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plusnet , no broadband but you can pay anyway HELP ADVICE PLEASE

Mas

0
lo all, I feel terrible . I recommended to a retired friend who is totally non techie that she gets broadband as her exchange has ' gone live'

13 days ago she was 'activated' but the broadband doesnt work in her house.
We followed all of the procedures , have you swapped filters disconnected everything plugged in to main socket e.t.c and there is nothing else you could physically expect the lady to do. It seems pretty obvious to me that a line quality issue 'could' be involved as it has gone in sync and worked for about 90 minutes in the 13 days.

Plusnet say there is no fault their end and now say that B.T claim no fault and are threatening her with a warning of a 47 pound or so B.T charge if they come round.

PLUSNET provided the modem and havnt even tried sending her another one

Plusnet are not offering to take the modem back and cancel as they say there is broadband but i have been there and it does not work so what is the lady supposed to do, pay for somethiNG she cant use surely not ??.

It is the usual one blaming the other but as far as im concerned plusnet sold her it and it does not work.

What can anyone suggest other than make sure no one else uses plusnet, they may be fine if it works but they show no sign of a concience or caring for a customer.

PLUSNET YOU ARE TAKING ADVANTAGE OF AN ELDERLY LADY AND SHOULD BE ASHAMED !!!

Regards Mas
 
As you can tell from my post I have suggested to plusnet that the modem should be ruled out , amazingly they asked if she had a friend with a modem that she could try ( which means that is a fault that needs to be ruled out and came up on the call centre fault finding screen ) then when she said no they just said well we cant send you another one and threatened her with the B.T charge !

I dont live anywhere near her and it costs me a lot of money to drive over to where she is but i may have too drive over there again.

cheers mas
 
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It could be possible that its due to poor wireing within the house/flat. I guess BT responsibility stops once the line terminates at the property. It would be nice if one of our Plusnet reps helps this lady. I would suggest junking your USB modem for a start :)
 
Have you tried uninstalling the USB drivers for the modem and reinstalling them incase they have become corrupted.
 
Yes thankyou Kits good suggestion and its one of the first things i tried. Im not exactly a novice with computers though I'm not trying to be clever or anything :(

Their attitute in itself is a real shock to me. When i lived in a broadband enabled area I had pipex who'se reoputation for C.S wasnt great but TBH it walked all over Plusnets so far. You say quite rightly about the customers wiring but the old style oval shape B.T box is 6" inside the window and the modern B.T socket is about 9" from that. I have looked and the wiring goes straight from one to the other. Even that master socket should be a B.T one shouldnt it ?

I just cant see why when someone has done what has been asked of them help is not put in motion.

If its too costly for B.T and Plusnet to put it right they should put their hands up ( BT and Plusnet) and say we cant help you and take it back it IS a joke but its bot funny , she is getting very upset over it and I can see it making her ill.

It wouldnt get this bad if it was mine as i would cancel the direct debit keep the modem and say take me to court and I have to say they would not win.
I hope that she eventually decides to do the same.

I am keeping all of the records of 'in' action and will shame Plusnet over this.
 
I'm not sure what the law says about "services", but there is definitely a clause in the sale of goods act that states the goods have to be fit for the intended purpose. Clearly if there is no broadband then this isn't the case.

If you've tried everything else then trying a different modem is the only other option, but if it did work at all (even if only for thirty minutes or so) then it would seem to be a line quality issue.

If she isn't on the basic BB package (i.e. 512/256) but something faster then I'd suggest getting it downgraded to the basic. If she is on the basic setup then there is not much I see that can be done short of cancelling the service and going back to dial-up.

Some help from Plusnet would be nice, but if they were told by BT "The line is OK" then it's really BT that needs to get its finger out and sort something out.
 
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I've had the exact same problem.

Like the lady in question I could get a connection but with constant cutoffs.

I'm with Pipex who escalated the problem to BT, who said there was no fault on my line.

All internal lines were checked and double checked. Modem uninstalled and re-installed but still constant cutoffs, which were really bad during bad weather.

I kept on at Pipex, who kept on at BT.

It turned out to be a fault at the "Green Box". Don't ask me about Green boxes but that's where all the lines contect up to the exchange after leaving your house.

Although my line was strong enough to run telephone it wasn't strong enough for BB.

Whatever BT did, I now have a fairly good connection, although, when the weather is really wet and windy my connection can still fail.

Can I ask, is the lady on 1mb or 512K, as my disconnections got really bad after pipex upgraded my account to 1mb.?
 
