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Message for Bob Pullen

Bob.

I have read some of your posts and responses before signing up to the forum. I am not sure if this is the way to do it but I have a couple of questions that I can't get answered from the help and support section.

I have an interest in several Plusnet accounts, some are registered in my name, for personal home broadband use (by students in rental properties I have) and one for business use, which I do not own, but look after. Others are set up on behalf of friends and family and set up by and looked after by myself when problems arise.

Since last summer, I have had to sort a lot of connectivity problems out with some of these accounts. Firstly, I must praise Plusnet for the professional way they have dealt with these issues and the way they have kept me appraised of ongoing issues and managed to get BT to deal with line problems. Having heard horror stories about 60 min + wait on a pay line and crap service by other ISP's I am pretty happy with the way you do things.

Dealing with BT professionally, to get lines installed and removed or poles moved for construction developments I know how obstructive and problematic they can be and having someone turn up the day they promise to do so and at no cost is pretty bloody rare so I appreciate what you lot do.

My main issue lies with three accounts, all at the same exchange. BT refuse to comment but I have been told by IT and comms people that I deal with regularly that there is a huge problem with that exchange and if someone complains enough, they just swap the twisted pair termination with another line. I have no idea if this is true or indeed possible.

All of these accounts are pretty vital to me. Not so much download speed, but actual connectivity and that is what has been unavailable for long periods, from days to weeks. Also by the summer I hope to sign up another two accounts on properties I rent to students if it is worthwhile. I don't want to do so if these problems with the local exchange are not sorted as I will be liable to sort out connection problems if I am charging for such.

On at least one account, I would gladly swap residential for business if it meant no loss of line, no change of account name and emails etc and a guaranteed response time of hours rather than days of pointless checking before BT do anything.

I am not an expert but by now I do know how to test a router, the test socket on a BT line, do a pile of tests including changing all wires, filters, routers for ones that work on another account and vice versa to prove that it is not a hardware or computer / wireless problem. I also keep at least one new router, proved as working, along with a pile of cables, filters and stuff so that I can establish a fault immediately rather than taking days to do it.

Do Plusnet offer such a level of service ? When I have managed to resolve an isse and have asked the question online, it has never been answered so I would appreciate your comments on the matter.

Thanks in advance.

Huw.
 
Hi Huw,

I've read through your post a couple of times but could you possibly be a bit more specific about what you're actually asking for? It ends up sounding like you're just asking for technical support and if that's the case then have you raised the latest issue with PlusNet already? On the other hand I could of mis-read this line, "I have an interest in several Plusnet accounts", to mean that you are already a plusnet customer when in fact you might not be :) .
 
Totally agree with Mark.

Can you be a little more specific in terms of issues experienced and a general outlay of what measures you have taken with Plusnet for each line.
 
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Sorry, I will be more precise.

I am a Plusnet customer, I have two accounts for the family and use one via a business account.
I have referred several other accounts to Plusnet and advised many others to sign up or transfer from other ISP's.
I have a number of students who share one of my accounts, the one I use myself most often.
I am considering installing Plusnet broadband into two other properties that I rent to students from this summer onwards.
I use mobile / 3G access for most of my requirements as I end up working in different locations quite often and am
abroad a lot of the year.
I deal with any connection of PC issues for friends and family.
I deal with British Telecom in my professional capacity so I know how difficult they are to deal with sometimes.

All the problems I have encountered with three accounts since last autumn appear related to phone lines at one
exchange. This was established by systematic swapping of routers, filters, cables between a property with a working
Plusnet account to the one that has a problem and vice versa.

Each time the issue resulted in BT doing something at the exchange and visiting the property and some non specific
fault is reported when I have asked for the cause of the problems. The latest issue is still ongoing and an
Engineer's visit is due next Monday. All the other accounts I deal with are on other exchanges and have never had issues with connectivity except for the occasional outage that is resolved by a router reboot.

The two new accounts I want to sign up for the rental properties will be on that same exchange and I don't want to
end up having to run around sorting out connectivity issues. This is why I am trying to find out if the issue is with this exchange (Aberystwyth WNAE.) or elsewhere.

My query is if it possible to have an account with a guaranteed level of service, not huge speed or
download capacity, just some kind of guaranteed uptime and a rapid response from BT in the event of a line issue
without having to spend days testing various things such as I have described above.

All of the issues with connectivity have been dealt with by a sequence of testing and passing the results to Plusnet online or by phone over a period of days / weeks. It is not a criticism of the way the issues are handled, just trying to find a quicker way to deal with these outages and the cause.
 
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Issues have usually been LCP and CHAP authentication problems. Each occurence has ended up with me taking an active working router from a property with a plusnet account along with the microfilter and cables so I know that they all work- and trying them on the problem line, firstly with that account settings and secondly with settings from the account where I took the router from. Additionally, I use the log in credentials of the problem account at the working account phone line just to check that they work and that it is not a problem with the log in details and finally try the router from the problem account on the working line to ensure that it doesn't have a problem. (Hope that all made sense..)

I have no idea if this is a good way to establish faults but this is what I have usually done.
 
PlusNet are a bit more budget focused so I'm not sure if they can do "an account with a guaranteed level of service" but that's for them to answer. Either way any "guarantee" would normally come alongside a business and not consumer package. Ideally you'd be looking for something with a Service Level Agreement (not cheap), enhanced care and minimum speed pledge to ensure good connectivity.

None of this means to say that BT's exchange wouldn't still cause you problems but it would put more onus on the ISP and BT to fix any issues that did arise. Unfortunately your options on that exchange appear to be quite limited as there's no WBC 21CN. I can't see any major issues on the exchange either, although BT did report a big service outage on 16th Feb.
 
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OK. Thanks Mark & Joanne.
I am in Morocco and a few other places jumping off mountains for 2 weeks but will have a look when I get back. The business one sounds good for what I need.

The option to sign uo two houses for students not so good unless I am guaranteed uptime as it is me that will have to spend time fixing it if it goes wrong. Will think about it when I get back to UK.

Huw.
 
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