be fixed today and the phoneline wouldn't work until the broadband had been added, so not to worry - it would definitely be working today.
4. The second guy at the Call Centre (circa 6pm) put me through to a tech guy who said there's a fault on the landline at the exchange so he's raised a ticket for Openreach who seemingly have a 72hr Service Level Agreement to even mobilise - and no specified/agreed timescale for fixing anything.
5. The third guy at the Call Centre (circa 7pm) confirmed that there's nothing anyone at the Call Centre can do to escalate the problem (it's all apparently in the hands of Openreach) - all PlusNet Call Centre staff can do is raise tickets - they can't chase Openreach, and Openreach seem to be accountable to no-one.

So here I am without a working phone, nor any idea when it will be fixed. PlusNet never mentioned that during the switch-over my phone would be out of action for an unspecified time (I've almost given up caring about broadband, I just want my phone to work again - like it did for the 14 years uninterrupted/faultless while I was with BT).

Am I just unlucky, or is it always like this?

[#2 · Accepted solution]

Hi Steve,

I'm sorry for the issues with your phone after moving across to us and the delay with your fibre order. From what I can see those issues are both related to one another so when one's fixed the other should be as well.

An engineer went out yesterday to carry out work to move your line onto the fibre equipment at the cabinet (the green box in the road), but while they were out they've detected what's known as an "Earth Contact" fault at the exchange affecting the phone line so the fibre order went into a delay and was passed to another engineer to fix. 

Unfortunately while we'd love for everything to go perfectly, I'm afraid that problems can happen and we'll do our best to raise them to our suppliers once we're aware of them and get them fixed as soon as we possibly can. 

Another engineer's scheduled to investigate that fault today and hopefully get you up and running. Once the fault's fixed you should have your phone back immediately but your broadband may take up to midnight to go live, because the order would need to complete on several supplier systems before the service activates.

With regards to the timeframe of 72 hours you've been given by the adviser you've spoken to, this is on the back of the adviser raising a phone fault with Openreach as we were provided an estimated response time of by 18/03/21 23:59:59, this means that an engineer should be investigating at any point up to the end of that timeframe.

It's correct that we can't escalate the problem with Openreach if we're within the estimated response time we've been given as we need to allow our suppliers an opportunity to fix as when engineer goes out would be based on engineer availability in the area. Normally we wouldn't know which day that'd be but it's fairly clear from the notes on the fibre order that it should be today. I suspect that the adviser you've spoken to may not have had access to that specific information as they were part of the technical support department rather than the provisioning team that deal with orders. There are occasionally some issues that cross over between prov and tech. 

However we can't put a 100% guarantee on an engineer investigating your phone today as it would depend upon engineer availability. For example, Openreach will divert engineer resource last minute to attend to welfare cases if needed, which leads me to that generally the only instance we can expedite a phone repair at a priority is through an emergency welfare case, however there'd be certain criteria we'd have to meet to raise one, for example you'd have to have a careline pendant or no mobile phone and serious medical conditions. If you do meet that criteria, I'd recommend filling out our additional support form Here and please drop me a private message with the details. 

I hope this helps.

[#3]

Many thanks @Gandalf  - I am delighted to report that after a full afternoon's slog up every telegraph pole and delving into every roadside cabinet in my neighbourhood, or so it seemed, the Openreach Engineer has fixed the fault [much applause to them] and I now have everything working. Many thanks to all at Plusnet and Openreach for their efforts.

[I'll now need to change my user-id to be OnlineSteve]

[#4]

Thanks for getting back to me @OfflineSteve 

Glad to see that you're back up and running now. If you'd want to pass on your thanks about the engineer's work, I'd recommend filling out the feedback form on Openreach's website Here.

Also feel free to drop me a PM if you'd want your forum username changing and I'll be happy to arrange it.