You dont even get told these days , plusnet connect you to a 1 meg max automatically . i can ttell oyu what the speed of the connection is as of course it doesnt work. its not a case of constant disconnections it is a case of a flicker maybe once a day of sync.

whatever it is they can do this plusnet v bt thing but the law says plusnet sold it to you plusnet must make sure it works and they are not. i can well see it ending up in court . I could accept plusnet sayig we cant provide you broadband but thats not what they are saying.

now over 2 weeks still no help and not even another modem to try !
 
although i dont know the details, this does appear to be an end user issue and the end user should be fixing it, there are limits to what an isp can do for you over the phone, pay the 47 pounds and if the BT enginneer says its an end user issue, then you should pay for it, otherwise plusnet should pay.

End users should be reponsible for some aspect of the service, there is only so much an isp can do.

So if you really want this fixed , pay the 47 pounds, you are the one prolonging the issue. You will have it refunded if its a problem with the line.
 
You dont know anything re consumer law then do you. It is not the end users responsibility to provide themselves with a working prouct , it is the product suppliers responsibility I.E Plusnet. Plusnet have a contract with B.T re supplying 'them' with a wholesale product which they then pass on as a retail one , none of that is the customers responsibility.

Your post is rude unhelpfull and wholy inacurate.

This has all been caused by Plusnet not bothering to pursue it with ' their ' wholesale provider , it isnt even B.T's fault. As for the ' alledged ' B.T charge this is just a threat from Plusnet.

This morning a very helpfull man from B.T contacted my aunt and agreed with my assessment that at 5 miles from the exchange it will almost certainly be a line quality issue anyway and not her fault. He was not impressed with Plusnet using the threat of the ' waste of time callout charge' against her and was in no doubt that this charge would be wholy inapropriate in a case like hers.

B.T are coming round on Friday A.M to perform tests at the house , this has only happened as I have kept on at Plusnet for 2 weeks to do something.

I will bother to post the result of this not for you but for the majority of folk on here who have at least tried to be decent and helpful.
 
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Hi Mas,

It appears that you are getting the wrong end of the stick here, and for once I'm going to partly sit with veryrichguy on this one. You're quite right in saying that BT Wholesale sell the ADSL service to Plusnet, who sell it on to you. The catchpoint comes when you accepted Plusnet's terms and conditions; your agreement is with Plusnet and not with BT Wholesale. Plusnet's escalation procedure may well include liasing with BT Wholesale to get it sorted.

onephat said:
I guess BT responsibility stops once the line terminates at the property
In this case, yes. ADSL faults mainly occur in three areas; at your local exchange, in the "local loop" (which is the line between the exchange and your home if I remember correctly), and in your home. The term "your home" I believe extends to the first telephone pole, though you could argue it starts at the BT master socket. Now, the end user is responsible for anything your side of the BT master socket. Unfortunatley, there is a degree in Plusnet's truth of £47 for a callout charge. Aside from it generally being a lot more expensive, BT engineers only charge that if there is a fault on the line. That is to say, if they detect a malfunction in your internal wiring which is of a BT nature, they will sort it and waive the charge. If the engineer concludes that it's not the line, or it is caused by a device which isn't part of the standard home telephone infrastructure, then the fee will be applied. In short, the most likely way to dodge this fee is to disconnect everything from the phone lines, unscrew the faceplate on the master socket, and connect directly to the test socket with no extensions or splitters. I can appreciate that you've done this already, but there's no harm in covering old ground.

If that fails, click here and bang in the telephone number and postcode. Click on "locality" which will give you a point to point reference for the distance. You say it's around five miles, which is around 8km. Conservativley speaking, you need to be within 2km for 2mbps, 4km for 1mbps, and 5km for 512kbps; and naturally the further you go the lower the speeds go. As you have correctly said, this looks like a long line issue. However, having worked on such cases before BT generally tend to class "broadband" as "anything over 100kbps" which is a little poor to be honest with you.

To summarise, the things that need to be done are a series of tests on a line (a "woosh" test to those in the know), tests using "long reach" drivers if they are provided by your modem manufacturer, a regrade to a lower connectivity set (such as Office500 on Datastream), or finally a whole cancellation. The whole cancellation thing can get a little messy, as the service provider generally has their hands ties until an ADSL engineer reports an unacceptable signal-to-noice ratio (off the top of my head it's greater than 62dB - if that makes any sense), and the decision is cascaded to Plusnet. Plusnet get a refund off BT, you (or indeed the affected customer gets a refund off Plusnet). It's not the easiest way I've ever seen things done, I hate to repeat myself but unfortunatley things won't change until that BT engineer categorically reports to BT Wholesale that the line is not suitable for broadband use.

I'm fully aware that you know half of this, though the purpose of this post was to attempt to give yourself and other users on this forum a crash course on how long line issues are treated. I feel bound to tell Mas in particular that it's no use kicking off on us, we're simply giving you different angles or possibilities.

