Would I recommend Plusnet? , Possibly, but Openreach are a joke

[#1]

Would I recommend Plusnet ?, from my experience so far no, I would not, whilst it is easy for Plusnet to blame BT Wholesale and Openreach it is up to Plusnet to resolve problems satisfactorily and in a timely manner, so far this has not happened.
I ordered Fibre Broadband on the 16th May with an agreed installation date of the 1st June, took the day of work and waited - and waited - and waited, BT engineer did not turn up nor inform me that he wouldn't be attending, phoned Plusnet and it was arranged that the BT engineer would come on the 2nd June to do the installation, unsurprisingly, yet again, the engineer did not appear or contact me to cancel the appointment. Thank you BT for two wasted days. Plusnet arranged for the BT engineer to install the Fibre Broadband on the 18th June, what a shock when the engineer actually phoned to say he would be at my property in about 10 mins time and actually did, only to be told that he didn't want to install a data extension cable (involved a bit of extra work and couldn't be bothered I suspect), instead he blanked off the master socket and an extension socket and made a second extension socket into a master socket (not really a problem but would have preferred the installation as I had requested).
Lo and behold, 30 minutes later I had Fibre Broadband running 15 times faster than my old Sky broadband   , despite a bad start with Plusnet I was prepared to forgive and forget my bad initial experience.
12 hours later and my broadband is disconnected   , after 3 days talking to Plusnet support it appears BT have disconnected my broadband because the order has been cancelled, I now have to wait until next week sometime before BT can turn it back on due to red tape.
Am I a happy bunny ? - NO
Have Plusnet done everything they can in a timely manner to get me online ? - NO
Have BT done everything they can to give Plusnet and myself a good customer experience ? - NO
However, I am pleased that Plusnet support staff do actually speak English, this does reduce the frustration considerably and was in fact one of the main reasons for transferring my broadband  to Plusnet in the first place.
Presumably eventually I will get connected and be back online (after probably a months delay and dozens of phone calls) and hopefully can put all this behind me.

[#2]

Hi Gliderguy
I waited 3 weeks for my Broadband after moving house. Had the same experience and I am 100% sure we are not the only ones.
Makes you wonder tho if it is not BT deliberately doing these things, get back a few of thier old customers 

[#3]

Reading through most of these posts it seems the main culprit here is BT OutofReach rather than Plusnet themselves, especially when it comes to something phone line related.
But the bottom line is that Plusnet employ BT on their behalf to do their jobs, so if your employee's are not doing a great job, which lets face it they're not, then i think its time to either go somewhere else or like Virgin Media, invest in your own engineers. but one way or the other, BT are not doing you lot any favours and passing on most of the blame to BT is not going to be a satisfactory answer to most of us.

[#4]

Umm... PlusNet can't exactly shop around for a different service provider, it's basically a monopoly for BT. It's either OutofReach or nothing. 

[#5]

So, surely it's high time that BT Wholesale, OutOfReach and any subcontractors they might use were made accountable , particularly for missed appointments.
If a customer it absent at an agreed appointment time then there is a charge - exactly the same charge should be payable to the customer when the reverse happens!

[#6]

I doubt you would find anyone to disagree with you walker23.......except of course OutofReach. As a virtual monopoly they can dictate the rules.
It would be interesting to have a precedent set in court.

[#7]

Isn't there a government regulator to prevent OutOfReach from abusing their virtual monopoly?
The current position seems entirely at odds with the Unfair Contract Terms Act (as well as common sense and reasonable business ethics).

[#8]

If a utility company misses an appointment under current regulations  you are entitled to compensation of £20
BT openreach are not classed as a utility company and carry out work for ISP’s, if they miss an appointment they do not pay the ISP’s compensation
I am aware that BT Retail will reimburse £10 to residential customers if Open Reach miss an appointment
If you miss an appointment who gets the £50? BT or the Service provider

[#9]

Quote from: walker23

Isn't there a government regulator to prevent OutOfReach from abusing their virtual monopoly? The current position seems entirely at odds with the Unfair Contract Terms Act (as well as common sense and reasonable business ethics).

