How has Plusnet support gone so badly wrong?

[#1]

Some ISPs do offer 4/5G back up / fall back in the event of the failure of the landline, but one does pay a premium for such service options. Plusnet is not a premium supplier, so the provision of such options ought not to be compared to those ISPs who charge much more for essentially the same service.

[#2]

Thanks very much @willcutforth, that's great, let's hope it's sorted by then but if not at least we will now have a fallback.

[#3]

No change here ahead of the 2 Jan date tomorrow - still offline for over 20 days now (or over 21 if you count the one day's downtime the week before this started!).

Thanks again for the offer to send the 4G device if necessary. What's the deadline for getting that posted and on its way to us on 2 Jan, as opposed to missing that day's post and arriving a further day later? Would it be possible to make sure that the postal deadline on 2 Jan is met by the decision to send me one if Openreach haven't given a further update or fixed the connection? When would we then receive it? Keen to have it as soon as possible if 2 Jan becomes just the latest Openreach let-down date and they still don't get our connection fixed.

Thanks very much!

[#4]

I have checked and they have assigned an engineer to work it today, hopefully there are no high winds today that could scupper it. If/when we need to send a mi-fi it usually comes next day/the day after. I am in until 8pm today so will keep checking to see if I can see any update and if none then I will pop it over to the CAT team to send one out for you today.

[#5]

Thanks very much Will, much appreciated!

[#6]

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@willcutforth wrote:

... they have assigned an engineer to work it today, hopefully there are no high winds today that could scupper it.

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Yeah right !

[#7]

Yeah, in our area the worst of it looks likely to be from midday onwards. You'd hope Openreach would factor that into their work schedule, but I'd hope for a lot of things from Openreach which they have not so far delivered any of.

I assume there's no point in Will or anyone else shouting at them to get on with it this morning before the wind gets up?

[#8]

Ok so looks like 20 mins after I posted the guys came back and said they have had to raise an a55, these guys will be able to decipher better than I can but this was the note: 

"Proved from premises to agg on associates fault on the same splitter and sasa, this needs FND to prove from headend to agg and then splicing.."

Because of this I am going to get a Mi-Fi sent out to you and I am going to pop the fault through to the CAT team as well now.

[#9]

The Mi-Fi has been requested now and you should receive an email about it.

[#10]

Thanks Will! Painful for Openreach to take 2½ weeks to finally return and then apparently it was a pretty quick thing to do to determine more work needs to be arranged! Hopefully they'll do the next thing quickly now.

And yes, if anyone can translate all that stuff (including "raise an a55") into something understandable (and hazard a guess at timescales?!) it would be much appreciated!

Thanks again Will!

[#11]

Oh dear!! BTOR A55 - planning permission to dig - is not great news!! https://community.plus.net/t5/Fibre-Broadband/Openreach-say-they-need-planning-permission-to-fix-a-f...

[#12]

Oh god, that sounds serious and slow, thanks Townman! Which really just emphasises the complete unacceptability of them taking this long to get to this point.

What's the process for seeking additional compensation from PN/OR for this complete breakdown of provision of a timely repair service? I can see absolutely no valid excuse for the delay between Openreach visiting first thing in the morning on 15 December, and them only now, on 2 January, discovering that they need this planning permission. If that was ever a possibility, they should have figured this out a lot sooner than now!

Is there any date shown on the Openreach system for next steps now? So fed up with this, can't believe they would leave it this long and only then find out it needs major work with planning permission!

[#13]

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@paulspeller wrote:

What's the process for seeking additional compensation from PN/OR for this complete breakdown of provision of a timely repair service?

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Ofcom : Automatic compensation: What you need to know 

Plusnet : Automatic Compensation FAQ

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[#14]

Thanks, those are good links! (And looks like I'm now just 9 days away from being able to leave Plusnet with no termination fees, might have to have a look at that ISP which guarantees fixes even if Openreach are being useless!)

I see there's a compensation amount paid for missed appointments, but that doesn't compensate me for Openreach simply deciding not to do anything to fix my fault after the initial visit until 28 December, then saying "high winds" ("extreme weather" exemption?) and crying off until today. All that feels in the spirit of missing appointments but presumably only the letter counts.

[#15]

No ISP can give assurances of a fix independently of what BTOR can deliver, do leaving Plusnet is not going to help you unless you have an alt net provider. However if the issue is in a duct … it is likely that the alt providers cables are in the same duct.

Identifying the location of a fault can in extreme circumstance can require different skills and take time. Bad weather does not help in some settings. I’m sure that you accept the safety of BT’s staff is paramount? Would you be comfortable working at height in high winds? From sailing experience it’s not the steady speed which is the risk issue, but the gust speeds.