Like talking to a brick wall

[#1]

Trying to get some sense as to why my phone and internet cannot be sorted after ten days is like talking a brick wall.
Even though we have had two telephone engineers call (with all the attendant hassle of arranging it and then having to wait in) we are still unable to dial out and our internet is uber slow. Watch or stream videos? forget it.
Yet another telephone engineer is to call next Monday but no doubt we will be told the same as last time, that they cannot find what the problem is and that it must be something to do with the internet. Our request for an internet engineer met with - you've guessed it, another visit by a telephone engineer. Arghhhh!
Here's another thing, we live in west Wales, and the engineer (so he said) had come all the way from Norwich - seems Plusnet puts these guys up in local hotels or whatever so no wonder it's hard to get some decent service.
Biggest fear? That I am going to have a repeat of last year when both our phone and internet line was off....... for five weeks. 

[#2]

if you can't dial out then that's clearly not an "internet problem".
you may have two separate issues, but the dialling out issue does not resolved by a "telephone" engineer, not a "broadband" engineer.
also, plusnet have nothing to do with where an engineer comes from. that is openreach.

[#3]

I agree, but that is what the telephone engineer told me. He also told me that he would arrange for a 'broadband' engineer to call but he did not.  I then contacted plusnet to ask for one and they are sending another telephone engineer!
So what the heck am I supposed to do? 

[#4]

your "telephone" problem needs fixed first.
then once that is sorted the broadband issue can be looked at.
it may be the telephone issue is the root cause of all the issues.

[#5]

So how many telephone engineers does it take to fix a phone?
A retired pensioner now but I worked as a television engineer for most of my life so I have a fair idea of how service should be given and conducted - and this is far from satisfactory. Maybe it's the age we live in but that does not make it any more acceptable. 

[#6]

It seems you spoke to someone yesterday and an engineer is booked for Monday, the phone fault needs fixing and often this will resolve any broadband faults too.

[#7]

If your contract has expired, consider moving to another service provider such as Zen Internet. PlusNet do not seem to be very effective at motivating their sister organisation Openreach and their long telephone queues for their own helpdesk doesn't help.
If that option is open to you ring the PN Cancellation Team to warn of your intentions before committing, be sure to ask for compensation for the missing service. Keep accurate contemporaneous notes of your interactions with these organisations.

Do PN provide your Voice service?

[#8]

Reply to:Chris
Plusnet Staff
That's fine Chris, but I have the telephone engineer telling me the phone problem is caused by and internet fault and yet now you saying the opposite.
This has the makings of getting bounced back and forth and as an ex service engineer I have seen this all to often from guys not willing or not knowing how to take responsibility for the job in hand - just get your job sheet 'ticked' and off to the next one.
Perhaps the only way when these double issues occur is to get a double engineer visit, one for the telephone and the other for the internet.
What a pity and what a surprise we cannot believe what we are told and how often it seems that fixing a fault really is rocket science.
Fingers crossed for some progress on this. 

[#9]

In my area (rural Berkshire ) BT/Openreach no longer have separate phone/broadband engineers - they all multi task now

[#10]

To: AlaricAdair
Thanks for your reply and your advice and that other matter.
I am keeping notes on this, it's a case of having to these days otherwise I'll end up chasing my tail!
As for moving that will be on the cards as will demanding some compensation.
By the way do you know if BT actually owns plusnet only you say they are a "sister organisation". If a separate entity then presumably plusnet gets compensated by BT/Open reach and customers should not have to twist the arm or cajole  plusnet into getting the same same for themselves.
This 'threat' of a £50 charge should it be 'my fault' does not sit very well with me either, but there you go.
PN doe not provide my Voice service.
Cheers  

[#11]

To: Gel
Much better! If only they all did that 

[#12]

@Minivanman
Plusnet is a wholly owned subsidiary of BTplc.
Just as BT Retail is a wholly owned subsidiary of the group parent company BTplc
Plusnet and BT Retail are run as totally separate companies and being a regulated industry there will be some additional requirements that they operate at arms length from each other with no data sharing.
(When people say they get their phone broadband whatever from "BT" actually they are purchasing it from BT Retail)
The infrastructure of cables,exchanges and cabinets is owned and maintained by BT OpenReach -  again a wholly owned subsidiary of BT plc.
BTOR is required to be totally neutral in its dealing with ISP like Plusnet and BT Retail and indeed any other ISP/phone provider using their network so as not to give any favourable treatment to customers of BT group subsidiaries companies compared to those of other non BT companies.
Edit:
Cannot dial out and internet is very slow is usually a "single line dis" fault.
so one wire of the pair that comes into to your house has broken somewhere
Broadband can work albeit very badly with one wire connected many are surprised to find.
If PN does not provide your voice line I can see why there is a mess up as you should have reported this as a voice failure to your voice providor.
there most likely is no BB fault at all - once the voice fault has been fixed the BB will come back by itself.

[#13]

Not sure how many more times this needs to be said, but your phone provider needs to sort out the phone service, before PN can sort out a broadband issue - that's if there still is one after phone issue gets fixed.
Broadband runs over the top of a phone service, no phone service no, or at the very least limited broadband service, get back to your phone provider, don't let an engineer go until they can show you that your phone service is working.
Hope this helps!

[#14]

Quote from: x47c

Edit: Cannot dial out and internet is very slow is usually a "single line dis" fault. so one wire of the pair that comes into to your house has broken somewhere Broadband can work albeit very badly with one wire connected many are surprised to find.

Happened to us a few years ago. OR engineer did temporary fix by using wire from other pair until a new cable could be run from pit in road to house.

[#15]

</Geek Warning ON>
Voice is transmitted over the copper wire by slightly varying the voltage in the same frequency as the sound which makes the voice. The ADSL (or VDSL) signal uses similar techniques but at a much higher frequency, but the little dongle thing at your phone socket filters out the ADSL signal from the voice.  So if the phone wire cannot reliably transmit voice, it can't usually handle the Broadband signal (ADSL) either.
</Geek off>
It seems in your case you have two suppliers involved, but both using the same pair of copper wires. The voice will have to be fixed first before PN can fix the Broadband. So you need to go to the company supplying the voice and get them to fix their part first.
If you have some badly wired/illegal extension wiring on your side of the phone socket this can screw up the voice/Broadband signal. It normally needs a BT technician to visit to spot and fix the problem. In this case you might have to pay extra,