Precisely, and until people complain to OFCOM and keep complaining, and not be put off by the "take it up with your provider" cr*p then things will not change. OutOfReach have become a real pain in the ****.

[#10]

I believe BT OutOfReach charge the ISP around £80, but PN only pass on a £50 charge.

[#11]

Quote from: walker23

Isn't there a government regulator to prevent OutOfReach from abusing their virtual monopoly? The current position seems entirely at odds with the Unfair Contract Terms Act (as well as common sense and reasonable business ethics).

I just don't see any alternative.
It's exactly the same for all the utility infrastructure companies - they are all monopolies.
Only Transco are allowed to muck about with your incomming gas supply up to and including the Gas meter.
Only the local water company is permitted to likewise fix the pipes in the street up to your isolating stopvalve/water meter.
Only the local electricty distribution company is allowed to move the cables leading to your electric meter, and the eyewatering charges they levy for moving your meter a few feet make any charges imposed by BT look like small change.
While I agree that the current situation is far from ideal by a long way, frankly the thought of some 3rd party electrican/bodger being let loose and allowed to work on BT lines fills me with horror.  At least at the moment they can only mess up someone's internal house wiring - just think of the damage they could do in a PCP cabinet - and as for keeping records of what was done......
Sure we can make BTOR better by thowing more money at it to stop endlessly repairing and start replacing stuff, but who is going to pay for it? 
BTOR engineers are given 2 hours to fix a fault and too many not fixed in that time and the engineer starts down the slope of being declared a non-perfomer......are you surprised they bodge it up, ensure the line statistics according to the test meter are (just) met to the BT SINE standard and then run.
If they spent half a day plus on each fault  sorting it out properely things would improve - and how long do you think you'd be waiting for until your job got done. OK, So now BTOR need to employ/train more engineers - you'r willing to pay?
If you want more certainty in BTOR arriving on the dot then the only way is to have additional BTOR staff sitting around doing not much until someone gets behind in the schedule whereupon they can then jump in and help out the workload......just like we all have a spare car ready, serviced, MOT'd taxed etc waiting idle for the moment when our main car packs up.....not - it's too expensive for us isn't it ,just like it's too expensive for BTOR.
In fact the trend towards a fixed time slot for an appointment (with penalties for missing it) makes it even more likely that the bodges will get worse as the pressure is on the BTOR engineer to make the time slot for the next one no matter what and sod the current job.
We are already seeing this peverse result with street excavation works which over run in time and the council can then fine the contractor.  So rather than risk an overun plus associated fine the contractor don't finish the job/bodges it up and closes it up on time.........and then goes away and re-applies for a permit to continue the work on another day and has to open up the work all over again at cost and inconvienence to everyone..............but it's cheaper than risking a fine for an over run!
Anyway the BT engineers know stuff is defective but they cannot get authorisations to rip it out and start again...and at something like £2K+ for a single pole and Dis.point replacement job you can see why - it's cheaper to endlessly repair it.
Do we remember the howls of outrage when it was suggested a 50p levy on all landlines should be imposed to fund some of this improvement.....oh no, no, no ,we don't want to pay, we all just want cheaper phone, broadband, whatever as long as its cheaper, cheaper ,cheaper,cheaper...............just like the miles of aluminium telephone cable installed in the days of the GPO when it was all in public ownership - 'cos it was cheaper.

[#12]

Quote from: x47c

Do we remember the howls of outrage when it was suggested a 50p levy on all landlines should be imposed to fund some of this improvement.

Well, what about the ever increasing phone line rental? Or is that to fund the ever increasing CEO's pay packet? 

[#13]

There is a very simple way to make OutOfReach perform better, force them to pay compensation - compensation for downtime, compensation for missed appointments.

[#14]

OutOfReach are badly managed and are inefficient when it comes to doing a lot of BB jobs and OFCOM allowed them to put up their charges as well! Chucking more money at them will make them carry on in the same ineffective manner 

[#15]

Disconnected on the 18th, now the 27th and STILL not reconnected, come on Plusnes/BT , pull your finger out, despite whoever's fault it is, it is up to you (my service provider) to make BT accountable for lack of action and incompetence. It isn't even as though any physical work is required from a BT engineer.