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The mushroom approach from PlusNet when OpenReach yet again lose the connection

peteprodge
Hooked
Posts: 6
Thanks: 1
Registered: ‎27-02-2023

The mushroom approach from PlusNet when OpenReach yet again lose the connection

No broadband internet from PlusNet here in Wellingborough since about 10am today.

It's an astonishing relationship I have with PlusNet and one that is thankfully coming to an end.

Every month since June, I end up with an outage or two or three, usually caused by OpenReach, sometimes by PlusNet. I'm paying £31.46 each month for what's meant to be average-speed internet but there's an outage almost every week.

When OpenReach is the culprit, we as customers get very little updates on when the engineer fixes the issue.

Today I'm having to rely entirely on my moribund mobile phone internet to do all my WFH, as OpenReach has once again caused a spectacularly long outage, one that Plusnet reckons will be fixed before 4:30pm today - but I highly doubt it. There are no updates whatsoever.

As such, we paying customers, are meant to contact Plusnet (OpenReach is impossible to contact and always advise reporting connection issues to the ISP, even OpenReach is the culprit) and literally ask them what's going on with the service we are paying them for. There's such a deficit of information here, it's the mushroom approach. Keeping customers in the dark and feeding them... well... you know.

While OpenReach is the main baddie in this untenable situation, I can't help feel that Plusnet conveys an absolute lack of empathy, a digital shrug of shoulders, when these things happen. The monthly cost is way above familiar rivals like Sky and TalkTalk, and yes, I know if I was with them, I'd still be without conventional internet but at least I wouldn't be paying money to a company whose resolution for an outage is telling you to just wait and hope.

Nobody should have to beg a company for the service that's already been paid for. The customer service from PlusNet is diabolical, the internet service has gone down more times than the Conservative Party in an election poll. We deserve better than this. There's no sign of adequacy any more. I can't see the situation improving whatsoever. Does it take an exodus of customers to make PlusNet realise they can't go on with this complacency?

4 REPLIES 4
jab1
Legend
Posts: 19,265
Thanks: 6,325
Fixes: 290
Registered: ‎24-02-2012

Re: The mushroom approach from PlusNet when OpenReach yet again lose the connection

Where are you moving to? Any company using the OpenReach network is vulnerable to the OpenReach 'way of working' , which includes keeping their customers - i.e.  the ISPs - in the dark.

John
Mustrum
Community Veteran
Posts: 3,650
Thanks: 1,083
Fixes: 78
Registered: ‎13-08-2015

Re: The mushroom approach from PlusNet when OpenReach yet again lose the connection

I really don't understand how people can complain about using a residential service when WFH. 

Businesses ensure they have redundancy and alternative means of connection, and do not rely on a single connection originally designed for simple telephone conversation.

It really is about time either took WFH seriously, or got back into the office.

ghamilton123
Rising Star
Posts: 145
Thanks: 31
Registered: ‎28-08-2023

Re: The mushroom approach from PlusNet when OpenReach yet again lose the connection

> I'm paying £31.46 each month 
> The monthly cost is way above familiar rivals like Sky and TalkTalk. 

Realistically the prices other providers boast are for new customers only, if PN are like other providers giving them a call and asking them to reduce the package price should work no as its their key objective to keep customers. 

greygit1
Aspiring Pro
Posts: 411
Thanks: 56
Fixes: 1
Registered: ‎26-06-2023

Re: The mushroom approach from PlusNet when OpenReach yet again lose the connection

"Businesses ensure they have redundancy and alternative means of connection, and do not rely on a single connection originally designed for simple telephone conversation."

 

Not always. Been there, helped fixed a problem, only for the business to declare the solution as "too expensive". Back to a single point of failure. And the business then moans when it breaks and shreaks about how much money they are losing. <shrug>.