Horrendous experience attempting to change over to Plunet fibreoptic

[#1]

This thread has been an education for me and I am privileged to have valuable contributions from knowledgeable people like MisterW and WWWombat.
Plusnet give no indication in their literature that residential is a second tier service - certainly as far as reliability and installation are concerned. My discussions with their business sales team indicated that the chief difference was prioritisation of traffic and if the line was used for purposes other than business by anyone, even if someone in the family used it for work purposes (and my use is light but vital to me)  then it should be residential.
This is affirmed by Plusnet's  Terms of Use:
"Business accounts must be used if the account is to be used from any official Business Premises while Teleworkers are considered to be commercial use of a residential connection. "

In the end, if there are risks with the connection,  Plusnet should say so. My experience and the discussion above indicates that there are risks and Plusnet have been disappointingly silent about the whole matter - in the leaflet that dropped through my door, in their FAQ, in my discussions with customer service and on this thread. It seems they also need to keep closer tabs on the status of accounts they are taking over so that their customers do not end up in the mess I am in now. Are you going to change, Plusnet?
[Moderator's note by Dick (Strat):  Full quote of preceding post removed, as per Forum Rules ]

[#2]

Quote from: plusnetnoway

Plusnet give no indication in their literature that residential is a second tier service - certainly as far as reliability and installation are concerned. My discussions with their business sales team indicated that the chief difference was prioritisation of traffic

Perhaps this was said in the context of ordinary operations, when everything is working. Not many people enquire about the "what-if" cases when things don't go right.
As far as the concept of residential-vs-business priorities... I thought it was a commonly understood principle of differentiation, and nothing specific to Plusnet. Indeed it is more BT's prioritisation at issue - but obviously it isn't as widespread knowledge as I expected.

[#3]

It's certainly the case that Plusnet are categorical that if any of the users are not exclusively business then a residential installation should be purchased - at least that is what I was told by Plusnet's business team.

[#4]

Quote from: plusnetnoway

As my otherwise excellent provider Talk Talk did not offer this I took up the offer.

Talk Talk are the absolute pits. Since they took over Opal (Nildram to Pipex to Opal) the connection was terrible.
The trouble I had trying to get rid of them was immense, what with them saying they had no record of me cancelling (I forwarded them the email) and even with that they initially refused to refund back to correspond with the correct cancellation date. They got some debt collection agency involved who upped the cost by £40 or £50. TT said I had to go through the agency (and thereby pay their fee).
I just bank-transferred what I actually owed and told them and the agency. Sent the agency copies of all the emails where I had chased them to finalise the account.
The agency said they'd hold proceedings. Thanks! I'd happily have taken it to court.
So in summary, TT are the worst!

[#5]

I'm sorry to hear about your experience.
In my case their big advantage is that they were able to provide a service.

[#6]

Even with all the disruption, I might still have gone with Plusnet if they had explained themselves properly (they still haven't).
The real killer was the attitude of the first customer services person I called when I realised I had been cut adrift - who had the arrogance to take it upon himself to dictate what I should be doing with my connection (not using it for work related activity) - which, as the posts above demonstrate, was misinformation anyway.
I found this  a very ominous precedent and it turned me off the whole organisation.

[#7]

Firstly let us apologise for the bad first impression.
We know how much counts on us getting this right but we don't want to base your impression of us on a single point of contact. However rest assured I will make sure that feedback is given to the person that you spoke with to ensure that they are giving our customers a better experience in the future.
With regards to the state of the line I can second what Mark mentioned that we cannot pass on instructions to other ISPs to activate or cease a service. I know your having issues getting TT to take the line back over now, can you let us know in more detail why they claim this is not possible?

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Matt gave no explanation for the failure which leaves me believing that the Plusnet's management systems, such as they are, are not up to scratch

With regards to the issues with the ordering and installation of your services we only intend to give you an honest response with regards to that. I won't blame Matt for not doing this as this can be quite time consuming and it wasn't openly requested by yourself at the time. With regards to your order in particular with us I can see the main points of failure were an issue with our suppliers which stopped us from being able to provide phone and broadband simultaneously. This is not something as a provider we can commit to do and we did communicate the problems we encountered with that process on ticket 42978544. However we also need to hold our hands up and say that we think that we could have communicated this fact at an earlier stage and could have taken the effort to call you and discuss this over the phone.
I also have to admit that I can see that you've obviously not had the best of experiences with the failed billing process. I'm looking into that side of things now for you.

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The impression I have is that maybe they have over-reached themselves with this product

It's not fair to assume this but I can't blame you for doing so. I hope the extra information I've provided above helps clarify the sittuation.

