Disgusted

[#1]

I have been a more than happy customer of Plus Net's for two years and have readily recommended the excellent service (support and broadband provision) to friends and family. Prior to 6th September I was regularly achieveing downstream rates of up to 6MB. All that changed on September 6th when I reported intermittent connectivity and poor downstream issues through the support telephone number. Despite having informed the customer support operator that I had isolated all equipment, tested my router and was connected into the master BT socket I was informed that there was no problem and would I isolate my equipment etc. When I again confirmed that I had already done this you finally acknowledged an intermittent connection that was obviously not of my doing.
During the next 6 weeks I had to put up with loss of connection on a daily basis with up to 20 connection losses per day and downstream rates that were regularly as low as 128K. On each loss of connection the internet browser locked and resulted in a PC reboot. The fault was diagnosed eventually as a BT line fault and 3 visits were supposedly booked with BT by yourselves. On the first visit the engineer found no problem, the second engineer failed to turn up and the fault was finally corrected on the third visit when the engineer successfully diagnosed a line fault. On each occasion I had to take time off work at my own expense.
During the 6 weeks of "downtime" promises of updates were made on my ticket that were fulfilled days later or when I picked up the phone and complained that I had not received a response. The support response times degraded the longer the problem remained unsolved.
Now that the line fault has been successfully resolved I am again getting downstream rates of up to 6MB and the intermittent connectivity problem has disappeared, surprise surprise!! When I requested compensation for the lack of service I have received I was informed that because I had a throughput issue I would not be entitled.
Whilst I accept that the problem was down to your supplier and therefore beyond your direct control, I pay you for my broadband service and would expect some remediation for the loss of connectivity I have experienced. I have at no point asked for a full refund but feel that a partial refund should at least be offered for the duration of the outage.
Unless I receive an appropriate response I think its time to look for another provider and request that MAC code!!

[#2]

Hi Zammo,
Thanks for your time on the phone.
I'm very sorry it's taken quite so long for your problem to be fixed.  Unfortunately, sometimes we do have to book repeat engineer visits when the problem isn't fixed the first time round.
As I mentioned, I've confirmed what we discussed in your ticket.

[#3]

James
Thank you for taking the time to call me and restoring my faith in your company to act appropriately. As I said on the phone I will now be changing my mind about switching providers.
Thanks again
Zammo

[#4]

Hi Zammo
Glad to see normal service has been resumed for you. It's no consolation, I know, but I wish I was so lucky as a) to have such a blistering downstream rate in the first place, and b) to have the fault remedied comparatively quickly, by the standards I've been experiencing. My problem has gone on unresolved for about 5 months and I am still at square one. BT send an engineer who is unable to solve the problem in his 2 hour time slot, and then do no more about it until the ISP makes another appointment, and so on ad infinitum. I've had 5 Openreach visits so far (11 man hours in total) and still I am getting a pathetic 130Kbps because the speed is hammered down by persistent connection drops. Read all about it on my Rants and Raves topic 'Dropouts and line speed' if you've got a couple of hours to spare.

[#5]

@birdman
I'm sorry I didn't manage to get back to you previously.  Yours is certainly a really strange one - your speed comes back and then it disappears again.
I've passed your fault back to BT.  I'll update your ticket.