cancel
Showing results for 
Search instead for 
Did you mean: 

What an excellent business plan!!

Sunny
Grafter
Posts: 93
Registered: ‎09-02-2009

What an excellent business plan!!

Hi, I am so frustrated with Plusnet speed faults and me having to do all the work to prove it is not my equipment at fault, or, stand the charges if BT decide it is my fault, how do I know if it is or not. It could actually be Plusnet reducing my speed because it only happens after 2.30 every day, but they would not admit fault of course, just like BT, no as usual it is always the customer at fault.
I had this fault initially when I moved to Plusnet, took weeks to resolve but it mysteriously resolved itself, I don't think so either BT or Plusnet did something.
Now weeks later I have the same fault and again no one will accept that it is not my fault, took a week for them to actually tell me I would need a BT engineers visit by the way but I may have to pay the £170 charge, yeah right I am really going to believe BT.
They have an excellent business plan, wish my business could do it. Provide a  poor BB service paid for by the customer, then when there is an issue say it is not their fault, BT must come and Check and it could cost me £170! In the meantime we will keep charging you anyway as we have to pay our supplier, excellent plan, keep their profits going instead of refusing to pay BT, their supplier for a poor service, a bit like scratch my back and I will scratch yours and the customer will pay us.
Any advice anyone as I am going to investigate a mobile service, after all it cannot be any slower!!
255 REPLIES 255
James
Grafter
Posts: 21,036
Thanks: 5
Registered: ‎04-04-2007

Re: What an excellent business plan!!

Morning Sunny.
Could you be a little more explicit as to what your fault is?  Is it just your web speeds that are being affected during peak times of the day, or are we talking about downloads?
Also - We don't make any money from the £144+VAT charge.  That's what we are charged by BT.  Ultimately, if you have tried using a different router, different filters and you're wired directly into your master socket with all other telephony devices removed, then it's very unlikely to be your equipment at fault.
pjmarsh
Superuser
Superuser
Posts: 4,030
Thanks: 1,575
Fixes: 20
Registered: ‎06-04-2007

Re: What an excellent business plan!!

If I remember correctly, I'm sure someone said once it is very rare for anyone to be charged that fee, and if you have done the checks that are asked and still get the fault, then it is unlikely to be you at fault.  I think the ISP have to declare when raising a fault with BT that the customer has been informed that there may is a £144+VAT charge, otherwise they wont try to resolve the fault.  James would be ina better position to confirm/deny that though.
Phil

Superusers are not staff, but they do have a direct line of communication into the business in order to raise issues, concerns and feedback from the community.

Alex
Community Veteran
Posts: 5,500
Thanks: 921
Fixes: 13
Registered: ‎05-04-2007

Re: What an excellent business plan!!

Yep, when I've raised a fault in the past with a different ISP .. same procedure.
They asked me to check my equipment, and I had to agree I could be subject to the fee if it was my equipment at fault.
But if you've done all the basic checks with different hardware, I'll think you'll be fine.
Sunny
Grafter
Posts: 93
Registered: ‎09-02-2009

Re: What an excellent business plan!!

Quote from: Jameseh
Morning Sunny.
Could you be a little more explicit as to what your fault is?  Is it just your web speeds that are being affected during peak times of the day, or are we talking about downloads?
Also - We don't make any money from the £144+VAT charge.  That's what we are charged by BT.  Ultimately, if you have tried using a different router, different filters and you're wired directly into your master socket with all other telephony devices removed, then it's very unlikely to be your equipment at fault.

James I am sure you don't make any money from it but the issue is who my contract is with and it is with Plusnet not BT. What I am trying to say is that if I could have a business plan like Plusnet I would always make money even though I provided a bad service because my get out is and I quote "Any recompense for faults is dealt with on a case to case basis, following the fault being resolved. Unfortunately broadband is not a guaranteed service. As such, in the case of a fault, our supplier still charges us for the service, and as such we would normally still charge yourself for this.
Kind regards,
*****" unquote
jim:red agents name removed as per forum rules mod:end
If Broadband cannot be guaranteed, why should we have to pay you every month? We should only pay for what we get. Any other service we get we we pay for or we do not pay and, at least the companies normally try to be of assistance and recompense for poor service especially when once again have to spend our time & our money or take time off work trying to resolve what is not actually our fault.
The time is now 14.45 and once again the speed has dropped dramatically, what exactly happens at this time every day to cause this?
Over to you

Emma
Grafter
Posts: 138
Registered: ‎10-09-2007

Re: What an excellent business plan!!

