What happened to Plusnet customer service and it's Broadband service

[#1]

Who do you pay for your telephone, BT, Plusnet or someone else?

[#2]

Hi Guys, Hi Relica.
With all the input here, I think there may be some confusion. There seems to me to be 3 separate issues which are PN ticket response, possible Line issues and 3rd - throughput speed.
Ticket response - I'm not going to try and defend the previous poor response, I think your reply #29 sums it up well, but my answer to your question there would be ring them up ..... but wait, read on
You have said you occasionally have noise on the line (reply #24). This (at best) will cause errors which results in lower throughput, and at worst causes sync drops which may give you a low sync for a while and so a lower profile for a while and hence lower throughput. In between that you may have sync drops but still resync at a reasonable speed, but repetitive incidents will push up the Target SNRM (yours is upto 12db) resulting in slower than may achieved sync speed.
Finally, throughput speeds - whilst some of this may be due to the network issues, from what I've said above line problems need to be resolved. If your phone line is noisy you will have problems with your broadband and you have the same phone line whoever your supplier is.
It is generally easier to deal with phone line faults through your phone service (POTS) provider (and not mention Broadband to them), but if the fault is intermittent, this is where it gets a bit tricky. Answering Jelv's question will be helpful, then we can see which way to go - we can offer help here which may be more comprehensive.
With regard to the BB issue itself, apart from above, a look at the error figures from your router stats would be very helpful to give a better picture. If you don't know what they are or can't find them, tell us what make. model & version your modem/router is and someone who knows it should be able to help. Make sure you include the modem/router uptime and current ADSL stats with the error figures.

[#3]

Hi Relica,
I'm sorry for the delay in responding to your ticket, though on checking I can see there's been a response this morning. It sounds like Anotherone's post above is the best course of action to take - if there is noise on the line that's almost certainly what's causing the drop in speeds, as there isn't anything in your connection history that looks like it might have caused the profile to be lowered.

[#4]

I have posted my Netgear DG834G router stats previously. My phone provider is BT.  The ticket response which again seems automated asks me the same stuff as before such as provide three BT speed tests from different parts of the day which I can't do as I work. Also I tried this once before and I couldn't do as I got confused.
Will report to BT that I have noise on the line. Again, If I have to contact BT to sort this out myself (assuming this is the problem) then I dont see what Plusnet have done to help me through this problem.
I have to phone a special plusnet number before 5.00pm to get a mac key and a cancellation of contract valuation. As I work past this time I am still stuck with this company for the time being.

[#5]

You pay your line rental to BT and they are responsible for it, there is nothing that PN can do until the phone line is working correctly, it can really screw up you broadband connection, taking a poor line to another ISP wont help you at all

[#6]

Hi Relica
As we dont provide your voice service then we cannot fix the noise on your line. this has to be done by your voice provider and ultimately will be the cause of your issues. had we provided your phone service then absolutely we would be fixing it.
Let us know how you get on with the vioce fault.
Mark

[#7]

Relica, as one PN customer to another, let me try and explain this as clearly as possible.
The definitions of acceptable broadband service are so wide that it can be sometimes very difficult and very frustrating to pin down intermittent and obscure faults and get things fixed. These definitions are not PN's, they are industry wide and regulated by OFCOM, it doesn't matter whether you get your services from BT Retail, PN, or any other ISP or Communications provider (CP) they are all regulated by the same rules.
BT Wholesale market services to a number of ISP's and CP's and equipment and lines are maintained by BT OpenReach. BT Retail, BTw & BT OR are all subsiduary companies of BT Group and as it happens PN are owned by BT Retail, however BTw and Openreach are forced by the regulations (and the regulator OFCOM) to treat every ISP & CP equally, so it doesn't matter who you buy your services from the same rules apply.
You get your Broadband service over a pair of telephone wires. You pay Line Rental for those wires and a telephone service to a provider who has the main responsibility to the customer - End User (EU) for this. The Broadband supplier (ISP) only has the responsibility of providing an acceptable (within the definitions) service over those wires. If the wires go faulty, this often appears as a problem on the telephone service.
To quote a PN customer who said to another PN customer "if your phone line is [Censored], then your broadband will be [Censored]".
These days you are provided with a line to the telephone exchange which terminates on your property in Network Termination Equipment (NTE) which is normally a Master LineBox. Beyond that anything connected, extension wiring/sockets/phone/modems etc is your responsibilty, it's called "Self Install". This is why YOU are required to carry out a number of tests and checks to ensure it is not your own equipment or installation causing the problems or face a charge of £144+VAT from BT which is passed to your provider and then you (read page 5 of the Phone book as far as basic service is concerned).
You could of course, pay any Telecoms Engineer/Company to come and check your equipment, that is your choice.
At the end of the day there is still no guarantee you will get an improvement if the service provided falls within the definitions as acceptable.
Furthermore, those that don't understand the technicalities for certain needs have difficulty in doing what is required, that is where users like myself (which include Forum Mods) and members of the PN Comms team can often provide detailed help. Oh, and when you first posted this, a Mod thought it was best to move it to the Rants & Raves board, not for the reasons you accused him of, but because it would get greater prominence as you had a problem that seemed to be going nowhere.
So that's the system, you may not like it, I and many other may not like it, so I suggest if you want further help come back and ask. One other thing you will need to try is an alternative modem/router and filter which can be borrowed if you don't have them. If you don''t want to follow this advice, carry on banging your head against a brick wall.
Rgds.

