New Customer - No Update On Openreach Engineer Visit

[#1]

Some time ago, I placed an order for PlusNet broadband after switching from broadband.

I had initially tried unsuccessfully to do so with my old landline phone number but after calling customer services, the order then went through with the required amendment to my postal address. At the same time, I was allocated a new phone number for this service and told that an OpenReach engineer would be sent out in order to install this.

That appointment was supposed to happen today (10 December 2020) between 8am and 1pm, but I received an email in advance to say that this engineer wouldn't need to actually visit my home as all of the work could be done outside. However, I was also told that I would be kept up to date with the latest developments for that.

I did successfully receive my new router after the amendment which was made to my postal address, but I have still had no response from either OpenReach or PlusNet on what has happened with today's scheduled appointment, and whether or not any work has actually been done on my phone line to get it up and running, and fully activated.

That is important because I have also been told not to set up new router until I have been informed that my broadband service is up and running and so far, I have not yet received that official confirmation.

I would would therefore be grateful if anyone could inform me about whether the OpenReach engineers activated my line or not, and when I will finally get to use my PlusNet service which I have waited for such a long time now, to actually be able to use.

[#2]

@Johncs2020  Have you got a phone you could try on the line. It is surprising how many people do not have a landline phone available to test their phone service. If you have a router just try it don't wait for any email or text. At the moment Plusnet are pretty poor at keeping their customers updated with how orders are progressing but let's hope the engineer did the necessary work. The other possible issue is that the activation may take up to midnight or Plusnet will not action it at all.🙄

[#3]

I have made some progress, but I still can't get fully up and running.

PHONE LINE

This was the first thing that I tested and the very first thing that I did was to check for a dial tone, and that was fine. This tells me that I at least have a working phone line.

I then tried to dial my new phone number from my mobile phone and since my landline phone then rang as it should, this confirms that I can now get incoming calls on my new phone line.

I then tried to dial my mobile phone from my landline phone and since my mobile phone then rang as it should and also showed up my new number on its caller display, this confirms that I can now make outgoing calls from my new phone line.

So far, so good. This means that phone line is working fine but when I then went to test my fibre broadband connection, it then went all wrong.

BROADBAND

I set up the new router as per the given instructions and at first, it all looked promising as I then even got a blue light for a while. According to the instructions, I am meant to relax and have a cup of coffee for five minutes and then when I come back, that light should still be solid blue.

However, that didn't happen with me and what actually happened is that the light turned back to orange at the top and red on the bottom. I then logged into the router interface with the given IP address of 192.168.1.254 (not sure why they chose that particular one as this is normally 192.168.1.1 with most other providers although this doesn't actually matter since that is still on the same 192.168.1.x network anyway).

On the home page for that, it showed that broadband was disconnected. I then checked to make sure that broadband user name and password exactly matched what I was given in order rule out any authentication issues, and then clicked on the button to connect.

Nothing happened on that page itself and everything went back to showing disconnected and if I tried to go to any website, I would just get a page back from the router saying that it is having a problem with connecting to broadband.

CONCLUSION

The end result of this is that whilst my phone line is now fully operational, my broadband is still not working. Because of that, I am still not fully up and running (my broadband is actually more important to me than my landline). Because of that, I still need to do what I can do if anything, to sort this problem out or else I need to know when my broadband will be active if that isn't yet the case.

[#4]

I’m in the exact same position. Started a switch one month ago now. My previous contract got cut off today but still no update from plusnet on when the new one will go live. Unable to reach anyone on the support lines, so out of desperation I tried the router anyway. Same issue, solid orange indicating an inactive account (which I guess is as to be expected). I’d just like a bit more in the way of status updates. I joined plusnet under the impression they had a good customer service record. Sadly that doesn’t seem to be the case. Still they have a long way to go to match the incompetence of TalkTalk but it seems there’s time for them to catch up ...

[#5]

I haven't had any problems with customer services itself so far. When I phoned them, I was able to get through right away to a guy on the other end who was very friendly, and who could not have been more helpful. That is something which other providers such as TalkTalk would go very well to learn from, but that was only call and I can't really judge customer services on that alone since I might have just been lucky enough to have got through at the time to the best person available at that time (there is no evidence here for example, to show that his colleagues would also be equally friendly and helpful as that might not necessarily be the case).

Where Plusnet are badly falling down though, is that they make plenty of promises to their new customers about keeping them up to date by text/email about every development in the activation process and when it comes to the crunch, they then fail badly when it comes to actually honouring those promises.

Furthermore, I am only a new customer as well and so if this is how they are treating those customers who have just recently signed up, I would hate to imagine how they would then go on to treat those more loyal customers who may well have been with them for a number of years.

[#6]

It's now the next day and a full 24 hours after the point in time when I should have had my broadband up and running, yet nothing has changed since my last post here.

I have done a full reset on my router a couple of times and even waited until after midnight before doing so and yet, I still have that same old orange light on my router and still cannot connect to the internet.

Furthermore, my order status is still showing that PlusNet are waiting to hear from OpenReach for confirmation that my phone line is active even though this job was done an entire day ago with my phone line now fully working.

This is just not good enough, as I really need to get my broadband up and running ASAP and at the very least, be able to find out from someone on here, exactly what is going on with this matter.

[#7]

Moderator's note(s):

Thread moved from Fibre Broadband to My order.

[#8]

Thanks @Mav .

I realised after I submitted my first post that this is where I should have posted it in the first place. As a new user though, I didn't see this section of the forum at the time. Furthermore, when I tried to react this topic here, it didn't seem to go through for some reason and I don't yet know how to delete any post which I make here if indeed, that is even possible.

Hopefully though, I might finally get the answers here which I am actually looking for.

[#9]

@Johncs2020 

No problem with moving the post.

I could see your other post in the Spam Filter so I have released and removed it rather than have two threads on the same subject.

It's easier if you do post in the wrong board to report the post to the Moderators in case we haven't seen it yet.

[#10 · Accepted solution]

Hi @Johncs2020,
Thought I’d send an update. I managed to get online today!

It took 40mins on hold to get through to customer service but it was worth it so would suggest you try the same. They said the order had got stuck because they had not had the confirmation from the contractor (OpenReach?) to say the line had been activated but the system said it was ready to go, so he was able to manually activate it while I was in the call. Lights blue, Speedtest, 30M download. Happy days at last... hope you get yours sorted too...

[#11]

@Jcrmargetts , thanks for that.

I took nearly 50 minutes for me to get through on the phone, but everything is fixed now. I have a blue light on my router and I'm now fully online with PlusNet for the first time.

I must admit though, that it takes a lot of patience to wait on the phone for so long. There are a lot of people out there after all, who don't have anywhere near that amount of patience because they expect everything to happen almost instantaneously before then complaining on the appropriate forum about not being able to get through to anyone, thereby blaming whoever they are trying to phone up in the process whereas it really take this long to get through, especially at busy times. This shows how much a bit of patience can fully pay off.

For the record, I have an download speed of just over 67Mb/s for the download speed and just over 18Mb/s for the upload speed which if anything, is probably a bit faster than what this was before with TalkTalk.