1571 Voicemail & Voice Mail Extra - number of rings before answering

[#1]

Roger.......... This is a "Forum"..... for discussion..... I have seen MANY posts on many threads, that have indicated some form of action to be taken by Plusnet. And I have seen MANY answers to those from Plusnet staff.  You are requiring me to quietly go away, and write out my concerns regarding this matter, without the problem or answers being discussed on this forum.  
As I see it..... It is now 2120 on a Saturday night, and I doubt if anyone is "home" at Plusnet who can deal directly with this issue.... That was the thinking behind my "thinly veiled threat" as you call it, for Plusnet to get someone on to this problem within 7 days..... starting from Monday morning...
Before Monday morning comes, there may well be several more comments and suggestions regarding this point of discrimination..... All of which should help the person delegated to action the problem on monday morning....

By saying  

Quote

The 1571 service is a computer controlled system - It has no idea of who is using the service, so therefore cannot discriminate.

Does not negate the discriminating fact that Plusnet have a two tier service where there should be only be one.....
It is Plusnet`s decision as to how the 1571 service is presented, and not BT.  As you so rightly say..... 1571 is computer controlled...... but who is controlling the computer?   Plusnet.....  

Quote from: PJ

Standard subscribers= subscribers to PN's standard service, without any add ons. i.e. Anyone who has signed up to PN's Home Phone package, is using the default options and has not explicitly chosen to pay extra for the basic 1571 should have ample time to get to the phone, regardless of any impairment or infirmity.

BY default then...........If you have paid for the 1571 service,  as the OP seems to have done, otherwise why would he put the question in the first place?
If you have paid for the service, and require it to take a little longer to ring, because of "impairment or infirmity"
then they should have the same service as those who do not (have 1571) or  have an impairment or infirmity....


Moderators Note by Roger (rogerloxton) fixed quote link for you   

[#2]

So the logical conclusion is for PN to drop the basic 1571 at £1 and only offer the 1571 Extra at £2.50? PN has to charge this as BT will be charging PN.

[#3]

Quote from: shutter

Roger.......... This is a "Forum"..... for discussion..... I have seen MANY posts on many threads, that have indicated some form of action to be taken by Plusnet. And I have seen MANY answers to those from Plusnet staff.  You are requiring me to quietly go away, and write out my concerns regarding this matter, without the problem or answers being discussed on this forum.

I'm not saying that you should go away quietly far from it IMO - I do honestly see where you're coming from on this, however, the forum isn't the best way to get a reasoned response from PN without interference (If you know what I mean)
If you write or phone them, there will be dialog between yourself and PlusNet, and it can be resolved in a amicable way - emails or letters can be kept safe by either parties, records of phone calls can be made so that there can be no ambiguity whatsoever, whereas in a forum, the interference comes from 3rd parties such as myself wading in with their size 10's and distorting the topic somewhat.
All I'm trying to say is, drop one of the comms guys a PM (Orbrey, Jameseh, Mark, Mand) and ask them to call you about this to discuss the options available - if they don't respond to you, drop me a PM and I'll keep raising the issue until they get fed up with me.
Any company as you rightly say has to make provisions for customers with impairments, and that can, and has to be discussed, but what I'm trying to say to you is that by saying "I want something done about it in 7 days before I take it further" in a forum isn't the best way forward with it to be honest..
I don't want to argue or battle with you, I'm only trying to help you with the best way forward for this.
R.

[#4]

Quote from: itsme

So the logical conclusion is for PN to drop the basic 1571 at £1 and only offer the 1571 Extra at £2.50? PN has to charge this as BT will be charging PN.

That is a matter for Plusnet.............. Which way they jump on that one.....
I am here to defend those persons that can be discriminated by there being two levels, when there should be clearly only one..... I am not disabled, or infirm, I am 63 going on 64, but do not consider myself old, and can run to catch a bus if necessary.
It is well understood in government circles, that anyone over the age of 60, and those disabled, in any way, are generally on a lower income bracket, and need help and assistance, to maintain some form of dignified way of life.  To say that these people should have to pay extra £1.50 on top of the 1571 £1.00 to enable them to configure their telephone answering system for longer ringing time, strikes me as discrimination, and I shall continue to think that way..... If plusnet wish to charge the £2.50 for all persons using the 1571 service, they will probably lose out in the long run, as it will be cheaper to purchase an answering machine capable of being "configured"..... (£2.50 X 12 =£30 per annum..... 5 years at £30 = £150)  By those calculations, it is obvious that Plusnet would lose that from each customer they charged, and those customers would save about £100 pounds over 5 years by having their own answer machine.
Therefore, it is not only beneficial to Plusnet to continue with the lower charge, and to include the EXTRA facility for ALL customers, and in doing so, eliminating the "discrimination" factor in the service they are providing.