[#8]

Lets imagine you have bought a car, but every time you take it out of the drive it bounces around so badly it rattles your teeth and you bump your head off the roof. Would you expect the dealer to fix it?
What about if the reason it bounces around is because your road is falling apart with 6" deep potholes and ruts every two yards. Would you expect the car dealer to complain to the council on your behalf and if you did would you be told to take a running jump by the dealer and complain about it yourself?

[#9]

You insult my intellegence and what you have written is very patronising.
We don't have noise on the line but we have had it in the past. At the moment the voice side of my service is perfect. I even tested it online with BT. I thank some of you on here for trying to help and lets face it you have been more concerned that Plusnet.
Unfortunately though I am on the second page and still no answers forthcoming to my speed problem.
Date                                     Download Speed                  Upload Speed  
Today 20:38                       467 kbps (58.4kB/s)             376 kbps (47kB/s)

With latest speeds like this surely you can understand why I am angry.
dick:quote

[#10]

Hi Relica
I was responding to this comment

Quote

Will report to BT that I have noise on the line. Again,

If thats not the case then I apologise but I took what you had said as fact. From that and previous posts I believed that noise on the voice side of things was the root cause. I'll do some digging when I get in in the morning and see if we can get some additional focus on this for you.

[#11]

One thing you may not realise is that due to the stupid BT systems, if you get a bursts of noise on the line that cause your router to sync at a much lower rate, BT sets your IP Profile down to the lower speed and your line is stuffed for up to three days until the IP Profile recovers. If during that time you get another burst of noise the clock restarts.

[#12]

Hi Relica,
This forum is probably one of the best things about PlusNet, please have a little patience and let the well intentioned contributors assist.
You will almost certainly not get this kind of support with any other ISP.  I too am a customer and I have issues with my broadband but I have come to realise that my problems are either with my BT line which I cannot change or with my own equipment (my router might be 'playing up'), I honestly think that my own problems are far more likely to be solved here then if I transfer to another ISP (no matter how good their customer service).
On this forum you have an exceptionally valuable resource that will assist in solving your issues (both community contributors and PN staff).
As a community forum you will recieve some responses that may appear patronising but please remember that anyone posting replies to your posts are genuinely wanting to help (whether staff or not).  Your download speeds are, in all honesty, absolutely terrible but this is very unlikely the fault of PlusNet (Yes PN do have issues with their network, as any other ISP might have but you will find that there is a core of staff who are genuinely enthusiastic about providing the best possible service to all customers.
From my experience, your extremely poor speed is almost certainly caused by line noise (intermittent or otherwise) which is beynd the control of PlusNet and, as other contributors have suggested, a change of ISP will just result in the same problem occurring with your new service, most likely without this type of support.
If you decide to change providers I would ask that you report back to let us all know whether your problams have been resolved (just a request).  I have no particular agenda for encouraginh yopu to stay with PlusNet other than my own experience with other providers and their total lack of understanding of customer issues.
Let's see if we can solve your problems and change your understandably sceptical view of PN.

[#13]

Hi Relica,
I've put a reply on your ticket with some test results, basically if a speed test this morning matches last night's results I'll get this pushed forward for you as soon as I can. Sorry for the delay in picking the ticket up.

[#14]

Well I quicky responded to this request and I was advised that Plusnet would put it in the hand of BT but I am still waiting for a response.
I am still having major problems with speed and yes I have no noise on my line as was the get out option for plusnet.

[#15]

Hi Relica,
I've had a look at the ticket and can't see any speed test results from off peak periods - unfortunately without these we can't escalate the fault as it'll just get sent straight back to us.