Transfer out to Now gone wrong...

[#1]

Hi all,

Sorry, I'm not sure if this is the best sub-forum, I thought it might be since the transfer out is effectively an "order" with Openreach.

I was supposed to transfer out to Now Broadband on the 29th of July. (As an aside, I was always very happy with my Plusnet connection and support, I just needed to save a bit of money).

Anyway, the transfer order completed from a broadband point of view as planned on the 29th July (i.e. I got a Now connection), but there was a hold up transferring my existing phone number.

I've been left with no incoming calls for a couple of weeks (which is obviously nowt to do with Plusnet).

On Monday, Now said that the order to transfer to them is being cancelled and that Openreach will action this shortly.

Is anyone from Plusnet able to see anything from your end that might indicate what, in practice, will actually happen next?

I'm hoping Openreach will move me back to you guys while we sort this out. Are you able to see anything suggesting that?

I'm concerned my broadband will just suddenly go off and I'll need to wait two weeks to get it back on. Which would be a nightmare as my wife and I both work from home. 

Any insight anyone can give would be very much appreciated.

Thanks,

Andy

[#2]

@Temrael 

I hope that something can be sorted but this does not sound good. Openreach can’t transfer you back to Plusnet unless you have a contract with Plusnet, which I assume is now cancelled. If you don’t get a fairly quick response from a staffer it would probably be best to ring in. Once your broadband service is cancelled things might get even worse. Every day that passes reduces the chances of getting your phone number back. 
Interesting that your new ISP seem to be walking away from this mess rather than sorting it for you.

[#3]

Thanks Baldrick, yep it's a pickle. 

Now say that as the Openreach order never completed, I never stopped being a Plusnet customer and never started being a Now Broadband one. And that it would therefore simply revert to how it was before the order.

Like you I'm sceptical, but I can still login to Plusnet and there's nothing there indicating my contract has ceased so maybe that's correct.

Hoping a staffer can take a look for me.

[#4]

@Gandalf @adamwalker - Is there anything you guys can do/see from your end?

Now Broadband have just told me that, following the failed switch order, Plusnet refused the Openreach order to return the connection back to Plusnet.

There is apparently a pending Openreach order to just terminate my services, the phone is already dead, and the broadband will be cut off in the next 48 hours unless something is done.

If there's anything anyone can do to sort out this mess with Now and Openreach... please help. 😕

[#5]

Hi Andy,

I'm really sorry to see your transfer to Now has gone wrong. 

I've had a look and the good news is that your account is still in intact. Not only did the order never complete, but both the phone and broadband transfer orders are showing as cancelled in the supplier systems. We won't have refused the transfer back to us as it's not possible to reverse an order, especially one that's cancelled. 

I've tested your line and the tests are showing a "Dis in exchange - Openreach side of MDF" so it looks like an engineer's moved your phone line off Openreach's equipment and onto Now's as part of the order before it cancelled. 

I've raised a fault for an engineer to reconnect your phone up, which should be done by 19/08/22 23:59:59. 

In theory, all Now would need to do is resubmit their order, but in case the previous order is still lingering in the backend supplier systems, I've raised a request to the ORDI (OpenReach Data Integrity) robot to check this. Once I've got a response from the robot which should be tonight or tomorrow, I'll let you know so you can contact Now again. 

In the meantime, I would doubt that anything further will happen to your broadband or phone without Now resubmitting the order, as the previous order is cancelled in the supplier's core systems. An order lingering in the backend systems would likely just prevent a new order from being placed rather than stop your services, if that makes sense. 

With all that said, is there anything I can do to keep you with us? We've got some tempting deals and I'll be happy to ask one of my colleagues to call you back to have a chat if you'd want? Save you the hassle of going through all this again! 

[#6]

"Gandalf! Beyond all hope.... Gandalf!" 

I can't tell you what a relief it is to hear from someone who knows their stuff and wants to help. Thank you *so* much. 😟

My wife and I've been tearing our hair out trying to work out what to do if we got cut off. We both work entirely from home and so no internet for a fortnight or whatever would have been disastrous.

