Info for customers with fibre faults.

[#1]

BT have never replaced stolen copper cables with Fibre, where do you get these ideas from?

[#2]

Quote from: nanotm

you could always advise some local metal stealers that your line is made of copper and allow them to initiate problem solving

Nice idea but would probably incur me a £130- fee for having a new line installed knowing my luck 😕
I make another call to PN Support this afternoon. Specifically the Customer Options department after seeking advice from customer support. I speak to a representative and explain that my fibre account is significantly slower that the estimate range. He goes to speak to the faults team. Coming back he states that my line speed is within the estimate and proceeds to give me a lower estimate I'd never had beforehand! And there's nothing he can/will do about it. End of call.
So what have I learned today -
1) According to PN, there is no fault with my service.
2) The line speed may be poor but it's within your line estimate which they seem to have changed.
3) Subsequently they will not consider a price reduction.
4) Out of all the representatives I have talked to over the past 2-3 weeks, not one seems to grasp the meaning of an upgrade. I shall provide that to them in writing when I pen my letter of complaint.
5) Customer Options is a team dedicated to helping retain new and existing customers!
Well, with regards to number 5 I think they may have failed on that part.

[#3]

unless you have a physical copy of the original line speed estimate there's likely fig all you will get out of that, if you do have an original hardcopy communication of the line speed estimate communicated to you on headed paper then take the complaint up with the ombudsman.
I had a nasty experience with a provider many moons ago in that regard and far from improving the half service they had oversold to me I was left without a service for several months, my complaint was upheld and the service provider was left with a rather large bill, but the days of the regulator acting in good faith are long gone now its all about "reasonably practicable" unless you have the proof in black and white!

@itsme
BT made a statement to that effect several years ago when they were suffering multiple thefts of the same stretch of cable at a local meeting

[#4]

Quote from: nanotm

unless you have a physical copy of the original line speed estimate there's likely fig all you will get out of that, if you do have an original hardcopy communication of the line speed estimate communicated to you on headed paper then take the complaint up with the ombudsman.

Now that's where some of their tactics come into play. For me, I got my estimate on their website as I was 'upgrading'. No copy of this was ever sent to me that I can recall (I shall double check this). But http://portal.plus.net/my.html?action=data_transfer_speed still shows my initial estimate which may be of use to me.
One of my issues with this whole saga, is the non-mention of 'impacted' lines pre upgrade. They provision FTTC, it's naff, and then they mention 'impacted' lines and drop the estimate and expect you to stay quiet and accept it all the while paying for something less.
Imagine Sky, or similar, selling packages with 200 channels. You go ahead and get it all installed to find out you only get 150 channels and that's that! No apology. No recompense. No fix. Just accept it and move along.
I shall be updating this forum with my efforts and responses as they come for all to see when I raise my complaint.
Pity it's probably only PN customers than use this forum post-install/setup.

[#5]

Quote from: Townman

These explanations from PlusNET of what 'impacted' means are very disappointing. From BTw's FTTC availability page... Quote For FTTC Ranges A and B, the term "Clean" relates to a line which is free from any wiring issues (e.g. Bridge Taps) and/or Copper line conditions, and the term "Impacted" relates to a line which may have wiring issues (e.g. Bridge Taps) and/or Copper line conditions. In other words, it has nothing to do with the termination equipment or who installs it.  BTOR installers do not 'tune' lines.  Either you've got a good (clean) line or BTOR are supplying a poor (impacted) line and are unwilling to fix it.  That being the case, changing ISPs will resolve nothing. @CRT, Does this experience point to the need to review training on this subject?  Can PlusNET identify if a line has bridges or taps at the point of order take?  Can BTOR (if pushed hard enough) remove bridges and taps?  Given that this is all to do with the 'copper' if the user's d-side is aluminium, then they really are stuffed!

It's the unfiltered extension socket wiring that acts as a bridged tap. Openreach installing the centralised SSFP would have dealt with that, but of course with self install, that doesn't get sorted out any more. Doing FTTC with plug-in microfilters in multiple sockets would probably count as impacted. I the the FTTC fault testing is supposed to be able to detect bridged tap issues.

