Fault on line 111128987 - repeated no shows, how to proceed?

[#1]

Hi,
I raised the above ticket on the 18th, have since had 3 no shows for openreach engineers, all plusnet seem to be able to do is rebook, which clearly isn't working if they just don't show up.  I don't know what to do to actually get someone to show up & fix this?
Thanks
Rob

[#2]

Hi Rob,
A warm welcome to the forums.
So sad to hear of your poor experience at the hands of BTOR who supply and maintain all of the wires between the exchange and premises for all users other than those with Virgin media.  Unfortunately neither PlusNet nor any other ISP has direct control over BTOR resources.  Rebooking is about all they can do for you, though given that you've had 3 no shows, you should be eligible for an expedited visit at BTOR's expense and also ask about no-show compensation.
Kevin

[#3]

Have a read of http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/shopping/delivery-rights

[#4]

Reading all these threads it does seem as if Plusnet receives a worse service from OR than other providers, or at least Plusnet's customers do.  Most of my experience at home has been with BT for the phone line, and one particular ISP for DSL.  Either BT or the ISP always managed to dispatch OR more effectively than I'm seeing in these threads.  I don't think I ever had a no-show, and visits were booked for no more than a day or so after the date the fault was logged.

[#5]

Yes it does look like that, though there is devil in the detail.
Under Ofcom rules, LLU operators have to have a better (default) level of service than that offered to BTw WBC ISPs.
Under Ofcom rules, BT Retail are not supposed to receive preferential service from BTw / BTOR, however empirical evidence / experience suggests that the playing field is not unbiased. 
Due to the sceptre of No Fault Found charges, it has to be said that PlusNet are fairly strict at eliminating EU domain matters before passing over to BTOR ... and due to the volumes of issues that can take longer than is ideal.

[#6]

Quote from: Townman

Due to the sceptre of No Fault Found charges, it has to be said that PlusNet are fairly strict at eliminating EU domain matters before passing over to BTOR ... and due to the volumes of issues that can take longer than is ideal.

I don't think that's really the issue.  I was referring to the additional delay for Plusnet customers after Plusnet have decided that OR attendance is required.  Nothing's being done by Plusnet during that time.
In addition, I see no sign that Plusnet take any more trouble than other ISPs to eliminate customer faults prior to engaging OR.  Very much the reverse in my experience.
Do Plusnet have an actual escalation procedure that Rob can invoke?

[#7]

It is not a matter of PlusNET having an esclation procedure, rather there being a BTOR esclation procedure available to any ISP to invoke in a timely manner.
From what I have been able to deduce from my own experience and questioning, under normal process, it's about 2 months before esclation routes are open for ISPs to use on line installs.  The end user writing to the CEO of BTOR will open doors for the ISP but might still not deliver a timely service.
There is supposed to be a level playing field service delivery from BTOR, however I am far from convinced that they are doing that.  LLU operators seem to get priority.  I suspect that BT Retail are getting some under the counter favours ... and then to be sure that there is no appearance of in-house favour PlusNET get what's left.

[#8]

Quote from: Townman

... Due to the sceptre of No Fault Found charges, it has to be said that PlusNet are fairly strict at eliminating EU domain matters before passing over to BTOR ... and due to the volumes of issues that can take longer than is ideal.

Sorry to bring humour in, but I couldn't resist.

[#9]

I don't think we can be sure that Plusnet even booked the engineer appointments correctly these days. Are we going to bother to find out what happened here, or should we just get on with criticising Openreach instead? I'd wonder if Plusnet sent an engineer to the correct address, or if the premises is easy to find, or as in many cases on these forums, it transpires that Plusnet never booked the appointment properly in the first place, or it got cancelled but Plusnet didn't even notice let alone inform the end user.

[#10]

Quote from: ejs

I don't think we can be sure that Plusnet even booked the engineer appointments correctly these days. Are we going to bother to find out what happened here, or should we just get on with criticising Openreach instead?

Exactly.  Plusnet should be able to book the appointment, online, while the customer's waiting.  Their link into Openreach should give them online access to the calendar so the first suitable appointment can be agreed between them and the end user right at that time.  Other ISPs do this.  Instead what Plusnet seem to do is to tell the customer that OR will be booked, but what they do after that is anyone's guess.  Do they make an appointment and just not tell the customer?  Or pass the instruction to OR without asking when they'll be attending?  My first hand experience all they told me was an expected completion date of 10 days after the decision to send OR,  no further update from Plusnet, just a phone call from the OR engineer once he turned up.
Plusnet's process needs a lot of work.  At the moment all they seem prepared to do is to blame OR or BTW for any issue of any sort.

[#11]

This finally got resolved, a bit of a comedy of errors (only it wasn't very funny).  In addition to the missed appointments (no explanation given) when a line engineer eventually arrived he pronounced no fault found, PN then booked a Broadband engineer, only they didn't book it & didn't call me as promised, when I called them (after 9pm as instructed) it was too late to get an appointment booked for the next day.  Anyhow we had a decent engineer arrive yesterday, no issues shown until activity on the analog voice side of the circuit - lots of errors induced on the ADSL side, same experience in our house & at the exchange.  Swapped the port & the issue went away.  We've been stable since then.
Took far longer than it should have done to get sorted & the relationship between ISP's & Openreach is clearly broken if appointments can just be missed & no-one notifies anyone.

[#12]

Thank you for sharing that experience.  It would be wise for anyone having a broadband issue which does not "present" on inspection / test to ask that the test be run whilst a call in in progress and the phone is ringing out.