[#5]

To One and All....
I have said my piece on this.... I am sure that someone will be able to pick it up from Plusnet towers..
Thank you for your input..........

[#6]

Hi Shutter,
I understand where you are coming from, but ultimately, we have to pay Openreach extra to put a Voicemail Extra service on your line which is why we have to charge extra for it.
As Roger mentioned, we're reselling an Openreach service, it's not something we have direct control over.
I appreciate that you do not agree with the service that is being offered, but in reality there's not a great deal we can do about that.

[#7]

Quote from: shutter

It is well understood in government circles, that anyone over the age of 60, and those disabled, in any way, are generally on a lower income bracket, and need help and assistance,

Is this not in itself discrimination against younger people, I am sorry but if you wish equality, then you can't have positive discrimination.
Should PlusNet charge older people less for their broadband that younger ones?
No they should charge people by the service they purchase and if that service cost more because it has extra features, then so be it.
Chilly

[#8]

I have wide experience of disability at a professional and personal level and I am struggling to understand what the number of rings has to do with disability discrimination. If PN insisted that everyone had to have this service then yes, there might be a case. 
All of the disabled people that I know learn how to manage things to their satisfaction  in their  own homes.  One of my friends (using BT voicemail) is severely disabled and occasionally does not get to the telephone in time but I just leave a message and she calls me back later I have a disabled person at home and tried the voicemail service but didn't get on with it so cancelled it - no problem.
There are choices - i.e. use of mobile handsets or purchasing their own, configurable answermachines.  Of course the other option is not to have one at all.  Nobody can convince me that this facility is an essential of modern living.
If PN are at fault with this then other companies might be too.  I know of at least one company (TalkTalk) who offer this service with only 6 rings.  My friend (able-bodied) uses this and when I call her, if she hasn't answered after 5 rings, we have an arrangement that I put the phone down and either she calls me back or I ring later.

[#9]

Hi there,
As has already been said we have a number of choices of voicemail services which we can apply to your line. We do not use all of them as many are very similar.
If the only other facility that Voicemail Extra offered was a configurable ringtime before voicemail cut in I could see your issue, however the Voicemail Extra services has many other features over the normal Voicemail service, as someone has detailed above.
We get charged more by BT Openreach for Voicemail Extra, and so charge more to each end user which requires this service. If we gave free features to elderly people for example (as BT Retail often do) we would need to increase the base price.
I can assure you that this is not a discriminatory measure, it's just that we allow end users to mix and match various services, just like we do with broadband. The aim is simply to allow people to pay for the services important to them, and not for the ones which aren't.

[#10]

Back to the second part of the original question!
I just rang someone this morning, only for her to say she'd left a message for me before I got home last night. It wasn't on our answerphone (which was definitely switched on - have only just switched it off from yesterday!) and I found that 1571 must have cut in before the answerphone as it as I found last night's message there. This hasn't happened before, so the two must have had very similar timings before 'answering'. No 'missed calls' showing, so no-one else trying to ring us when the 1571 message was left. Our answerphone, I found, was set to a 20 second delay, so I've now changed that to 10 seconds and it shouldn't happen again.

[#11]

1571 normally cut in after 7 rings which is approximately 21 seconds. Normal advice if you want to keep 1571 but also use your own answering machine is to set the latter to 5 rings. otherwise have 1571 removed, which is what I have done.

[#12]

1571 must have been a bit quick off the mark or the answerphone a tad slow! Our answerphone gives 20 second, 10 second and 5 second options, so I've changed it to the middle one. We only ever switch it on when we go out but sometimes forget to switch it off again, so we'll have to be quick off the mark to answer now!
I'm thinking of cancelling 1571 just before the end of this billing period and replacing it with Call Waiting at the start of the next (as you can't remove and add options both at the same time). Then we'll know if someone is calling when we're on a phone call already, rather than checking 1571 afterwards, and maybe be able to speak to them too - something else new to find out how it works but once we do, it will be better I think.

[#13]

Removing and adding options in the same month must be a limitation with the PN system as it can be done if your account is with BT.

[#14]

There's nothing stopping me changing it all in the same month but you can't add and remove options at the same time (only add one or more or remove one or more - different pages for adding and removing) as they count as seperate orders and you can only put in a second order after the previous one has been completed.
See: https://portal.plus.net/support/home_phone/info/general_guide.shtml#29
The only reason I want to do it the way I do is that I've paid for 1571 in advance to the end of the month so might as well keep it till then.

[#15]

So unlike BT where all the options are on one page and you just tick or untick the box for each of the options.