If its happening at a certain time of the day is there anything that comes on such as central heating or do your neighbours have radio masts (dabbling in ham radio) anything like that.
Sunny
Grafter
Posts: 93
Registered: ‎09-02-2009

Re: What an excellent business plan!!

Nope there is nothing I know of that happens at 2.30 every day. I just did a speed test at 15.07 and these are the results, any advice appreciated because I really am so frustrated being piggy in the middle.  Embarrassed
Test1 comprises of Best Effort Test:  -provides background information.
    Your DSL connection rate: 3712 kbps(DOWN-STREAM),  448 kbps(UP-STREAM)
    IP profile for your line is - 3000 kbps
    Actual IP throughput achieved during the test was - 1301 kbps
If you wish to discuss these results please contact your ISP.
If you are experiencing problems with specific applications, servers or websites please contact your ISP for assistance.
Your test has completed please close this window to exit the performance tester.
James
Grafter
Posts: 21,036
Thanks: 5
Registered: ‎04-04-2007

Re: What an excellent business plan!!

Hi Sunny,
I appreciate that you are paying for a service and that it slows down during peak times.  It's almost definitely going to be exchange contention, which I'm afraid we have no control over.  I also understand that it's a pain, but ultimately you're paying for a self-install contended service which doesn't carry any SLAs (at the BT end).  Unfrotunately to get a non-contended service, you're looking at a leased line, costing thousands of pounds per month.
With any luck, BT will upgrade the VPs at your exchange, making the problem dissapear, but I'm afraid that's entirely down to BT.
If it is a contention issue, it's extremely unlikely that a BT engineer will be able to fix it.
As to the exact time - there's nothing on our network that suddenly happens.  Is there anything in your house or on your street that gets turned on at that time, do you know?
Sunny
Grafter
Posts: 93
Registered: ‎09-02-2009

Re: What an excellent business plan!!

jim:quote
James as far as I know nothing happens at that time, what is frustrating is that the problem in Nov 08 mysteriously disappeared after a lot of hassle.
Last week the problem started again, something is going on and I do suspect BT but my contract is with you, not them. Can you clarify if you are actually part of BT? Reading these forums it looks like a lot of others feel like me, that you accept what BT tell you and do not support your customers.
This is the latest test result so you can see that I am not getting decent speed. My village is a small one and there are not many people using BB her.
Test1 comprises of Best Effort Test:  -provides background information.
    Your DSL connection rate: 3712 kbps(DOWN-STREAM),  448 kbps(UP-STREAM)
    IP profile for your line is - 3000 kbps
    Actual IP throughput achieved during the test was - 1301 kbps
James
Grafter
Posts: 21,036
Thanks: 5
Registered: ‎04-04-2007

Re: What an excellent business plan!!

Hi,
Ultimately, you don't have a fault.  You are using a contended broadband service which is performing to its desgned limits.
Yes, your contract is with us and we supply a resold wholesale product from BT Wholesale (who we're not a part of).  If you had a genuine fault I assure you that we would persue it with BT.  However, as it's 99% likely that the problem you're seeing is down to contention, we would very rarely send an engineer out.
If you are convinced that there is a fault on your line, then we will send an engineer out for you, but you have to be aware of potential charges.
Sunny
Grafter
Posts: 93
Registered: ‎09-02-2009

Re: What an excellent business plan!!

Oh well if that is the issue then no matter how much I pay even if I upgrade I would not get a better speed from what you are saying.
1 MB is ridiculous really in this day and age.
I will just have to look around to see what else is on offer for BB or put up with slow speeds. BB in this country is so bad, it must be the worst service in the world & Gordon Brown says he wants every one to have it, god help us then, we will all slow to a crawl.
I am certainly not going to pay anyone to come and tell me something whcih I cannot prove is right or wrong. Kiss
James
Grafter
Posts: 21,036
Thanks: 5
Registered: ‎04-04-2007

Re: What an excellent business plan!!

