Connectivity issue - can't connect to the internet

[#1]

My internet connection worked fine until about an hour ago. Then suddenly I noticed my phone and laptop were both disconnected. I checked the hub and the orange light and broadband light were on. Since then I tried:
- resetting the hub
- a hard reset of the hub
- following the troubleshooting guide, checking connectivity and re-entering my username and password. I also tried resetting and the username defaulted to setup@plusdsl.net.
- resetting again and trying again after manually entering my username and password.

Still, the orange hub light and the broadband light
are on. At this point I think there is a line issue. Nothing changed in my wiring and my landline is working fine. Can I get some help please?

[#2]

@emakri Welcome to the forums. This sounds like a BT/OR network fault. I'm presuming you are an FTTC  connection, so the only suggestion I can make is that you check your phone line - dial 17070, option two from a (preferably) wired phone and check for noise, you should here none.

[#3]

Thank you, jab1. I am indeed on an FTTC connection. I just tried calling 17070, there is no noise.

[#4]

The phone works, though? In which case, and 4PM on a Saturday isn't an ideal time to try, you will need to report this to Plusnet via phone, unless the 'Speed faults' sticky towards the top of the FTTC board offers any further advice.

[#5]

Yes, the phone works fine. Thank you!

[#6]

Thanks for your post @emakri and apologies for the delayed response.

I'm sorry to hear you're having connection issues.

I can see that this is due to an outage in your area which our suppliers are investigating

We'll update you as soon as we know more

[#7]

Thank you for the response. However, if there is an outage, then this page should be updated: https://plusnet.servicestatus.net/plusnet/status

I have contacted support using every method available and it took almost 24 hours to get an update on what is going on. The very least you can do is make outages public so that your customers (and potential customers) can know what is going on.

[#8]

@emakri Much as I kind of agree with you re: the link you posted, there is a marked lack of staff at the moment, and in any case that page  has not been properly maintained for longer than I can remember.

As a possible help, I tend to find THIS link useful.

As to making outages public, very few, if any, ISPs do, unless the disruption is extremely widespread, but there is usually a way of discovering the information - so long as you know where to look, or how to word a search-engine query.

[#9]

Thank you John, that link is definitely helpful. I was mostly frustrated because I talked to someone on customer support over the phone yesterday after a long wait and was told I would be contacted again in about 30 min with more info, which never happened until MatthewWheeler responded to my post here. So my point is that if they don't care to update their affected customers individually, making outages public could be an alternative.

[#10]

Updating customers individually, in this instance, is a non-starter. Even if they were fully staffed, can you imagine the man-hours involved? As I have said previously, unless the disruption covers a large area, and is likely to last for a while, it is difficult to decide at what point you need to issue a general notice.

[#11]

Of course I understand the difficulty, but as I mentioned above, I was told by the person I spoke to on the phone to expect an update in about 30 min, which was never delivered by either email, phone, or an update in the open ticket/question that I can access through my account. Had I not tried every other possible method to get in touch with customer support including this board, I still wouldn't know if it was an outage or an issue with my router.

[#12]

Understood. I apologise if I come across as sharp, but after 40+ years of working with computers, I sometimes forget others haven't the same knowledge/experience.

[#13]

Thanks for getting back to us @emakri 

Appreciate your comments about our service status. Generally it's for when a relatively large amount of Plusnet customers are affected by a problem because it's not currently feasible to add every outage our suppliers make us aware of. Having said that we're looking at ways we can improve and make more effective use of it.

Moving on to the problem at hand, from what I can see the estimated resolution date we were given has passed and the outage is still ongoing with no updates so I've chased this up with our suppliers and we've been advised that I've been advised that work's been completed so they're triggering the outage to close on their systems.

Once that's done we can test your line and try to figure out why you still can't connect to the internet. We'll provide an update as soon as we know more. If there are any developments please let us know.

[#14]

@emakri I can confirm the service outage is now showing as resolved although you still aren't connected. 

I'd recommend pushing a paperclip into the reset pin hole at the back of the router and holding it down for 20 seconds. Let go and wait around 10 minutes. If you still can't connect, I'd advise going through the following steps to manually connect.

1. Go to the router's homepage at http://192.168.1.254

2. Click on the Advanced Settings tab

3. Type in the admin password found from the back of the router and click the OK button

4. Click on the Continue to Advanced Settings button then the Broadband tab

5. If there's a Disconnect button, click that

6. Change the username to the broadband username in the format of username@plusdsl.net If you can't remember this I'd check for any emails we've sent you for example an email with you bill on as we'd add the username to the top of the email.7. Type in the account password, this can be reset here: https://www.plus.net/forgotpassword/ if needed.

8. Hit the Connect button.

If there's no change, we'd need to arrange an engineer visit so could you reply to the ticket raised on your account Here with when you'd be available and we'll book that for you as soon as we can.

[#15]

One observation.

As Zen seem able to create a feed of the faults/planned work notices they get from Openreach, in principle Plusnet could do the same.

The more tricky bit (and possibly the reason why this isn't done), is reliably getting from a phone or line number to a particular fault/planned works notification.