Switching landline and upgrading to fttc

[#1]

Hi, I'm currently broadband-only with plusnet, with a BT landline.  I've got an order in to upgrade to a combined fttc/phone package.  BT have confirmed my service with them will end 22nd November, and plusnet have confirmed my phone service with them will begin on that same date, then fibre upgrade tba after that.

What downtime should I expect on either of those days?

Cheers,

Tim

[#2]

On the phone side nothing - it's simply a software change, and will probably happen overnight anyway.

On the fibre upgrade, assuming you are currently on ADSL2+ with Plusnet and upgrading to fibre, then there will be a short outage on both phone and broadband while patching is carried out at the cabinet.  Shouldn't be more than say 10 mins I would have thought - just long enough to jumper a couple of wires.

[#3]

@flanzm 

Is your 10 minutes based on knowledge of the procedure or a guess?

I can only guess and assume that the ADSL service needs to be first terminated at the exchange or wherever if it’s a software switch, after which the technician has to travel to the cabinet to do the FTTC jumpering. If so there are additional factors here that come in to play. Then of course there might have to be changes at the Plusnet end both for the phone and broadband services to come to life.

[#4]

Hello @timwr 

Thanks a l;ot for reaching out. I've just had a look into the account and can confirm the following:

22/11/2021 - We're taking over the line, and have placed a phone only order, so you'll have a Plusnet landline, as well as your Plusnet ADSL broadband.

Once the order to take over the phone line is complete, our Provisioning Team will then be placing an order to modify your Plusnet ADSL broadband to fibre, this order will take around 7-10 working days, but you'll continue to have access to your ADSL broadband in the meantime.

[#5]

It's knowledge of the procedure.

The FTTC port will be configured in advance ready for the jumpering to take place in the cabinet, so you can connect via either ADSL or FTTC.  The engineer doesn't actually visit the exchange at all - there is an ADSL filter in the FTTC box which completely blocks the ADSL signal from the exchange, so it doesn't matter if you are actually still connected at the exchange.  This is desirable as if the FTTC port was faulty (it happens sometimes), they need the ability to easily reconnect you back to ADSL to avoid leaving you without service.   It's likely that you may well stay patched into an ADSL port in the exchange, until such time that they actually need that port for another customer.  If that is necessary then the jumpering is performed in the exchange by another team.

There are no changes necessary at the PlusNet end - it's BT Wholesale and Openreach who are doing the work here.  PlusNet have very little to do with the phone/voice side, they are just buying a service from BT Wholesale.  Previously they were billing BT Retail, now it's PlusNet - nothing physically changes on the circuit.  On the broadband side it's similar BT Wholesale take care of the traffic routing so that it gets to PlusNet. 

So the 10 mins estimate is essentially the time if takes for the Openreach engineer to get out of the van, find your circuit in the cabinet, and jumper it so that it goes to the cabinet and back again.  He/she will also test the sync speed and update the job records. 

[#6]

@flanzm 

Thank you for explaining this. It is much appreciated.

[#7]

Thanks everyone, good info.

[#8]

So...

According to emails, the phone line moved over to plusnet as scheduled.

I've heard nothing about the fibre upgrade yet though.  And when I log into the member centre my order doesn't appear any more.

What happens next?

Cheers,

Tim

[#9]

Good Morning @timwr, I am sorry you have not received the notification regarding modifying your service.

I can see my colleague updated the ticket with further information on this on Monday here: https://www.plus.net/wizard/?p=view_question&id=219439480.  You should have received an email on the back of this update but I am sorry if this hasn't reached you.

If you have any further queries, please do get back to us.