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Hello and Moving from BT - ADSL -> PN FTTP

The_Dreamer
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Re: Hello and Moving from BT - ADSL -> PN FTTP

@HarryB If the service is available what is the problem? Tell Openreach to pull their finger out and get it installed.Smiley Why do you need escalations and updates, don't ask them how to proceed or they are likely to come up with multiple excuses tell them …  just do it!

 

I must admit, I’m struggling to understand any further delay. Now that the issue has been identified, and FTTP has been confirmed as being available (something everyone but the people installing it have known for some time), I’d have thought it was simply a matter of rescheduling the external and internal work. One, maybe two, phone calls, emails, e-forms, or whatever is being used, and job done.

 

In my professional life, I’m given quite a bit of autonomy by my employers, basically, what I say goes. It is a little difficult interacting, particularly as a paying customer, with what appears to be an inefficient system - especially when I have little say over the outcome......  it’s just like family life I suppose; having teenage kids and a wife that want to do totally different stuff to me, and I have the privilege of paying for it all - deeply frustrating but totally out of my hands! Roll_eyesGrin

RealAleMadrid
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Re: Hello and Moving from BT - ADSL -> PN FTTP

Unfortunately with BT Wholesale/Openreach their various ordering systems only seem to work if everything is spot on. Any slight discrepancy causes the whole process to fail and it takes a huge effort to sort it and they don't communicate effectively with PlusNet or the end user so nobody knows what is going on. You are quite right about it being an inefficient system, hopefully HarryB will have some better news for you fairly soon.Smiley

The_Dreamer
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Re: Hello and Moving from BT - ADSL -> PN FTTP

Unfortunately with BT Wholesale/Openreach their various ordering systems only seem to work if everything is spot on. Any slight discrepancy causes the whole process to fail and it takes a huge effort to sort it and they don't communicate effectively with PlusNet or the end user so nobody knows what is going on. You are quite right about it being an inefficient system, hopefully HarryB will have some better news for you fairly soon.Smiley

 

I’m sure @HarryB will have me sorted imminently, I have every confidence.

 

We have dedicated teams sorting out upsets in my own company, and they’re very good at what they do. Equally, we have some people sitting at a keyboard, and their default response is ‘Computer says no!’ - luck of the draw as to which one you might have to deal with as a customer, hopefully you’d get the former rather than the latter.

 

I have a feeling Harry is from the former group, and the OR operatives are from the latter pool of people, but I’m generalising, which may be a bit unfair.

 

Eventually Harry will prevail, but until someone in OR accepts responsibility for the issues, it’ll continue to resurface; and if someone is responsible, where’s the incentive for them to do better, professional pride, stick, carrot? Frankly, until the public can get hold of people within OR directly, and make their feelings known, things will trudge along as they are.

 

Accountability is what is needed, not that heads need to roll, just someone in OR saying ‘mea culpa’, ‘I did that, sorry. But here you go, it’s being expedited now’ would be perfect. We are all human, mistakes are made, it’s how we respond to making mistakes that counts, probably for more than doing a regular ‘good job’ in fact.

 

Anyhoo, I shall see what today’s news brings.

 

Phil

HarryB
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Re: Hello and Moving from BT - ADSL -> PN FTTP

I’m struggling to understand any further delay. Now that the issue has been identified, and FTTP has been confirmed as being available

While I have been told FTTP is available, I wouldn't say the issue has been identified as the initial response I got yesterday when I replaced our order was along the lines of I see there is an order in place and we'll monitor this for you moving forward since the initial order failed as the new order has also failed, I've asked them what we need to do now to avoid just repeating this placing/failing orders indefinitely.

 

 

@HarryB If the service is available what is the problem? Tell Openreach to pull their finger out and get it installed.Smiley Why do you need escalations and updates, don't ask them how to proceed or they are likely to come up with multiple excuses tell them …  just do it!

