No active phone or broadband after nearly 2 months

[#1]

Was asked to look at an order. Below is timeline (Question [ 164587929 ] ) of events :

03. 12.17 Customer places and pays for order - ask for activation on 22.12.17
20.12.17 customer has heard nothing for two weeks. There is a delay job should be complete by end of today once this is done an engineer will be assigned.
21.12.17. further work is required and we have been asked to check back on 28/12/17 for an update
We are still processing your order and should be able to confirm the completion date soon

28.12.17 Question [ 164587929 ] is now off hold. Our Support Team will provide a further update soon.
12.01.18 I am sorry for the delay in your orders. I have contacted our suppliers who have escalated this and we will have an update in 24 working hours. They have asked us to check on the 16/01/2018.
15 days for the next touch on the ticket by PN, just not good enough.
12.01.18 The line from the Exchange to the DP has a fault and this will be rectified by the 19th of Jan

22.01.18 This work is due to complete on the 01/02/18

22.01.18 However I have escalated this to the suppliers. They did inform that once all the activities have completed your services will be going live for 29/01/18 or 30/01/18
23.01.18 We will be getting a further update on the 25/1/18
26.01.18 work due to be completed by the 30.01.18
31.01.18 at 7.07 am is now off hold. Our Support Team will provide a further update soon.

The customer informed me, they were told this would be assigned to someone to look after, never happened.
The customer has received hardly any ( if any) proactive phone calls from PN, has had to ring in.

Clearly, your supplier has not been chased or enough pressure applied to get this resolved in any sort of timely manner.
Dates have come and gone, without anyone seeming bothered at PN.

I rang about 30 mins ago , expecting to get an update, nope even though the ticket has been off hold since 7am no one has rung the supplier, i hold whilst suppler is rang ( bet no one would have rang the supplier if i had not phoned in)
To be told, an engineer is working on it right now, will be fixed by end of the day , like i believe that after all the missed dates.

This is before the phone and broadband can be ordered.
Can someone please look into this utter mess please

[#2]

It’s very difficult to hold your parent to account for the situation they leave you in. From personal experience a direct complaint to the CEOs of BT group and BTOR has helped oil the wheels, in a situation where an ISP referral to Ofcom for shoddy service is not ever likely to happen.

One way or another BT must be held accountable for such abject failure to deliver service. Again in my experience once a review date has been given they tell ISPs to go do one until that date it reached. Wholly unacceptable, but BT just go not care about the damage caused to retail ISP brands, even (especially?) when that brand is a group member. I cannot help but wonder if BTOR would have been more diligent for BT Retail or for Sky!

Yes PN needs to be more proactive, but one imagines they have just too many BTOR cans of worms to juggle.

Is this a business or residential line?

Any idea if this case has been raised to the DSO? ... if BTOR will allow such escalation.

[#3]

It's a residential line

[#4]

Mike,

Developing the context, is this..,

New build?
A new (additional) line?
Take over of a ceased line?
Take over of a working line?

[#5]

Its, not a new build, although a " new line" was needed.

[#6]

Not even a response here from PN for this shocking none service!

Latest update 

31.01.17 - This is to confirm that your order is in progress and this is due for completion on 05.02.18. 

01.02.18 - I can see that the job is with testing engineer to double check the routing and they have given the next review date by 07/02/18."

"Once the engineer has completed the job, we will be able to progress with the line plant records and then can appoint another engineer for installation"

So now your supplier gives the date  07.02.18 to fix the fault and that's before an install can take place . Yet your suppliers first date ( many have come and gone ) to sort this was the 20.12.17  

Its now over 2 months since the customer placed this order. 

[#7]

During my third call yesterday, i asked at what escalation level this what it with " the supplier " ( last two calls, I asked and was informed it would be escalated ) to be told none yet.

Its bad enough you can not escalate such a shambles of a job of your own back, yet when you have told me twice previous it will be , and continue to do nothing proactive for over two months now, i am getting very very frustrated!. 

[#8]

Sorry for the delayed response Mike.

I'll look into this and post back once I've had a chance to fully understand what's happening.

[#9]

Thank you Matthew 

[#10]

Right after looking into this essentially the main problem is that there's DACS on the line. For those who don't know this there's more information here

Essentially this causes a wide variety of problems in terms of removing it and in addition there are no spare pairs that don't have DACS on so they're having to install new pairs.

I can see the escalation request was sent off Monday and this was accepted. The next updates due on the 9th but depending on what's needed I can't say for sure when this will be removed.

[#11]

Thanks for the update Matthew, it is very much appreciated.

Until now it has been very disappointing how PN has handled this (none proactive in my view), especially given it was only first escalated Monday ( from me ringing numerous times ) , given there are quite a few escalation levels with your "supplier" 

It should have been picked up by someone senior with PN and escalated before now, but we are where we are. 

Going forward is it possible someone can take ownership of this until the end, keeping the customer updated. ?  

[#12]

@MatthewWheeler,

There are some essential communication lessons to be learnt here, along the lines of "Honest answers garner understanding and possibly more patience".

There is a country mile difference between "there's a fault on the line" and "there's DACS on the line and there are no spare pairs".  The inability to fix a "fault" within specified time scales looks like incompetence, whereas dealing with the legacy of DACS, where there are no workable spare pairs, is a rather different matter requiring substantial infrastructure work.  [Thanks for taking the time to add a link to DACS so that other readers can better understand the issue here.]

Either is cold comfort for the subscriber, but clarity of communication over what is the real issue, rather than portraying incompetence, results in less frustration.  Is this a case of BT not clearly describing the issue to Plusnet or Plusnet 'simplifying' the nature of the problem to the user?

[#13]

@ITWorks I've moved this into our personal pool where our team will continue to monitor it and we'll update it as soon as we know more.

@Townman I've passed feedback on regarding the communication although it may be that the agents have misunderstood DACS as a fault or aren't aware of what it is or does. In all honesty this is the first DACS issue I've seen in my 7 years here so they are rare and inbetween.