Horrendous experience attempting to change over to Plunet fibreoptic

[#1]

Calls to Talk Talk, Ofcom and Plusnet confirm that Talk Talk only ceased the account on Plusnet's instruction.
Plusnet purport to offer a service which they failed to deliver, failed to warn they were going to fail to deliver, failed to explain why they failed to deliver and failed to expedite when they failed to deliver. They should not have taken over the line (which was done on their initiative) if they could not provide the service.
Plusnet are the customer facing provders of this service. I would have therefore thought it logical that they should know whether or not the service was to be delivered - and if it were not, for some reason, then to have an alternative not requiring an engineer available, or to leave the existing service - not wait till after the fact and blame a subcontractor.

Quote from: Matt_2k34

[Indeed, but as above - PN do not do anything with the network itself, BT do. PN just pass on the instructions and hope that BT sort it.

That's a pretty damning indictment of BT as the parent company of both operations. I look forward to seeing 'We just pass on the instructions and hope that BT sorts it' in Plusnet's promotional literature and their FAQ.
Whereas fibreoptic is new broadband isn't and Plusnet were unable to provide even this without at least a week's delay after downing the line without notice.
Are Plusnet harassing BT? some evidence of this from Plusnet would be nice. What's their managing director - who I believe was installed by BT - saying at board meetings?
As for  my username, it's nothing more than the logical conclusion following the premises expressed in the posts above. I haven.t come here for help -the time for that is past - I have come here for explanations from Plusnet and to publicise my predicament so that hopefully steps will be taken so that others may not be placed in the same position.
This morning I received emails telling me that my Plusnet protect is ready fro download and talking about charges on my account and I suffered a direct debit although I have cancelled the account. Says it all really.

[#2]

Years ago I was on Home Highway. I was told that the switch from that to ADSL would be seamless, but as I didn't want to risk it I arranged things so that the ADSL was provided on a new line and only when that was working did I have the HH removed. It involved a lot of swapping telephone numbers on lines!

[#3]

I have twice had to ring Plusnet to ask them to stop demanding money for this closed account - being told the second time 'that for some reason' the notification of the account closure had not gone through to finance. Frankly, it came as no surprise to me. I am still wondering whether anyone at Plusnet is going to explain themselves more fully than the inadequate  'something went wrong' note earlier.

[#4]

And I've received 2 more demands, one by email and one by text since the promise this afternoon that I would receive no more.

[#5]

This morning (Saturday) I received a complaint from Plusnet that they could not access my card details to take out further payments.
Are you having a larf Plusnet?

[#6]

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Calls to Talk Talk, Ofcom and Plusnet confirm that Talk Talk only ceased the account on Plusnet's instruction.

That is totally incorrect. At no point during a migration of service does the gaining ISP have any communication with the losing ISP. It is OFCOM rules which enshrine this so curiuos to hear how they confirmed that it happened.
We have told Talk Talk nothing, at any point.

[#7]

Talk Talk told me that Plusnet arranged to take over the line on 23rd June; they had no choice in the matter, were not allowed to communicate with me according to Ofcom rules - and Plusnet duly took over the line on 23rd and left me without the promised internet - FTTC or broadband. I rang Ofcom to see who was at fault here and  they told me not Talk Talk. I have just spoken to Talk Talk and they are as amazed at your comments as I am. They told me it is impossible for two providers to hold a line simultaneously and that the new provider ALWAYS notifies the old provider that the line will be taken over at a certain time and date. They tell me they do this all the time. Are you telling me that Plusnet simply usurped the line without informing Talk Talk?
Even more seriously, Talk Talk have just informed me that they cannot reconnect me because Plusnet are blocking the process. I am about to ring your cancellations dept, but anything you can do to address this farcical situation would be appreciated. Talk Talk tell me that because Plusnet have failed to install a broadband the line cannot be taken over.

