Yet Another Fine Mess

[#1]

I need to get this off my chest...
I got a call from a neighbour this morning as her internet had gone down. It turns out that an upgrade to fibre was due in a few days. I went to see what was going on. The upgrade to fibre will be self install. When I looked at the set up the  BT cable comes into the hall where it is tee'd off inside a standard faceplate to the bedroom and kitchen. The router is in the kitchen. There was no internet connection.
I advised that the reason for there being no internet (the phone is working) was probably because the switch over to fibre was happening prior to the date she had been given. I also pointed out that the wiring arrangement was unacceptable; a new filtered faceplate would need to be fitted in the hall to pick up the extension wiring inside the connection box. The router would then need to be installed in the hall.
I suggested that she ring PN and ask what was going on with the changeover to fibre and to ask if BT could attend and fit a filtered faceplate. After waiting to talk to PN this was what she was allegedly told.
1. ADSL had been disconnected early and she would be without internet for a week. I get the impression that PN consider this to be an 'act of God' over which they have no control.
2. The wiring would be fine and all she needed to do was plug in the filtered splitter supplied with the hub.
Is there an assumption that non technical customers will:
1. Put up with having the plug being pulled on ADSL 7 days before fibre is activated without complaint, and
2. Put up with a sub standard wiring layout that will hopefully stagger along be it with reduced broadband speed, or
3. Assume that such customers will have a neighbour to sort out the shambles, or
4. Just don't give a damn 
There, I feel better now!

[#2]

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1. ADSL had been disconnected early and she would be without internet for a week. I get the impression that PN consider this to be an 'act of God' over which they have no control.

That doesn't sound right, we don't place a cease order as part of a fibre upgrade, it's simply a modify to the existing line. So the ADSL should continue working right up to the point of FTTC being activated.

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2. The wiring would be fine and all she needed to do was plug in the filtered splitter supplied with the hub.

Correct. We provide via a self-install now, so no engineer goes to the premises.
Any chance you can PM me their username so I can see what's going on?

[#3]

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That doesn't sound right, we don't place a cease order as part of a fibre upgrade, it's simply a modify to the existing line. So the ADSL should continue working right up to the point of FTTC being activated.

I should probably clarify that, if the line is on ADSL2+ (21CN) then it's a modify. If the line was a 20CN line then there are 2 orders, one to cease, one to provide but both for the same day.

[#4]

This is an upgrade from 20CN and PN have ceased this 7 days early. Their excuse: 'these things sometimes happen but never mind we'll compensate you for the week'. So presumably PN thinks that's OK then. Unbelievable!

[#5]

I wonder if the thinking here from PN is that the new FTTC service will be so much better that the customer won't realise its degraded due to wonky wring?

[#6]

Sorry, didn't get chance to respond earlier to your PM. Plusnet haven't ceased anything, the order for the cease is still open and hasn't completed yet however it would appear that this has gone through early even though the order hasn't finished. We can look in to this as a fault, however to be honest, it's very unlikely that it'll speed up the customer getting back online.

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I wonder if the thinking here from PN is that the new FTTC service will be so much better that the customer won't realise its degraded due to wonky wring?

People were unhappy we weren't doing self-install and didn't want to have to wait in for engineers. If the internal wiring is causing a fault, or speeds lower than the estimates then we can get an engineer to visit.

[#7]

So as I see it Chris you are saying that OR have screwed up, it would take a week for them to correct this, so it is not worth bothering. I accept that this is the reality but it really does bring home to me that whilst your top management can claim that there is a 'wall' between PN and OR, in reality there is not a proper supplier/customer relationship between the two companies. This is despite PN staff referring to OR as 'our supplier'. In the world that I live in, if a supplier screws up like this they get an immediate kicking and are told to put it right. In cases like this I would expect action within 24 hours.
With respect to self install I fully agree that many customers are fully capable of managing self install. In this instance we have non technical pensioners with a standard NTE5 faceplate with two extensions paralleled off the rear connections. I assume that you will agree that the only competent solution to this is to remove the standard front panel, fit a filtered VDSL faceplate and rewire the extension wiring  to the appropriate terminals on the new filtered faceplate. With all due respect to my neighbours they would not even consider such a task. I would fully accept that PN have introduced self install because customers do not want to wait in for an OR technician if this was offered as a choice. The fact that PN have introduced it across the board suggests to me that the real driver is cost saving.
With respect to your last comment, reported slower speed would lead to instructions to plug the hub into the master socket, which would result in the fault being corrected. So whilst you may well be able to get an engineer from OR to sort out the wiring I can only assume that this would be chargeable as the fault is clearly with the customers wiring. Before the policy changed this would all have been sorted free of charge during the 'engineer install' process.
On a more positive note I accept that this is beyond your control and am grateful that you have taken an interest. In this case I will sort out this issue for my neighbours but do feel for other non technical customers with similar wiring arrangements.