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Are Plusnet harassing BT? some evidence of this from Plusnet would be nice

There's no relevant evidence we're able to give you but I would like you to know that we do have open channels of feedback with our suppliers which are used when issues are encountered. Yes BT are our parent company but we can't afford to pull any punches when providing feedback.

[#8]

Thanks Adam for starting to make a full reply on behalf of Plusnet.
I have two questions:
1. Why did Plusnet disconnect me from Talk Talk and leave me without an internet when they had no service to offer?
2. Is Mark is being disingenuous? Talk Talk are not telepathic - surely they only disconnected me on an instruction - perhaps from BT which in turn would have come from Plusnet with whom I arranged my changeover date. At any rate, and Ofcom confirm this, they did everything expected of them and it was Plusnet, having taken over the line (TT had no choice but to give it up) that failed me.
On accounting, I have had a refund of my first payment today - that is more encouraging.
In summary, in this day and age no customer should be faced with a mess like this - business or residential - do you agree?
If I don't get the line back tomorrow (thank heavens for mobile internet in the meantime) I will ask you to kindly progress this on my behalf and go into more detail.

[#9]

Quote from: _Adam_Walker_

With regards to the issues with the ordering and installation of your services we only intend to give you an honest response with regards to that. I won't blame Matt for not doing this as this can be quite time consuming and it wasn't openly requested by yourself at the time.

I have been asking all the way through since this started (not only here but also on the phone to Plusnet) and the only real answers I have had hitherto have been from MisterW and WWWombat.

[#10]

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1. Why did Plusnet disconnect me from Talk Talk and leave me without an internet when they had no service to offer?

We didn't, it's part of the order process. If you ask for any provider to give you fibre and you have an LLU service such as Talk Talk the current service will be lost.

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2. Is Mark is being disingenuous? Talk Talk are not telepathic - surely they only disconnected me on an instruction - perhaps from BT which in turn would have come from Plusnet with whom I arranged my changeover date. At any rate, and Ofcom confirm this, they did everything expected of them and it was Plusnet, having taken over the line (TT had no choice but to give it up) that failed me.

No, it's clear Mark was being blunt, however sometimes that approach is needed. Please don't think I'm being disingenuous either. We're basing what we say on fact rather than opinion. Please bear in mind that MisterW and WWWombat are both fellow customers and can only offer the latter or give you an account of their own experiences.

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In summary, in this day and age no customer should be faced with a mess like this - business or residential - do you agree?

Absolutely, 100%. We always try and learn as much as we can from experiences like this with the intention of avoiding them in the future.

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If I don't get the line back tomorrow (thank heavens for mobile internet in the meantime) I will ask you to kindly progress this on my behalf and go into more detail.

being realistic I can't personally offer to help you today but I will be able to help you progress this tomorrow.

[#11]

I'm still confused here. On whose authority was my line taken over by Plusnet and why was there no internet? I certainly had no discussion with Talk Talk.

[#12]

From your reply I assume that you only wanted Fibre Internet connection with your phone line being left with TT? I would be surprised if the T&C's did not state that to have Fibre you have to have a BT line.

[#13]

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Plusnet Fibre Optic Broadband Service Terms What we provide 1. The service we agree to give you includes: [list type=decimal] a high-speed fibre broadband service; helpdesk services; other applications and features as described at http://www.plus.net/fibre-broadband installation of network equipment required to enable you to use the service 2. The equipment we agree to give you includes a: [list type=decimal] suitable fibre-capable router data extension kit (required only if there is no double power socket near your telephone master socket). If required, the engineer will ask for your agreement to install during his installation visit. you will need to have and keep a Plusnet or BT telephone line for the duration of the service. An engineer installation visit will be required where no working fibre installation already exists. The provision of Plusnet Fibre is subject to availability and a line check. The service may be incompatible with other services you have.

Looks like someone didn't read the T&Cs he agreed to!

[#14]

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From your reply I assume that you only wanted Fibre Internet connection with your phone line being left with TT? I would be surprised if the T&C's did not state that to have Fibre you have to have a BT line.

No, if you read the thread from the beginning you will see that what was ordered was Fibre Broadband + PlusNet phone as a SIM Provide. What seems to have happened was that the Phone was transferred from TT to PlusNet ( and hence the TT broadband was ceased ) but that the Fibre provide failed, leaving plusnetnoway with no broadband. What plusnetnoway is trying to establish, is why the order was not stopped when the fibre provide failed.

[#15]

That would very likely be a failing of OpenReach or BTw in that they carried out work on the phone line part of the order only without confirming with Plusnet that this was acceptable.
It would also be that TT didn't move the user to ADSL Max over the BT line when they lost the phone line only.