New customer - Activation Date

[#1]

Hello Plusnet community,

My partner and I are thinking about leaving a feedback of the experience we will have with being a new customer at Plusnet. According to Ofcom, Plusnet has very few complaints and compared to some other broadband providers, it is low-price and have great deals for new customers.

The ordering stage went smoothly. I have ordered the Unlimited Fibre Extra. I found the ordering is simple online, and you can set up your account straight away and keep a track of your order. You can also book in an engineer before completing your payment to see available dates. The online order set up assessed whether you are likely to require an engineer. It showed available dates after 2 weeks of the order. The flat I live in has a BT openreach socket installed, but after plugging in a landline phone, I found no active landline, so most likely I would require an engineer and fits in with what they assessed I believe. 

So far, after a week since ordering and a week left until the engineer is due next Friday, there is no sign of router yet to be posted. Usually, based on previous posts, Plusnet would post this a few days just before the activation date I believe. Unfortunately, I am not sure on a few things, like when is my activation date? is that when the engineer visits? When checking my order details, it still says under step five: "Broadband orders typically take a week to complete. Your broadband order should complete on {strCustActivationDate}. Please note that this date can sometimes change. We'll let you know if this happens". It has been a week since ordering, so I would have expected activation date to update. 

Also, I am not entirely sure if the engineer will just activate the phone line or both the phone line and fibre during their visit? And what happens if the router does not arrive on time before the engineer arrives, as I do not know if they need the router is needed to check if everything is fine? Should we cancel the engineer visit if the router does not arrive on time?

I am sure other new customers I have had similar thoughts or relevant issues based on previous postings in this forum. But I could not find if there was a previous customer recently asking about the above questions. 

[#2 · Accepted solution]

Hi @SoniaS, thanks for getting in touch and welcome to our Community Forum.

I'm sincerely sorry when checking your order status online this isn't reflecting the date in which your phone and broadband orders are due to complete by. I can confirm when looking into this fro you that both the phone and broadband service currently have orders that are committed and due to complete on 16/07/21. This can be at any point up until midnight but usually we see the service activate within working hours.

Although an engineer appointment is advised, if you have a fairly up to date phone socket and have had service coming to the property on the BT network before then the odds are that the engineer will activate the line and fibre at the cabinet and see there is a working end point (the phone socket) at the property meaning he won't need to visit the property.(This is the case for the vast majority of activations.)
The router should then be dispatched in a few days but I've triggered the ordering of this sooner so there's no delays on you receiving this for when the service goes live. This should be with you within the next 3-5 working days.

Hopefully this helps in advising what will happen from here and if there's any further questions you have then please let us know as we'll be happy to help where we can.

[#3]

Thanks @BD and @Baldrick1 ,

That makes a lot of sense now about the router, activation date and engineer visit. There is a green cabinet in front of the flat, and a simple check on https://www.broadbandchecker.btwholesale.com/ and https://www.telecom-tariffs.co.uk/codelook.htm, suggests that is where the engineer will likely work on. I think the openreach master socket (5C, MK4) is relatively new. 

I look forward to receiving the router soon 🙂