9 months and still waiting for my broadband to work!

[#1]

Thanks very much for your time on the phone there, sincerely hoping we've found what's going on - as I said I'll get that home hub in the post to you tomorrow 1st class which should arrive on Saturday morning. I suspect that will set things right.
Cheers,
Matt

[#2]

Hi MPR
You have my deepest sympathy and full understanding of just how unimaginably poor the support is from the service desk and what seems to be the majority of the faults team.
The Complaints team give the impression of just wanting the call closed (no matter whether it’s fixed or resolved)
It took me over 2 years of call logging and telephone calls and a lot of work badgering and cajoling, swearing etc to get even the basics looked at even when the obvious is pointed out.
You have to be prepared to keep asking the same questions again and again until you get an answer, yes you will be ignored and lied too.
I suggest you log a complaint (don’t hold your breath as it will take 5 days to get a response)
Use the complaint to point out the ignored questions.
I installed the thinkbroadband monitor to constantly monitor my connection and sent PN the graphs every 24 hours it shows if there are problems and when.
I had (after a lot of pushing) got all the wiring replaced eventually (it took a year)
I got hold of the BT eng (or contractor) and questioned him. (over 15 visitis in 1 year)
It became clear that I had multiple problems not the least was “stale connection”
This is when the connection drops but PN don’t see it as it always shows as connected
I had major noise issues (not the kind you hear) it took a lot to push for a REIN eng to visit.
This would often knock out my router.
I was told repeatedly that my connection was fine as far as PN were concerned (but we all know they don’t give a sheet!)
MY advice is don’t give up and push them for all your worth.
Do the research
look at the possible problems and research them.
Mine were massive latency whilst the speed tests showed ok. The effect of this was that the BBC news page would take minutes to load.
Connections would reset or just drop out (caused by REIN)
Stale sessions that gave the effect of being disconnected but PN could not see it as a disconnect
Others things were the MTBE figures fluctuated wildly (ignored by PN as not relevant)
There were a lot of other bits and pieces too numerous to mention at the moment as I have to go.
Don’t give up I am sure they rely on you just leaving to save them the effort of actually doing anything.
A point of note there are some good PN staff but they are hard to find and are often handcuffed to what they can do (Matt). Try insisting on a single member of staff to oversee the problem and take ownership of It., you will have to fight otherwise accept being ignored. I have been with PN for 15 years plus, But I am lucky in the respect I have a technical background and my wife is a solicitor and my brother in law a barrister

[#3]

Quote from: MPR

Quote from: jelv You are syncing at 8128 with a 7150 profile which makes me think you must be on a 20CN only exchange (same as me). The best speed you can hope for when you take in to account all the overheads etc is around 6.9 - I typically get around 6.6 - 6.7 on speed tests from my 8128 sync. Cheers Jelv , So at those speeds, would you expect, all other things being equal, that everything would be fine?

It obviously depends on what you are trying to do (and how many things you are doing at the same time), but hitting over 6000 on speed tests will definitely be good for streaming HD and most other things.

Quote from: Matt

sincerely hoping we've found what's going on

Intriguing! I'd like to know what it was.

[#4]

Quote from: keith4x4

It took me over 2 years

That is an absolute shocker Keith. Reading around the forums regarding plusnet it does seem as if there are a good many people who are having or have had major issues and then left and found another ISP.
I must say that Matt, who I talked with earlier today seems a genuine guy and says he is now with me for the duration. I do hope so. As I said to him, I am a very calm and reasonable person in the main, but the customer service up until now has been absolutely appalling. It is just a shame that it takes ranting and raving on a forum like this for anyone to actually sit up and take notice from the company.

Quote

Intriguing! I'd like to know what it was.

They are going to send me a different more up-rated router as they think that at times when I have quite a lot of activity happening at my end, it may be that the wifi streaming is not as good as it could be and also the router may just be getting a bit choked up. The new router should put that one to bed straight away as it will be a better model.
Hopefully that will be me sorted and if not we can go from there. What Keith said about Stale sessions that give the effect of being disconnected but that look to Plusnet as being just fine, could be another thing to look at as that also sounds just like my issue.
Anyway hopefully things start moving now. I will let you know.

[#5]

Router's been passed to the lady who does the post, she's promised it'll go special delivery to arrive before 1pm tomorrow for you - hope it sorts things
I've set it up for you so it'll just be plug and play, only one annoying thing - it sends you through a BT page for each new connected device. It's fairly quick to go through and easy to say 'no' to everything but it is a bit of an annoyance - sorry about that. At least it only happens once per device though, and if it solves the problem should be worth it.

[#6]

Thanks Matt.
I look forward to getting hold of it. I will let you know how I get on.

[#7]

I'm just replying to your ticket Keith - Thanks for the reminder.

[#8]

Hi MPR,
Hope the router arrived and everything's working better - please let me know a good time to call and I'll give you a ring to see how things are going with it.

[#9]

Hi Matt
Yes the BT Home Hub 4 router that you sent to me has made all of the difference. After 9 months my broadband finally works!!!!!

I have been hammering the P2P, and watching videos without any problem so far at all.
I think PlusNet should stop issuing the current standard router ASAP because it doesn't seem as if it is up to the job.
Many thanks for the help. I will let you know how things progress over the course of the next month.

[#10]

Hi MPR,
Wow, really glad that's sorted it - I thought it would help but it's great to have it confirmed. Really sorry it took so long for, essentially, us to listen to you long enough to find out what the problem was in the first place.
If there's anything else we can help with please drop a thread in here and we'll do what we can.

[#11]

Thanks for the help Matt.

[#12]

HI MPR
glad to hear you are all sorted out 
Matt is one of the better guys working there, I remember he did an excellent summary of a years worth of work done on my problem which stated everything well and saved a lot of reading of endless tickets.
The Shame is they will either promote him (well deserved) so his skill set is lost to the team or worse for him they won't promote him as they cannot afford to loose him.
Lets hope that lessons are learned about the router

[#13]

Cheers Keith
Yes, it was the router all of this time. There is nothing worse than to be told over and over again that everything is fine when it isn't. I wonder how many other customers are having the same problem right now.
The basic router is just not up to the job and in fact three different members of the tech staff basically said that to me. One of the guys was quite explicit about how poor the router was.
Now I have a good router my broadband is fantastic and I am very happy to pay the money.
Did you manage to get your problem sorted Keith?

[#14]

I would love to say yes all sorted but sadly no its all gone to Sheet!
I also believe that a member of PN's staff deliberately  messed up the BT eng notes to cause me grief. Fortunately the BT eng knows the story of the sorry saga and called me to give me change to dash home.
I of course cannot prove it but seems very suspicious that this coincidence happened when he arranged the appointment.

[#15]

The notes were added for the engineer, I can see that from the chat logs that the agent had with our suppliers.
The difficulty that we can sometimes have (which continue to push and investigate) is whether or not the engineer gets the notes passed on to them from the Openreach Controls.
A member of the Faults Team will be back in touch within the next 48 hours with further information for you.