How has Plusnet support gone so badly wrong?

[#1]

Hi all! Very long-term Plusnet customer here, been with them for broadband since 2002, recommending various others along the way, and (one rocky patch maybe a decade ago aside) have always been particularly impressed with the support when things go wrong.

This month, however, I cannot believe I'm with that same company. I lost my fibre broadband connection for about a day on 5-6 December, and to my shock realised the only remaining specific way to do anything about this was now an SMS service, which didn't work for me anyway as it refused to recognise the phone number I know is associated with my account. What on earth happened to having any online service to use for this, and why?!

Instead I therefore called up and repeatedly spoke to well meaning but very amateur-sounding people who didn't seem to have any technical expertise or insights at all. The weirdest bit of this was that whoever I spoke to (including during the later incident below) would only be able to offer to follow up on my case during their own personal working hours. If they would be clocking off at 4, and an update was due at 5, they'd only offer to update me on their next shift two days later or whatever. They don't seem to have any way to specify that a colleague needs to update me - extremely weird approach!

Anyway, on that occasion I established via a rival ISP's website(!) that there was an exchange fault on my local exchange, and sure enough this got resolved the next day, with no credit due to Plusnet at all as Openreach were already dealing with it before I got in touch.

However, a week after the first fault, my connection went down again (12 Dec), and it's still not back a week later! The process here has been equally painful but without the quick payoff of Openreach sorting out a wider issue.

In this case it sounds like the issue is with around half the flats in my large block, and therefore needs addressing by some specialist bit of Openreach. But I don't know this from Plusnet, I know this from a neighbour. In fact since Openreach investigated, the only information I've had has been empty holding messages in reply to my plaintive ticket updates begging for info and updates.

Why on earth don't Plusnet provide an update immediately following on from an engineer visit? I have no faith at all that Plusnet are doing anything at all to keep on top of this ticket. Am I going to be internetless until 2024? Does anyone at Plusnet even care any more?

Like I say, I honestly can't believe it's the same company I've been with for 21 years. "Disappointed" doesn't cover it. In my hour of need the ISP I've stuck with for decades has completely let me down.

[#2]

@paulspeller No help to you, I appreciate, but it isn't the same company - it is now the 'cheap arm' of BT Retail (or BT Consumer) and as such now works to the rules and procedures of said company, most of which were written in the days of GPO Telephones, to their, not the customers, benefit.

You have thought by now they would have moved into the 21st century, but that appears to be beyond their capabilities

[#3]

@paulspeller  are there any other alternative broadband networks in your area (instead of using Openreach) ?

Put your postcode in to Ofcom : Broadband Availability Checker 

then look for the line "Networks in your area - ", to see if you could move to another network (if any)

[#4]

It says EE might be, but I'm pretty confident the only provider with fibre actually coming into my block of flats is Openreach. Thanks though!

[#5]

@paulspeller EE are BT 'in disguise' - i.e. the 'expensive' as opposed to the 'cheap' arm of BT Consumer - so they still use the Openreach network, and will be bound by the same outdated procedures as Plusnet are.

[#6]

Wonder why Ofcom list them separately then, that's weird!

Anyway this is all a bit besides the point, but I guess that's because no-one is going to disagree with me that Plusnet have lost it, and there's nothing I can do to get them to sort my broadband out with any urgency?

[#7]

Ah - the separate listing is for the Fixed Wireless (4G/5G) offering.

I totally agree with your final statement.

[#8]

Perhaps it's time to switch to an ISP who has a reputation for getting Openreach to fix problems, when other ISP couldn't ?

See  A&A : We'll fix your line

Many of us still posting in this forum are now ex-Plusnet customers, having come to the end of the road with Plusnet after repeated failures by customer support, or having suffered relentless account features being removed and the products whittled down to the minimum.  There is also the continued speculation that Plusnet might disappear soon, perhaps to be merged into EE.

[#9]

So sorry to hear this @paulspeller I have added a ticket on the account and this will be something the super users etc can expand on because it's a little too technical for me. It's the SASA that is at fault and it is affecting multiple customers. We will keep an eye on it and I am going to do a handover for the guys in for the next few days so we can keep an eye on it. 

[#10]

Thanks very much for this update! (Although I'm a bit unsure how you know which account is mine! Perhaps it's linked in the forum back-end I guess!)

I just wish I could even get any idea of when it might be fixed but it seems that's the one thing no-one can provide. Thanks again though!

[#11]

You're very welcome, I would be extremely frustrated if it was me as well so I want to try and get eyes on it. I got the info from previous responses as it stores it in Khoros (The system we use for social responses)

[#12]

Is this FTTP service?

SASA - Openreach use a 32 Way Split, as in one fibre leaves the Head End and Splits into 32 Fibres at the SASA, although they only use 30.

This is what BT Openreach might deem a Major System outage (MSO) impacting multiple ISPs and end users. Openreach are not overly communicative to individual ISPs with MSOs - it will be fixed when it’s fixed and updated when there is a change in status. Any timeline offered is “next update point” and should not be taken to be a target fix time.

Consequently there is often no (meaningful) update available for ISPs to pass on.

[#13]

It is FTTP, yes. Thanks for the explanation! All very frustrating - any idea how long these kinds of issue typically take to sort out, are we talking days, weeks, months…?!

[#14]

As a fellow customer observing events around here, we do not have enough empirical experience of FTTP fix / failures to advise.

Will has hinted at it being a SASA, but not what is not working nor what is required to resolve. Depending on where the failing component is located, ground works might be required.

You’ve mentioned multiple flats are impacted - the problem could be located in a communal services area, access to which might be required … needing cooperation with the building management body.

[#15]

Hi @paulspeller 

Will's not in today so I'm chasing this up on his behalf

I've raised an escalation with Openreach to see if we can get this sorted quicker for you.

As soon as we know more we'll be in touch