Change in contracted package

[#1]

I joined Plusnet yesterday, from TalkTalk. I was given a guaranteed speed of 40Mb/s on the Fibre Unlimited product. I was connecting at 41Mb/s with TT, and the new connection with Plusnet is the same.

This morning I was looking around the Plusnet website and at their other packages available. I clicked on some of the packages to look at the details. Along the top it has the 'progress' bar for selection though to order. I didn't click on anything else, but left the page.

Now if I look at the details under my account, the guarantees have changed to a sub 30Mb/s guaranteed speed - worse than TalkTalk were offering. The BTW checker shows that I should be expecting 44Mb/s at WORST on an IMPACTED line.

Firstly, could someone at Plusnet please look into changing the details back to what I originally contracted at? Obviously I'm within the 14 day window so will be looking to leave for somewhere cheaper if I'm forced into something I didn't agree to.

[#2]

Just to update the post as I made an error, the BTW estimate for the worst speed on an impacted line is 49Mb/s. The handback threshold is 40Mb/s.

When I originally got the service (about 8 years ago), I was connected at 80Mb/s for over a year. I'm about 200m straight line distance from the green cabinet.

[#3]

Hi there,

I'm really sorry for the confusion with your minimum guaranteed speed.

I'm aware of an issue we have which means that the minimum guaranteed we display in your account isn't always right. We've got this logged as an incident we're working on getting to the bottom of as soon as possible.

When looking at whether we're able to waive termination fees due to a speed issue, we should be looking at the minimum guaranteed we've agreed at the point of sale, that's documented in an e-mail afterwards.

It doesn't look like we sent this e-mail however when raising a speed fault, I can see your minimum guaranteed speed is 40mbps. I've raised a speed fault, because I'd like to call out Openreach and arrange an engineer with you to investigate further, because your download speed should be within the region of 53.4mbps to 73.2mbps.

Could you reply to the ticket I've logged on your account Here with when you'll be available for an engineer visit?

If you can post back to let me know afterwards, I'll make sure we book the engineer as soon as we can.

[#4]

Thank you for you reply, on a Sunday! I've updated the ticket as requested. I agree that the minimum speed was 40Mbs and that I didn't get the email with those details. I was mainly concerned that I'd be held in a contract at a sub 30Mbs guarantee which seems very low based on the historical performance of the line.

[#5]

Moderators Note

This topic has been moved from Fibre to My Order

[#6]

Cheers for getting back to me @numbskull

No problem at all! I've booked the engineer visit and I've updated the ticket 222769487 with the appointment details.

Appreciate the concern. I'll make sure we uphold your actual minimum speed guarantee of 40mbps. 

[#7]

Thanks for your help with this @Gandalf 

The engineer visited yesterday and upgraded the socket in the house to the latest, though the internal wiring is fine. He then went off to the street cabinet and called me to say that there is a problem with the equipment in the cabinet, and that they would need an OR engineer to investigate further. He said that he phoned the support team (in India) and they were unable to reset the port, and that it's capped at the speed I'm seeing. He also said that there are no available spare ports to switch me to. He said that whilst he was at that cabinet, they asked him to look at the same fault (rate limited) on another line in that cabinet. The OR engineer said that he's leaving the fault open, so hopefully someone will be looking to fix it.

Just as a bit of background to the saga, which is quite amusing:

I've been trying to leave TalkTalk for a few years, but there wasn't any capacity in the cabinet, so leaving would make my port 'available' and I'd then lose it with nowhere to go. I've been in dialogue with OR for a little while with regards to expanding the capacity. I've just looked at my correspondence with OR and the original 'go live' for more capacity was October 2019.

So it appears that I'm still connected to the exact same port in the cabinet, as I'm getting the exact same speed as TalkTalk, but having had to wait several years to be able to leave them! I'm hoping that they'll simply connect me up to the new cabinet (I don't know why they couldn't). The OR engineer said that according to his cabling layout, I'm about 250 metres cable distance from the cabinet, hence how I used to get 80Mbs.

The customer service I've received so far from Plusnet is an intergalactic distance better that TalkTalk, so at least that's something 👍

[#8]

Cheers for the feedback! I'm glad to see the efforts which the engineer had gone to for you.

The engineer has indeed left the fault open and raised what's known as a LLUMS case. This is basically a request for a port at the cabinet to be repaired or replaced, the latter can take more time especially if a part has to be ordered in. 

I can explain the issue you've had changing providers. When you move from one provider to another while staying on fibre, the availability of fibre has to show as available for us to be able to place the order with suppliers, even though that more often than not, you remain on the same port with no changes made at the cabinet itself. 

It doesn't make much sense to me, and I don't know the logic behind it or if it's just a case of the way the systems work.

If the engineers haven't expanded the cabinet or built a new one yet, it's possible that someone else's fibre service had ceased, creating availability and an opportunity for you to place an order to move to us. 

I'll be out of the office tomorrow for the rest of the week, so I'll follow things up with you on Monday.

My colleagues may be able to get back to you while I'm away though if you post back in the meantime.