Yep, Openreach seemed to succeed in moving the broadband connection to Now - my router is logging in to Now and getting a Sky/Now IP address. Incidentally, I had some fascinating chats with Now's staff where they tried to convince me IP addresses don't mean what I think they mean and that I was definitely still connected to you guys. 😂

Anyway, allegedly it was the port of our phone number that made everything fall over and so we ended up with no inbound calls since the 29th and then, as of yesterday, no dial tone.

Do you reckon it best to just sit tight for now then, and see what ORDI finds?

We'd certainly be very open to staying with you guys. Like everyone right now, we do need to save a few quid, but if we can do that while staying with you, I may keep what little hair I have left too.

Thank you again, seriously. 

Andy

[#7]

Look to my coming on first light of the 5th day, at dawn look to the East.

Sounds like a nightmare you've had and I can imagine the panic with the prospect of having no broadband while trying to work from home! I've just spotted your tweet you've sent to Now as well. 

Ah admittedly I didn't spot that your broadband had stopped working with us and I'm glad to see it's working with Now. It would make sense though if the engineering work at the exchange had been completed. 

I have a feeling that the number port failure had caused this. I've reached out to our suppliers helpdesk and they can't tell me why it failed but they can see that your number is still showing as active with us.  

So when the engineer fixes the "fault", your phone should be fully working again and broadband "moves back to us" with minimal downtime. Inverted commas because as far as the order's concerned, your service has always been with us.

If there is something for the ORDI to fix, this shouldn't be affecting your service, but it'd still be a good idea to get that fixed. 

Finally I've passed your account to one of my sales colleagues and he should be calling you back shortly...

[#8 · Accepted solution]

Before I leave the office for the night, I believe you may have spoken to my colleague just now about renewing.

Also ORDI's come back to me to confirm no errors in the systems so all we've gotta wait for now is an exchange engineer. With any luck this could be tomorrow but might be Friday depending on engineer availability. 

[#9]

Hi Gandalf,

Thank you again so much for all your help, it's such a relief to know this is on its way to being solved.

Yep we've renewed with Lee now and can't wait to put all this behind us.

I'll see what happens over the next couple of days, I guess my first clue will be the connection dropping. I'll then pop the router config back to how it was with you guys.

Hopefully it'll all just leap back into life but I'll let you know if not.

Really impressive support from both you and Lee, you're both a huge credit to Plusnet

Thanks so much,

Andy

[#10]

Hi Andy,

Awesome, that’s good to see and thanks for the feedback! Happy to help in any way we can.

Yeah that sounds like a plan and I would hold off from calling Now to cancel your order until an engineer’s switched your line back to the equipment we use at the exchange otherwise you may find that you’re unable to ’authenticate’ to the internet through Now’s network, depending on how things are set up their side. 

[#11]

Morning Gandalf,

Some progress this morning...

I just had a call (yes an actual inbound landline call!) from a lovely Openreach engineer at the exchange who said she had put everything back and that I should be on the Plusnet again.

I told her that I was still definitely connecting to Now/Sky (as evidenced by my public IP being in the 2.221.x.x range).

She seemed surprised by that and phoned a colleague who said it looked like it should be with Plusnet, and to talk to you guys.

So it looks like there's more for Openreach to do, but at we least have a working phone line now.

She did say there were loads of orders many of them cancelled and so it was a bit of a pickle seeing what had gone on.

How are things looking from your end in terms of the order to move me back to you?

Andy

[#12]

@Temrael 

It’s probably a long shot but have you tried rebooting your router with your Plusnet credentials/connecting your Plusnet one back in?

[#13]

Thanks Baldrick,

Yep, out of boredom I did give that a go, but with the settings on the router currently I'm pretty sure it wouldn't authenticate with Plusnet in any case.

The public IP I'm getting/working with definitely indicates that I'm on the Now/Sky network at least from a broadband point of view. 

Both phone and broadband are working now though, so we can wait and see what Gandalf can see from his end.

[#14]

I'm assuming this is FTTC ?

In which case the engineer work at the exchange would have been to reconnect the phone line back to the BT network and nothing to do with broadband. Moving the bb back to PN is purely a software 'routing' change as the connection is the same at the FTTC cabinet, no physical engineering is required. I suspect that the routing hasn't been changed...

[#15]

Hi MisterW,

Yep FTTC.

Ok, so nearly there then hopefully. That's good if it doesn't require an engineer at the exchange for the last bit. 👍