Snowy Weather and Broadband

[#1]

Some of you will have already seen the service status posted earlier today about the extreme weather conditions and the related problems some of our staff have experienced getting into the office. During poor weather conditions such as snow it's worth keeping in mind the effect this can have on your broadband connection: - Snow can cause slower or dropping connections due to moisture creeping into the wiring joints - Many people will be working from home, so there will be much more internet traffic than usual - Engineer appointments that have been booked may be delayed or even cancelled If you are at home over the next few days and decide to put up your Christmas decorations, remember that Christmas tree lights (particularly flashing ones) can cause intermittent connection faults. So if your connection starts having problems after you've put your decorations up, try turning them off for a while to see if that helps to cure the problem before calling us. This happens because some decorative lights can generate RF interference, so try and keep your tree lights and router well apart. From all of us at Plusnet (and those unable to get into the office), take care in this treacherous weather.

[#2]

Well. It would have been nice if my engineer appointment had been canceled - as in, me having been notified. I guess sending a text is too much to ask of British Telecom. A BT/Openreach van drove past my flat, twice, so it's not like they couldn't make it out here. They simply didn't show up and couldn't be bothered to tell me. I took unpaid time off work for this. Thank you bloody much for nothing, BT.

[#3]

All we need to know is if the service is down in our postcode area to save us hours of wasted time trying to diagnose where the problem lies. Please can we have some indicator to tell us when you are down. I can check the telephone line and the router but I cannot check your end.

[#4]

I won't not like to wait for BT to fix broken lines, the number down around me today when i took the dog for his snow hike! james.

[#5]

I'll happily swap places with anyone moaning about the snow. Here in Bristol (probably the only part of the UK without snow) everything is running like clockwork - everyone going to work (boo), schools still open, buses running and, most importantly, no snowmen!!

[#6]

@Rob, you can do a lookup on your exchange here - http://usertools.plus.net/exchanges/ That will tell you if there are any reported BT Wholesale outages in your area.

[#7]

I just want to say a big thanks to PlusNet for making it possible for me to keep working this week. I've been stuck in Sheffield and i've not only spend many hours on teleconferences but I spent the whole day on Thursday on a video conference. Couldn't have done this without my broadband connection. Regards, Julian

[#8]

ABSOLUTE LOAD OF OLD TOSH ,,,,, good honest broadband from yorkshire ,,,,, i have made so many calls now to plusnet ,,,, and all i get is a load of lip service ,, OMG just tell me the truth is it that hard ,, or just fix the bloody thing ,,,,,,,, farrrrrrrrr to much talk and not enough action ,,, sheffield is a place that is full of hard working people ,, PLUSNET ,, try working harder rather than just talking technical b,o,l,o,x, your hot air lip service is not cutting the mustard NO MORE !!!!!!

[#9]

@kev, attempting to bypass the swear filter is likely to result in your comments not being approved (or deleted). I'm sorry you've had a bad experience with the support desk, if you want to provide me with a support ticket reference from your account then I can certainly take a look and see if there's anything I can do to help?

[#10]

I spent 20 minutes on the phone (0845 140 0080) listening to loud pop music and the occasional promise that I would be dealt with soon, but no success. Why can't your number be a 0800 free call?

[#11]

having spent most of my life in Finland I have to laugh that snow can cause problems to internet connections. The ingress of moisture should not happen in a 21st centrury european country but then we are talking about the UK and ye old BT telegraph poles and networks

[#12]

Tullcourt's comment is a good one. Soon after setting up with Plusnet we had weeks of problems with intermittent disconnections and very poor connection speeds (I'm talking 0.2Mbps here rather than the expected 6Mbps....it was bad!). To add salt to the wound we are only 650m meters from the local telephone exchange, and should have had ^Mbps with no problems. The BT chap couldn't find a line problem at first but it was clear to Plusnet and BT that something was very wrong, so eventually our underground line was changed at the wiring box and the exchange; I believe they come in pairs for each allocated phone number, and BT switched to the other one of the pair. Bingo, we were back to 6Mbps broadband and have had this ever since. I was later informed that the state of the underground lines here in Buxton is very poor, and many are old and leaky. So we got the problem sorted eventually but it took weeks of inconvenienece and virtually unusable internet before that happened. This cable infrastructure has to be improved by BT, and not just in the main city areas....life exists in small towns and villages too!

[#13]

Has anyone experienced problems with the Plusnet service in South London/North Kent? I am thinking of switching to Plusnet from Virgin. I would like to avoid the 'out of the frying pan into the fire' experience. Thank you.

[#14]

just reading kevs comments ive been with plusnet for nearly 3 years and i aint had no problems yes you do have to wait but at least you dont have to keep repeating yourself like you do with bt when u passed around good honest yorkshire broadband TRUE i have never had a droped connection or anything like that instead of phoning or moaning raise a ticket and get them to call you.....simples i live in a rural market town and the bt exchange is quite close but my son is with bt an he gets droped connections an hes less than 300 meters from his home...

[#15]

Poor connection speed in Thorpe Hesley. When we pay for a service from an ISP such as Plusnet(owned by BT)why do we have to rely on a rubbish corroded BT landline which should have been properly fixed last year. We have been swapped over to numerous temporary lines and the problem gets worse. I started with a 3Mb speed 3 years ago which has gradually dropped to 1Mb on a good day. Numerous pass the buck excuses from BT engineers do not wash anymore. Hurry up with fibre optic or GET THE LINE REPLACED PLEASE!

[#16]

Tony, are you a customer of ours, and if so have you currently got a broadband fault logged with us?