I know it's a pain and I really am sorry that it's causing you hassle Smiley
Ultimately as long as you remain connected to the same exchange equipment (without it being upgraded), I wouldn't expect the situation to improve.
hadden
Grafter
Posts: 486
Thanks: 2
Registered: ‎27-07-2007

Re: What an excellent business plan!!

Although the BT speedtester reports 1301 kbps, did you try other ADSL speed tests, eg  MyBroadbandSpeed or Speedtest.net?
I've found that the BT speedtester figure for "actual" IP throughput can be a lot lower than the true "actual". For example, a couple of minutes ago I tested my connection with BT speedtester... it confirmed my 3000kbps profile but with an "actual IP throughput" of 588kbps!
If that were true I'd be a bit miffed.
However I then started a download of a large file and it was a happily sitting at a real download speed of over 2400 kbps.
Sunny
Grafter
Posts: 93
Registered: ‎09-02-2009

Re: What an excellent business plan!!

Hi Johnj, I have done a speed test as you suggested but get varying results. Pinging Maidenhead using speedtest.net I get just short of 3mb pinging Dublin I get 3.5mb but the actual speed is very slow whenever browsing. I do not game or anything like that, no large downloads as like films or music even, just a normal web browser. My broadbandspeed gives me 2997kbps, what I am actually getting I have no idea.
As the fault is intermittent as well it is hard to find out what is going on.

Another factor is conflicting info from Plusnet, you can see that I am told it is a contention issue but this is the reply(below) from the support desk, so what do I do and who do I believe, the contention issue or the BT fault issue, I think Plusnet are confusing the issues for a lot of people.
( Looking through your account history I can see you have referred to ticket 27****** which was a fault you raised in November.
This was a different type of issue as there was lot of disconnections occurring on your line that was causing the speed problems, but this time the connections are stable but you are suffering from a low internet throughput speed.
From all the testing we have done, your sync speed shows that this is the expected speed for your line (around 3.7MB) and your IP profile also sounds right at about 3MB.
As your throughout speed is the problem (your previous responses suggest this has been as low as 69kbps) there is not much more we can then to arrange for a engineer to come out as my colleagues previous response to run some tests and see if they can locate a problem.
The only time you would be charged for a engineer visit if the cause of the slow speed was determine to being caused by your equipment, hence the reason we have asked you to run through the check-list above and to cover all the points detailed.

If you wish to book one in, please let us know but as always please do not hesitate to contact us should you have any further queries.
[internal]
File Transfer AVERAGE THORUGHPUT/SESSION1301

Test Outcome : Pass Circuit Sync Status : Circuit In Sync Mux Port Status : In Service Upstream Link Info Loop LossLoop Loss Add TextSNR MarginErrored SecondsHecErrorsCell CountSpeed23.5 22007362302448 Downstream Link Info Loop LossLoop Loss Add TextSNR MarginErroredSecondsHecErrorsCellCountSpeed44 900381768963712 DSL Max Data BIP Interface Data Current line rateLine rate change timestampMaximum Stable Rate RecalcuatedProfileTimestampMaximum Stable Rate30002009-01-31T10:54:38N2009-01-19T10:12:383424 Fault Threshold RateInterleaving FlagServiceOptionServiceOption StatusServiceOption Update Timestamp2739A1THIS LINE IS STABLE AND WELL WITHIN ERROR/RETRAIN LIMITS FOR THE CHOSEN SERVICE OPTION (ILQ=GREEN)2008-11-17T06:11:07
Kind regards,)
Anyway Johnj thanks, advice always appreciated when people take the time.
pierre_pierre
Grafter
Posts: 19,757
Thanks: 3
Registered: ‎30-07-2007

Re: What an excellent business plan!!

have you checked your Exchange  http://usertools.plus.net/exchanges/  that will give you the current, to get recent history add to the end of the address  &plugin=vp&etashow=yes