21 days and still no Broadband connection

[#1]

I signed up with PN on the 1st Oct and was told my Broadband would be connected in about 5 days. Now three weeks later I still have no connection and the blame seems to be placed with BT. I've tried talking to Customer Service guys who area call centre in South Africa, it is difficult to understand them and made worse by poor line quality, you are kept waiting for ages on hold with music so deafing and distored it blows your head off!!  They wont put me through to Sheffield so I can explain to one of my fellow country men the problems I am having and all in all Im totally p****d off with PN customer service. I have received a couple of text messages and they all seem to put the ball in BT's court.  I've been told BT need to send an engineer to manually make the connection in the exchange, and a number of occasions where PN have told me that BT keep asking them to ring them back  in 24hrs for an update. BT have also told them my order has been passed on to a special dept to be actioned. Here we are three weeks on and no Broadband and I've already been charged for the first month!!      Please, Please, Please, is there anyone there in UK customer service who can take this problem by the scruff of the neck and get it sorted out??? I don't know what BT are playing about at, this isn't rocket science all I want is to be able to get on the net.  Would someone please help me???    Thanks in advance.

[#2]

Plusnet Support      0114 2965198   
PlusNet Business      0114 2965182   
PlusNet Faults        0114 2965188 
They can only route to the UK callcentre 

[#3]

Thanks for that Peter at least its somewhere for me to start tomorrow if no one in CS takes up the challenge!!  Much appreciated

[#4]

I know how you feel STOKIE , i had the same problem. Call centres overseas YUK!!!!!!!

[#5]

Welcome to the source of all knowledge Stokie, I.E. the Forum

[#6]

Hi Stokie,
I'm sorry to see that your broadband order has been taking quite so long.
On odd instances, BT do sometimes see delays in broadband orders (they're generally pretty good).  Your order is currently within a specialised team within BT and hopefully we'll get some progress soon.
If you'd like me to give you a ring later on today, just drop me a PM with a good time and number to call you on.

[#7]

I came across a bit of BT information recently which may explain the delay you are seeing.
If you go to http://www.openreach.co.uk/orpg/products/llu/exchangereport/exch_rep.do and download the spreadsheet you may find some information about your exchange.

[#8]

Hi All  Thanks for all your comments, had a call from James Bailey (PN Comms) seems my exchange (Wetley Rocks, WMWRK, Staffordshire) has no capacity to give me a broadband connection! I've got to wait for someone to give up there connection ie:  Move or die so I can have their line!!  Anyone come across this before??? 

[#9]

That was very common in the early days of ADSL and still happens on smaller exchanges even now. Nothing PN or you can do until BT add extra broadband capacity to the exchange.

[#10]

That sucks, I never even knew that problem existed

[#11]

It's a bit of a pain sometimes.  Basically, each exchange has a finite number of connections that it can possibly take, and unfortunately it looks like it's hit the limit on this one.  Fortunately because it's quite common for people to move house or cancel broadband services, it's normally not that long for a slot to become available.
Like Peter says, it used to be a lot more common a few years ago and would be a royal pain, but these days it's pretty rare.

[#12]

cheers for the info James, I take it when this problem does arise, is it because the exchange is serving a rural area?

[#13]

Not necessarily - it just means that there's more people signing up for broadband (hence why it's not so much of an issue these days, as most already have it) on the exchange than expected.

[#14]

thanks for clearing that up, the reason I thought it would affect rural areas more would be with old exchanges not being upgraded in rural areas  (you can tell I don't have much knowledge in this area lol)

[#15]

Your logic is pretty sound to be honest.  It's all about capacity and broadband uptake, so the same could apply in a rural area if there's sudeenly a few new houses being built that want broadband installing.