While in writing that may sound like it makes sense, I'm asking how to proceed as the alternative is placing another order and just hoping it doesn't failed a 3rd (Or 4th, 5th, 6th etc.) time. As I have an accepted escalation, I now expect our suppliers to investigate this further, having had 2 orders fail. Once they've advised they've fixed whatever is causing this, or pointed out what I've done wrong on the order (Which I don't really expect as I didn't change anything compared when I've done this in the past) I'm hoping to be able to just replace the order one more time to have it progress successfully.

 

As soon as I have more information from our suppliers regarding this, I'll be sure to let you know.

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 Harry Beesley
 Plusnet
The_Dreamer
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Re: Hello and Moving from BT - ADSL -> PN FTTP

Hi @HarryB,

 

have you given them the details that the engineer passed to me?

 

Someone in OR really needs to get a grip and sort this whole database debacle out.

 

So May I ask what exactly is the status of my order? I would have thought an appointment for OR to do their bit would be in place by now.

 

thanks,

 

Phil

HarryB
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Re: Hello and Moving from BT - ADSL -> PN FTTP

So May I ask what exactly is the status of my order?

As per my response yesterday:

Unfortunately the order I placed earlier today has also cancelled.

 

 

I would have thought an appointment for OR to do their bit would be in place by now.

Unfortunately as both the first and second orders we've placed have both been cancelled, there is nothing to put an appointment on currently.

I am still awaiting further information from our suppliers before replacing the order for a third time.

 

As per my previous responses, as soon as I have more information from our suppliers regarding this, I'll be sure to let you know.

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 Harry Beesley
 Plusnet
The_Dreamer
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Re: Hello and Moving from BT - ADSL -> PN FTTP

Ah, @HarryB,

 

Got it! I had misinterpreted your post saying you had another order fail yesterday - I thought you meant you had another order with the same problem as mine - not that it was actually my order failing again! So, sorry for getting hold of the wrong end of the stick.

 

Right, so you're waiting on OR, so I guess that could take some time. The dealings we've had with them as a community getting fibre here in the first place, doesn't fill me with hope!

 

 

Just for my own interest, how are the orders being cancelled? Is this an automated process, or is someone along the chain, culling orders? Is there an option to force manual intervention, in the case of an automated cancellation? i.e. Could one potentially attach a note to an order, explaining that one of the databases has an error on it, and to go with the correct information?

 

Normally for systems to fail, other stuff needs to have happened beforehand - we call it the swiss cheese effect; when slices of swiss cheese are moved around enough, a failure can occur when all the holes line up. It's almost as though OR believe their system must be right, and any evidence to the contrary is to be ignored, there are probably only two slices of cheese, so it doesn't take a lot for the system to fail. Thankfully, it's not safety critical, but it's certainly very annoying, and if so, quite a cavalier attitude to take.

 

Thanks for putting up with my haranguing, you can probably tell, I'm not used to hanging around when I want something done!

 

Phil

The_Dreamer
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Re: Hello and Moving from BT - ADSL -> PN FTTP

@HarryB,

 

Hi Harry,

 

apologies for the further post, but I've been sending an email to the CEO of OpenReach to see if he might get one of his chaps to take a closer look.

 

While I was composing the email, I found something of interest, that may further our order without Clive's help (though I've still emailed him anyway)!

 

Looking again at dslchecker.bt.com, I first tried our phone number, as I've always done, and indeed it shows WBC FTTP etc. - just what we want.

 

I put in our full address, and sure enough, as you pointed out, WBC FTTP isn't there, only FTTP on demand.

 

However, put in just our postcode, and a list of optional properties are displayed from which you can take your pick.

 

Our property, and several of my neighbours, are listed twice! In our case, certainly, the first of the listings produces the incorrect FTTP on Demand response, the second listing produces the correct WBC FTTP response!

 

I can't get the system to automatically pick the second property - I've tried all sorts of combinations of house name, misspellings etc. The best I can get is to only enter the postcode and then select from there.

 

Is there any way of putting an order in using just my postcode and telephone number and attach my address with a note, alluding to the above, some where in the order?

 

I think that would do it.