[#8]

In order to address the issue of being left in limbo, Plusnet's support team told me that I had to raise a complaint by internet from an account that kept telling me it wanted my billing details before it would let me do anything. Apparently Customer Support can't raise the complaint on my behalf. After trying and failing once - because of my billing details notification my complaint disappeared into the ether - I again rang the support team and got one of them to suppress the billing details notification so that my complaint could be submitted. It is now with Plusnet and I wait to see how long it is going to take before my line is once again capable of being used by an ISP. I have spent ages on the phone dealing with a situation that should be Plusnet's bread and butter. I've had a fresh conversation with Talk Talk who tell me that apparently the issue is that my original order with Plusnet is still open. This will be reviewed on 5th July and I would be delighted if it then showed as cancelled so that I may get back online.

[#9]

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It might help if we could have a fuller explanation from Plusnet on this other than Matt's personal expression of regret. For example, why on earth wasn't I left with Talk Talk until Plusnet had its act together? Why did Plusnet take over my phoneline when they didn't have a proper service to provide?

I'm just a customer like you but I can hazard a guess as to what's happened.
PlusNet, together with most ISPs, provision their services via BT Wholesale who in turn get OpenReach to physically make the connections.  There are two ways to provision a phone line + broadband in this respect,
1) provision the phone line (which can take anything from 24 hours in a simple start of a stopped line to 5 days or more if a new line is required ) and then provision the broadband once the line is active ( which takes 5 days ).
2) a simultaneous (SIM) provide where the phone + broadband are done at the same time.
SIM provide requires a minimum of 10 days notice I believe ( as directed by BT Wholesale ).
Ok, so my guess as to what happened,
PlusNet request a SIM provide for phone and Fibre Broadband, BT Wholesale accept this but there is a problem somewhere down the line with the Fibre provide and so that is cancelled but the phone part of the order continues. BT Wholesale tell PlusNet, but it is now too late to change the broadband part of the order to ADSL because it needs 10 days notice. The phone part of the order continues and BT Wholesale( not PlusNet ) tell TalkTalk they will take over the line. Since TalkTalk use full LLU to provide their services, this cancels any broadband they were providing. PlusNet now have to wait until the phone line is active before they can place an ADSL order. Once they do that, BT Wholesale won't permit the transfer back to TT because there is an active order on the line!.
Now, of course, this doesn't help you plusnetnoway, and you are totally correct in that your provider is PlusNet and you expect them to sort this mess out. The BIG problem is that ISP's don't seem to have any real way to MAKE BT Wholesale/Openreach sort things out when they mess up!
Ok, so I might not be correct in what happened!, but I must admit I'm a bit surprised that someone from PlusNet hasn't given a better explanation on here as to what actually went wrong.

[#10]

MisterW Plusnet should be offering you a job straight away - certainly in public relations. That is a most cogent and believable account and I'm very grateful. It would be interesting to have it confirmed or denied by Plusnet.
However, if your account is correct I am confused and angry that the changeover went through without any warning to me even when it became obvious that it would destroy my internet access for at least a week. It should have been stopped as soon as a problem with one of the components was perceived, I should have been notified and a fresh date should have been set. The current state looks like contempt for the consumer.

[#11]

(MisterW's post coincided with my writing below, so you've already had some of this explained... The essence is that all the "communication" is actually done via BT's computer systems, and not in any direct way....)
Essentially, everything is managed through the computer systems of the company that actually owns the copper/fibre that goes out to your house - in this case BT Openreach seem to be the likely owners. When broadband and/or voice service is transferred, Openreach are acting as an invisible middle-man in all this.
Adding further complexity in this is another BT middle-man: BT Wholesale. They are responsible for providing wholesale internet service from that copper/fibre (owned by Openreach) in to the ISP.
Transfer of service (voice and/or internet) requires the right amount of coordination between the old provider, Openreach, Wholesale, and the the new ISP. The ordering system put in place by Openreach is the thing that co-ordinates transfers between the service providers, and triggers all communications - which are not directly between the ISPs. It is this same system that also dictates the restrictions - such as ensuring that broadband is disconnected if the voice service is ceased. As far as I can tell, the restrictions here also mean that only one order can be placed at a time - and until the order is complete, nothing else can be forced into the system. Or removed, either!
The system is governed by the rules put in place by Ofcom - the main aim being to ensure that the consumer has the ability to choose & change provider. However, the many rules, and the variety of layers of voice & data SPs, all go to make this a complex area. If anything goes wrong in the system, then no-one (voice provider, internet provider, or even BT) can do anything until the computer is made to stop saying "No!" - and that doesn't always happen as smoothly as we end-users would like, nor as any retail ISP needs in order to provide a consistent quality operation.
So, everything said to you by TT, Ofcom and PN needs to be filtered through this knowledge. Talk-talk are telling you the truth, but not the whole truth. Ofcom are telling you what ought to happen according to the rules, and Plusnet are left picking up the pices because something went wrong with BT - who don't tell you anything. It seems that so much goes wrong with those bits of BT (either Openreach, who run the copper/fibre, or BT Wholesale, who run wholesale internet services on the copper/fibre) that *no* retail-level ISP is ever going to be able to offer a perfect service.
It does indeed seem that you've been caught by a problem that is increasingly common now - that the broadband part of a transfer order gets rejected by BT for some unknown reason, but the voice part goes through anyway. And the rejection seems to happen well after its initial acceptence.

