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Off to a terrible start

gessex
Newbie
Posts: 5
Registered: ‎14-03-2013

Off to a terrible start

Last week I decided to move from o2 to Plusnet due to o2 selling out to SKY, o2 offered me a year’s free broadband to stay with them but I turned them down to go with Plusnet for a faster speed and to move to FTTC. I booked my appointment and paid my £75 to get Fibre Unlimited installed and I choose the earliest appointment available on the system which was a weeks’ time, which is due tomorrow Friday 14th March, great. I cancelled my o2 broadband for the 14th and removed the o2 Direct Debit from my bank.
As it’s the day before activation today, I thought my router should have turned up by now, so I just rang Plusnet to find out where the router is, and the lady on the other end informs me my order was rejected because the lead time I had chosen through their system was not enough for an engineer visit! I asked why nobody had informed me of this over the last week, she said because they do everything manually, and they haven’t had time to call me, so a whole week has passed, in that time I’ve been getting ready for the engineer visit, drilling holes for the data extension kit, and getting time off, and they haven’t bothered to tell me that an engineer is not coming tomorrow.
Now apparently I will receive a text message today and I will have to wait all over again for a new appointment, which could be weeks away now, and my broadband from o2 goes offline tomorrow, so now I have weeks without any internet, and nobody bothered to tell me, if I had not have called I would have waited in tomorrow for nothing, and had no engineer visit. It’s essential for us to have a working net connection here all the time, and I’ve never experienced this before with a n ISP, when you book an appointment through a system online which shows you all available dates and times, then they should keep to that, and if they can’t they should tell you immediately, and rebook. This is an absolute disgrace, and I am regretting the move already and it hasn’t even begun.
11 REPLIES 11
chrispurvey
Plusnet Alumni (retired)
Plusnet Alumni (retired)
Posts: 5,369
Fixes: 1
Registered: ‎13-07-2012

Re: Off to a terrible start

Hi gessex,
Sorry to hear of your situation and the fact that we haven't contacted you. I've given our provisioning team a nudge to help get this placed and activated ASAP and they'll be in-touch soon.
Chris
gessex
Newbie
Posts: 5
Registered: ‎14-03-2013

Re: Off to a terrible start

Connected now, quite impressed with the speed, I was estimated 57mb.

Unusual way of connecting the data extension though, would be very easy to damage that, I will have to cut a small bit out I think so the wires won't get pinched if anything knocks in to the faceplate.
NedLudd
Grafter
Posts: 1,898
Thanks: 8
Registered: ‎20-10-2012

Re: Off to a terrible start

That is terrible!  Cry
BTOR wired my feed from inside the box to another room.
Geoff,
York.
gessex
Newbie
Posts: 5
Registered: ‎14-03-2013

Re: Off to a terrible start

He wired it inside to start with, but couldn't get it to work, he thought he was wiring the plug wrong at the modem end, so took the plug off and wired it back on again a few times, until he went back to the socket and wired it externally how you see it there, then it worked.
Trevstan
Grafter
Posts: 101
Thanks: 4
Registered: ‎09-03-2013

Re: Off to a terrible start

Least you got your data connection kit fitted my engineer wouldn't fit one for me  Sad said it wasn't on the order form and only BT,Sky supply them normally... Don't think he could be bothered tbh.
However the workmanship in your pics is left to be desired.
Anotherone
Champion
Posts: 19,107
Thanks: 457
Fixes: 21
Registered: ‎31-08-2007

Re: Off to a terrible start

That really is substandard work. Plusnet need to get Openreach back out to do that properly.. Was that really an Openreach engineer or one of their appalling sub-contractors?
RJM
Rising Star
Posts: 186
Thanks: 21
Registered: ‎28-01-2013

Re: Off to a terrible start

That is shoddy-work.
I hope this picture is passed-on to BTO to see what they think.
Totally, unacceptable to expect the customer to live with "that" in their home or office.
gessex
Newbie
Posts: 5
Registered: ‎14-03-2013

Re: Off to a terrible start

It was a true BTOR guy, unless he stole one of their vans.
artmo
Aspiring Champion
Posts: 19,524
Thanks: 421
Registered: ‎12-08-2007

Re: Off to a terrible start

@gessex welcome to the forums.  Glad to hear things have worked out for you. Smiley
gessex
Newbie
Posts: 5
Registered: ‎14-03-2013

Re: Off to a terrible start

Had I have noticed this before he left, I would have said something, but it was quite hard to spot, and I didn’t want to analyse his work right in front of him as from a glance everything looked good, and he was a nice chap, but this is in my hallway so it’s a high traffic area, and I didn’t want somebody to knock against it and cut the wires in half, as how he left it with the screws undone slightly and the plate hanging off a bit, I think that was a definite possibility of some damage coming to the wires at some stage, so I unplugged the data cable and filed a very small grove for the wires to sit in which allowed me to screw the plate on properly all the way, it’s not ideal, and I’d rather have BTOR come back and wire it in to the socket completely, but it’s a touch better than it was.
When the guy was here, he said that he’s friend told him he could wire them straight in to the socket, and that’s what he tried, but he failed at that, and that’s why he wired it how you see it in the photo. I think he was maybe wiring it in the wrong place, especially now you said yours was wired in to the socket ok.
Anyway, long story short, I’m worried I should maybe have switched the modem off first before unplugging the cable from the socket, as I have since read about a stabilization period, and I also restarted the modem a couple of times to tidy up that part of his install too, to put the modem where I wanted it. Now I’m worried I might have messed with this stabilization period and made it look like the line was a bit unstable by disconnecting it a few times on the first day.
As last night I was running speed tests often and the speeds had dropped almost in half at times, right down to 40meg, but after midnight they started to go up higher and got close to 70, now today they are up 71.12 meg, so I have lost between 2-3 meg it would seem, since this time yesterday. Could it be because I had to mess around with the modem connection?  If so, would it go back to normal, where it first when I first tested it? I know it’s only a few meg, and the connection is probably still faster than a lot have, as I’m a fair distance from the cabinet, but even so, it would be nice to get that extra few meg back.
The BT Wholesale speed test shows:
Download speedachieved during the test was - 71.09 Mbps
For your connection, the acceptable range of speedsis 16 Mbps-73.47 Mbps .
Additional Information:
IP Profile for your line is - 73.47 Mbps
Do you think my playing around has caused it to drop, or would the IP profile reflect that if that was indeed the case? And if it was my doing, would the speed ever go up again? Anyone had a similar experience?
Anotherone
Champion
Posts: 19,107
Thanks: 457
Fixes: 21
Registered: ‎31-08-2007

Re: Off to a terrible start

Sounds to me like he wasn't properly trained (possibly a sub-contractor rather the Openreach?)
Your IP profile for the line looks fine, so I doubt you've actually upset anything, but best to leave it alone now. It is not recommended to reboot/turn off the modem. If you must turn it off for some reason, best to log into the Router and click Disconnect on the Internet PPP session first, then power down the modem. Best to leave it off for an hour. You'll need to log into the Router and click Connect when everything is on again.
The download speed drops are more likely to do with the issues that Plusnet have had with the Network - http://community.plus.net/forum/index.php/topic,111170.1408.html is the current page, or it could be local congestion.
If you experience the problem again, check which Gateway you are on and then log into the Router, click Disconnect, then wait 30 seconds before clicking Connect. This should do a Gateway hop. Check which Gateway you are now on.
Make a note just in case there are ongoing problems.