[#6]

Quote from: HarryB

I also agree that it's pretty poor for any of our staff to try and explain that using a hub one automatically means you definitely have an impacted line. I'll be passing feedback on regarding that point.

It just makes you wonder where the staff get this stuff from? Was it one individual just making stuff up? Do a bunch of staff get together and all discuss this? It is just such an odd thing to say it makes me wonder what drives these sorts of comments. It is certainly a very easy fob off for customers complaining about speed issues.
In any case, thanks Harry for at least recognising it is unacceptable and feeding it back.
As for impacted lines, I can see that self installs could open up a world of problems related to internal wiring, making it essentially impossible for speed estimates to be meaningful. Only when I moved to fibre did I realise that my internal wiring was not great and probably affected my adsl speeds. For years I could have made a far more optimal setup but never did out of ignorance. I'm just glad I joined fibre when the engineer installs were still on the go.

[#7]

I think that for self-install FTTC, the speed estimates are supposed to be taken from the "impacted" range, and the rest has been poorly worded. Instead of saying self-install rather than an engineer install, they said using a VDSL router rather than the Openreach modem, and then they said you'd definitely have an impacted line, when what they should have said was the speed estimate should be the impacted range.

Quote from: HarryB

I also agree that it's pretty poor for any of our staff to try and explain that using a hub one automatically means you definitely have an impacted line. I'll be passing feedback on regarding that point.

I'm not even sure that was actually what was said, they were talking about the impacted estimate.

[#8]

Quote from: ejs

I'm not even sure that was actually what was said, they were talking about the impacted estimate.

With the benefit of analysis, comments, and a knowledge of OpenReach wording in relation to this, you can perhaps make sense of what the CS agent was trying to say, but without reading between these many lines, it is not unreasonable to take their comment at face value... "Due to the use of a VDSL router rather than an Openreach modem, your speed is expected to be within the impacted speed range".
That is pretty unambiguous, and just plain wrong.

[#9]

Someone did then clarify it, when they said that buying an Openreach modem off ebay or elsewhere wouldn't make any difference. Then someone else complained about "tuning the line" rather than explaining about fitting a centralised filter on the master socket.
Perhaps they should have just said that the speed estimate should have been the B range, which is correct, and not attempt any explanation.

[#10]

Quote from: ejs

Perhaps they should have just said that the speed estimate should have been the B range, which is correct, and not attempt any explanation.

Agreed. I would much rather they gave no explanation rather than make one up.

[#11]

Effectively they're saying that any Plusnet customer can expect no better than the "impacted" speed, and that Plusnet won't help to improve on this.

[#12]

Self install for FTTC is identical to self install for ADSL and the same help remains available. By implication ADSL estimates were always impacted but this was never questioned.
It's likely that faceplate suppliers will bring out products for filtering FTTC at the master socket if demand develops.

[#13]

Well, with self-install, you don't pay the extra to have an engineer visit and install a filtered faceplate (and NTE5a master socket if necessary). But I suppose we now want Openreach to come and do for free what we didn't pay them to do as part of the installation.
Of course someone might already have optimal internal wiring, but I doubt there's any record of that, so there's no way for anyone to know that. So they've got to use the lower estimates for self-installs.
A filtered faceplate is no use if you don't have the master socket to put it on, and/or you have extension wiring attached to the line before the master socket.

[#14]

Quote from: spraxyt

By implication ADSL estimates were always impacted but this was never questioned.

But did ADSL estimates ever quote an impacted versus clean estimate? If not then clearly there was nothing to question. The problem is that fibre estimates do have the clean and impacted figures, so of course people will question. I think the term 'impacted' does not help either. Who wants an impacted service after all?

[#15]

Quote from: ejs

But I suppose we now want Openreach to come and do for free what we didn't pay them to do as part of the installation.

I am not sure who is supposed to be saying this. It is not an issue of doing anything for free, but simply making the most of the service that is provided.