[#12]

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However, if your account is correct I am confused and angry that the changeover went through without any warning to me even when it became obvious that it would destroy my internet access for at least a week. It should have been stopped as soon as a problem with one of the components was perceived, I should have been notified and a fresh date should have been set. The current state looks like contempt for the consumer.

I totally agree with you, it may be that BTw informed PlusNet and they didn't tell you, or that Openreach informed BTw, who didn't tell PlusNet in time to cancel the order. I really don't have enough first hand knowledge of the BT Wholesale/Openreach ordering system to know what actually goes on 'behind the scenes' so as to speak. WWWombat's added some further insight with his post.
I think the main problem is that ISPs don't have any means of forcing BTw/Openreach to sort it out quickly when things go wrong, they are are law unto themselves, and hide behind OfCom's rules when it suits them. I don't even think the ISPs have any guaranteed SLA with BTw for broadband, they do for phone though ( to some extent !).
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MisterW Plusnet should be offering you a job straight away - certainly in public relations.

I'll pass on that thanks, I'll stick with the Engineering/IT job!.

[#13]

Another helpful post from WWWombat.
So is it the case that Plusnet does not have the authority to deliver and Talk Talk does (as Talk Talk has LLU)?
That Plusnet-BT Wholesale - BT Openreach is not a joined up operation and Talk Talk is?
Have the responses from Plusnet been so disappointing - unhelpful (Matt) or bewildering (Mark) because they are worried about criticising the outfit that owns them?
Are you going to contribute meaningfully to this thread, Plusnet? I was left up the creek without a paddle by this operation and I think I'm owed a full explanation.

[#14]

None of them are fully joined-up operations, and none of them have authority, in the sense you mean it (ie they all have a dependency on someone else, who is capable of making independent mistakes).
All the operators depend, to some extent or another, on Openreach's copper component, and some depend on their fibre component too. The man who comes to your property will also be an Openreach employee.
The LLU operators have equipment placed in the exchanges, so don't depend on BT Wholesale for the backhaul... but may depend on a different 3rd party for that component. And not all LLU operators have their own support staff either.
All the non-LLU operators have the same dependency on both Openreach & BT Wholesale as Plusnet, including BT Retail. Some of Ofcom's rules require BT Wholesale & Openreach to treat every customer (the retail ISPs) identically - which is one reason that, when things go wrong, they aren't so easy to rectify effectively. Ofcom rules, in the name of equality, make it harder to be effective & efficient.
For copper, Talk-talk are an LLU provider, and (I believe) have their own backhaul. This makes it more joined up from your perspective... but not everyone considers that to be a good thing. Talk-talk aren't well regarded for decent support (but I know I won't convince you of that one given the history in this thread).
As far as I'm aware, the setup is a little different for FTTC products - and any ISP offering FTTC is currently working in a non-LLU fashion. There is supposed to be a way for the line to be split (aka "sub-LLU"), but I don't think TT are doing this yet.

[#15]

BTW - Some of these delays & dependencies are because we're talking residential products, and treated that way by all the layers involved.
Timing and reactions change somewhat for business products - where the higher charges pay for the higher service levels. I guess they're the products to consider - for those very reasons - when the emphasis changes from Working at Home sometimes, to depending on working from home.