Reporting a fault on FTTP with text based autohelp bot

[#1]

Hi, tonight I had (along with most of the town) an issue with my FTTP, issue ultimately was down to a bunch of openreach engineers doing some maintenance on a nearby location, but I found it impossible to raise a fault in the first place.

I texted help to the fault bot thingy, and it responded tat it couldnt tie my request to an account, so I tried both mobile (was plusnet mobile now EE) and my landline number (was with plusnet but ported to A&A after my FTTP went live) and the faultbot failed miserably, obs the call centre was closed after 7:30/8pm so exactly how are FTTP customers supposed to raise faults?

[#2]

The bot does not work on FTTP/SoGEA connections (at present) so you are screwed, unfortunately. Hopefully, as PM should be aware of this, a way around it will be devised.

[#3]

@teamdb 

With an area fault there's little PlusNet can do about it. If it's widespread then OR will know about it and be looking to fix it ASAP.

The PN systems were built around a phone number. Worked well for many years until FTTP came along where customers have no associated phone number. As @jab1 stated hopefuly PN are working on a new version of the BOT.

Your fibre line is now identified by a BBEU number. You can find yours by logging into your PN Members page and looking at Manage my Account.

Brian

[#4]

---

@bmc wrote:

With an area fault there's little PlusNet can do about it. If it's widespread then OR will know about it and be looking to fix it ASAP.

What Plusnet could do is list any known issues that affect a number of customers on a status page, thereby reassuring customers that are affected that something is being done, and removing the need to try to report the issue individually.

However, I understand that it is Plusnet policy not to mention any known faults (because it makes it look as if Plusnet has faults). 

[#5]

@corringham From my observations, it is BT Consumer Division rather than the individual brands.

[#6]

Both BT and EE have a status checker - so there isn't a visible list of known issues, but you can query whether your area is affected by a known issue.

You need to log in to use the EE checker though.

[#7]

Fair enough, @corringham . Fortunately my only tenuous connection with anything BT is the  fibre cables, and come next year, I think I will be able to ditch those as well.

[#8]

Thing is, when I couldn't use the text bot, i tried calling, when that couldn't go through as call centre was closed (fair enough it was late) it signposted me to the website which a: I couldn't get on as the internet was down (as was EE data at one point) and b: as noted elsewhere in the thread, the Plusnet website doesn't have a status page that should list any known issues, including those outside of PNs control, would PN not be made aware of OPenreach known issues that they could then relay to those affected?

[#9]

Your last idea is a good one, in theory, but as this happened after the support function closed, it would not be picked up.

[#10]

@bmc : Wrote:

*The PN systems were built around a phone number. Worked well for many years until FTTP came along where customers have no associated phone number. As @jab1 stated hopefuly PN are working on a new version of the BOT.

Your fibre line is now identified by a BBEU number. You can find yours by logging into your PN Members page and looking at Manage my Account.

In bold above. I remember contacting PN to report my BB dropping and use their text BOT and was surprised how well that system worked at the time. But as bmc (in bold above) has pointed out, FTTP means no phone number unless the customer has ported that out. 

I do hope PN are working on a new BOT for FF customers to call where they can just `press 1` to report No BB connection for this to be looked into without all the usual "Have you rebooted your HUB 2?...or have you tried X or Y"....🙄 Which turned out to be what my issue was back then. I turned the router OFF at the mains for around 20 seconds, turned it back on and my BB came back. Woman on the phone didn`t even suggest I did that! It`s the first thing I do now if similar happens.