 

Cheers,

 

Phil

 

HarryB
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Re: Hello and Moving from BT - ADSL -> PN FTTP

That may very well be it!

 

I've looked through the list of the addresses on the ordering system and the duplicate record happens to be on the second page, which to be honest I wouldn't have really thought to check having found the address on the first page.

 

Just before I try placing the order on the duplicate address (Or rather I question that has come up having got part way through placing the order) is there already an ONT in the property, when placing the order, it suggests there may already be one of the older 4 port ONT's (An image of this can be found here (The top one))

Although I'm not confident this is actually your ONT as it stats there is already a working connection on port 1.

 

If there is an ONT in the property already, could you drop me a PM with the ONT reference number please.

 

Thanks.

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 Harry Beesley
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The_Dreamer
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Re: Hello and Moving from BT - ADSL -> PN FTTP

@HarryB

 

Hi again Harry,

 

I've just crossed with you - having just updated the ticket with the earlier information.....

 

No, no ONT connected here; unless you mean the router that was sent as part of the first order? It's still in it's cardboard box though, so don't know what it looks like.

 

I can dig it out, if you think that's it.

 

 

edit: Just Googled what an ONT actually is (aside from looking at your image) and you don't mean the router I guess. The only ONT in our hamlet will be our neighbours that reside at The Old Barn, rather than us, The Old Granary - the two often get confused, and indeed, the OR engineers rocked up at ours to install fibre a few weeks ago, when they should have been at The Old Barn - but that's what started this whole process...

bmc
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Re: Hello and Moving from BT - ADSL -> PN FTTP

@The_Dreamer

You had OR engineers turn up to install FTTP and you turned them away!!!!!!!! - you should have waited until after the equipment was in before telling them.

 

Reap what you sow.

 

 

Brian

HarryB
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Re: Hello and Moving from BT - ADSL -> PN FTTP

Nope, it wouldn't be the router. However when placing the order the system seems to think there is an ONT on the ground floor in the corridor of the address in question (Or at least the duplicate of your address)

 

I'll try and get an order in place selecting an option for no ONT (On the duplicate record) and we'll see how that goes.

 

I'll update the ticket shortly

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 Harry Beesley
 Plusnet
The_Dreamer
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Re: Hello and Moving from BT - ADSL -> PN FTTP

You had OR engineers turn up to install FTTP and you turned them away!!!!!!!! - you should have waited until after the equipment was in before telling them.

Reap what you sow.

 

Ha!

 

I did no such thing. My neighbour, who had ordered fibre via BT was expecting them, so when he saw their van, came out to see why they weren’t working at his house. It was he that dragged them away from working at our house - I tried to bribe them to carry on at mine, but offers of chilled lemonade were declined - had I known what a drag trying to get this sorted would become, I’d have offered them hard liquor to hook things up.Grin

 

 

The_Dreamer
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Re: Hello and Moving from BT - ADSL -> PN FTTP

@HarryB

 

Nope, it wouldn't be the router. However when placing the order the system seems to think there is an ONT on the ground floor in the corridor of the address in question (Or at least the duplicate of your address

 

Definitely not at ours. But I can almost guarantee that it’s at The Old Barn, our neighbours, as their order was listed as The Old Granary - apparently they’ve had this problem for years, with BT thinking The Old Barn and The Old Granary are one and the same.

 

 

Good luck sorting it out!

 

Phil

The_Dreamer
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Re: Hello and Moving from BT - ADSL -> PN FTTP

@HarryB

 

Morning Harry!

 

I received replies overnight from OpenReach’s CEO complaints manager, Joe McGill.

 

He’s passed our problem on to an appropriate team. I gave him the further information about the ONT, which again, he’s getting someone to look into.

 

He’s also going to put their Infrastructure Delivery Escalation Team in touch with you - though I did say you were probably already in touch, as you had escalated the problem earlier. But a little oversight from above never hurts!

 

Anyway, he seems like a nice chap, and pulling in the right direction. Hopefully this’ll all get resolved soon, and I can stop bugging people! Smiley

 

Cheers,

 

Phil