In my experience - inferior service in rural Northern Ireland

[#1]

Yet again ANOTHER poor service from Plus.net! Every month I have a reason to be on the phone to customer service about an issue that has arisen with my service.  I know some problems can be out of your hands but you can't blame BT Openreach  for everything. If I went to a grocers and bought some fruit only to find it was rotten inside I would expect the store to take responsibility and not told it's because of the awful growers they have to use.
So today the story so far. My phone line and Internet was working perfectly this morning when I left home. I live in rural County Down and the infrastructure seems to be archaic when it comes to telephone lines. For example my broadband speed halves when it rains hard. Anyway I digress,  I noticed at the end of my lane there was a telecomunications engineer van doing work when I went out earlier to do some messages. Not 2 hours later on my return the van was gone and on my return home the phone line was dead. This is my latest of monthly problems. It took an hour to arrange an engineer on the customer service line and was told if I do any amount of work on broadband I should have a business line and they could also provide a better service then.  So my earlier possible engineer visit isn't until next Monday. Also if I wished to cease my non working service it would cost me £25 and it couldnt be ceased till after they sent out an engineer. Is it too much to ask for a stable reliable connection from Plus.net?

[#2]

Hi spacehopper83,
Sorry to see that you have a fault, I've looked over your connection and can see some drops that you have had and also gone trough the fault that was raised. Your line looks like it has been pretty stable with the odd disconnection, so it may be something that needs looking into further to get this resolved once the phoneline has been fixed.
The earliest available appointment is Monday, any downtime that you have had will be discounted/credited. Once your phoneline is working I'd be more than happy to check over your connection to see what can be done and get to the bottom of any possible broadband issues.
Chris

[#3]

I too live in rural Co Down (BT30) but thankfully have received flawless service from Plusnet since 2002. You are correct to expect Plusnet to own and resolve your issues, however they have no control over the quality of the copper pair, exchange equipment or anything between them and their edge routers.
They will and do diagnose and arrange for BT to fix issues (There is no Openreach in Northern Ireland) and will chase and escalate when this isn't completed correctly or efficiently.
If you are seeing repeated connectivity issues, and if i've read your opening comments correctly and that appears to be happening monthly, this is wholly unacceptable and Plusnet should be reviewing the history and getting BT to produce an acceptable solution.
Repeat faults are something which Plusnet report on accurately and the faults team should be cognizant of the repeated nature of your faults.
Changing ISP wont fix your problem. The same BT infrastructure will be in play and thats what needs immediate focus. A move of provider will simply shift the problem and mean you have to potentially deal with an offshore contact centre who have nowhere near the level of competency Plusnet have.
Persevere with these guys and work with them to resolve. They will get there. It's not a problem of their doing but they certainly need to push BT Northern Ireland to fix it.
Mark

[#4]

Thank you for your comments Mark. But I have had connectivity issues over the past six months I have returned to this property. I would loose broadband for about 2 days a month on average. I have given up telling Plus.net as they have told me it would take about 48hrs to sort itself out on its own and to call them if it hasn't gone and fixed itself.  At times I have had connection speeds of 0.25mbps in the past. I had BT at this property in the past and had a much better connection with dreadful customer service. So I seemed to have swaped that around with Plus.net. Is it too much to ask for both?

[#5]

Hi spacehopper83
It's still not Plusnet causing it. Copper pair can degrade over time, joints can become dodgy or BT may have swapped you onto a dodgy pair to resolve someone else's issue. It happens, unfortunately.
A fault such as yours will not fix itself automatically, and dont accept that approach from the support team. It needs intervention by the Plusnet faults team and BT NI. If you havent already done so, visit https://portal.plus.net/apps/kbdfaults as opposed to ringing the support team. By walking through the automated faults checker, the correct remote diagnostics will be kicked off within BT's systems and the results returned to the support team and you for progression / necessary action by Plusnet.
It's a straightforward, wizard driven process but you have to be honest and give accurate responses. Walk through that and get this raised properly. Plusnet will fix this, once and for all.
You may find that the very capable and friendly Digi Care team who frequent this forum may use some of their wizardry to help get this progressed
I'm assuming you've done all the usual internal checks from your side?
Mark

[#6]

Thanks again for all the help Mark, done all the usual checks the phone line just seems to be dead. I just hope this time I get it all sorted quickly. In the past I tried to upgrade to fiberoptic broadband through Plus.net and they booked an engineer to fix a broadband problem instead of an installation. So after waiting in all day when the engineer did turn up he refused to do any work and change the plate, after that I didn't try again as I was told I had to pay for another engineer to turn up. Hopefully it will be straightforward this time.

[#7]

The installation process and the faults process are completely different and driven by different systems and indeed teams. It's hard to fathom how such a mistake could happen. Did BT make that claim or did Plusnet admit it?
Re your phone line being dead. Is that also with Plusnet? Whoever the provider, that element needs sorted first and entirely seperately from the broadband element. It's a distinct possibility that is the root cause.
Mark

[#8]

Plus.net is the provider of the phone line and therefore their responsibility in this case. The engineer in that previous experience was booked through Plus.net and the situation was very embarrassing as the engineer and Plus.net customer service support had an argument about not completing the work over my mobile phone when I phoned customer service to find out what was going on when the engineer flat out refused to complete the job. Mark on your profile it says that you location is Sheffield not BT30 as you told me, are you sure your not part of the Plus.net so called digi care team?

[#9]

Lol. Absolutely!
I did work for Plusnet from 2006 to Sept 2012. I headed the Business & Corporate Services. I now work for a software company which has teams in Sheffield, Belfast, US and other countries.
Sometimes I'm in Belfast and others I'm in Sheffield or elsewhere. My house (home) is in Seaforde
The Plusnet teams don't hide behind false identities and neither do I
I am now simply a customer as I was before I worked for them
Mark
Edit /typo

[#10]

Hi spacehopper83,
Sorry to hear you've a fault, we'll keep an eye on it and check up following the engineer visit on Monday but there won't be much we can do until then I'm afraid. However if you could update us on Monday following the visit so we know how it went from your point of view that'd be really helpful.
Hope it all gets fixed for you then.