I hope it gets sorted soon.

(and yes, if I've got something wrong, feel free to slap me about and put me right :D)
 
romerogoon said:
As the service provider generally has their hands ties until an ADSL engineer reports an unacceptable signal-to-noice ratio (off the top of my head it's greater than 62dB - if that makes any sense(and yes, if I've got something wrong, feel free to slap me about and put me right :D)

The 62db figure has been extended to anything that is asked for and may work will be provisioned and I have seen lines at over 70db that have sync'ed up ok and worked but intermitant with a low SNR. With the problem this person is having your right in the diagnostics but the main thing to do would be test the modem in the test socket via a new filter after it has been reinstalled/factory reset as this is more or less all the BT engineer would do with their equipment.
 
Yes, that would certainly be a logical step to follow. To be honest with you, I'm not too hot on SNR values and their meanings, I'll bury myself in a book this evening see if I can work out what it's all about, I been simply reeling off figures from when I been in touch with BT Wholesale.

Still, it's nice to be kept updated, cheers!
 
" this does appear to be an end user issue "

Stick up for him you may but there is absolutely no evidence whatsoever that the lady or I can do any more to make it work and that man has no case to suggest that this is an 'end user issue'.

I stand by my critisism and still thank those who have been more helpfull

By the way I am well aware of Whoosh tests and of DB loss over lengths of copper cable. I may not come on bragging of technical expertise but that does not mean I have none, just a thought.

If I can work out that the line length is probably over 8.25KM ( and I have looked to see the route it physically takes) , you would have thought that Plusnet could have asked for a test on the loss in less than 15 days would you not :)

I suspect B.T wil do the honourable thing and either ' stretch it' or put their hands up and say no your line isnt up to the job , folk always moan at B.T but the minute Plusnet have properly involved them at least they have 'promised' to help.

I am moving back to broadband world in 2 and a half weeks ( yippppeee) and the initial check shows ' possibly ' up to 2 meg. I liked the look of the Plusnet deal but suprise suprise I'll definately be giving them a wide berth :cool:
 
Alrighty then Mas, please accept my post as a form of constructive criticism. Your response is either asking for an argument with myself, or you have misread what I was trying to convey. I in no way was attacking your level of technical expertise, as you may have read - my post was designed to assist both you and other members of the ISPr community who may be experiencing similar issues.

Why Plusnet hasn't gone to BT Wholesale to run woosh tests or despatched an engineer to the exchange is indeed something to look at. If a fault has not been submitted to BT Wholesale, then to be honest I don't think anything will get done given that it's probably just sitting in Plusnet's lap at the moment.

Also, unfortunatley I don't think they'll simply stretch the line. BT's way of provisioning ADSL is to "activate first, ask questions later". That way, if the broadband shows up as being able to carry any sort of broadband, they'll activate it even if there's absolutley no way that it's going to happen. Unfortunatley, as you're finding out, it takes them a fair while to actually call it a day.

As I said, I hope you get this sorted soon :)
 
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@mas,

Perhaps you could PM me the username of the lady in question and I will have a look at the account? After 15 days I find it very hard to believe that we have not conducted any testing on the line.

Can I make it clear that the £47 abortive call out fee is not a threat, and most certainly not intended that way. It is something we simply have to make you aware of. If symptoms point directly at the line being at fault and absolutely everything else has been ruled out, we still have to advise users of the potential for this charge. Admittedly, it is applied rarely, however a customer would not be pleased if they were charged as such without any prior warning.

From the comments you have already made I can make the assumption that after the initial diagnosis was performed by the end user we woosh tested the line. We will then have raised a fault to BT. BT's diagnosis centre will have returned this to us after being unable to find a fault. It is then practice for us to ask the end user to eliminate the possibility that their hardware is at fault. Although I find this unlikely it ensures the aforementioned fee will not be charged should an engineer need to be dispatched.

The only other alternative I can think of (and it isn't normal procedure), would be for the end user to mail the hardware to us for testing. Should we not find a fault though the modem will simply be returned to the customer. This would result in a considerable delay and the initial postage costs to get the equipment to us in the first place.

I understand that the procedures are long winded. The initial diagnostic steps have to be untertaken before BT will even accept a fault from us. Remember, we provide self-install ADSL packages, that's one of the reasons the costs are so low.

Back when we did offer BT install packages the set up charge was £210 and a 512K line cost £35/mnth. In the event of hardware failures and the like an engineer could be dispatched to resolve these and similar issues. As you can see though, the difference in price is massive.

I'm confident we can resolve this customer's problem, and am happy to help where possible to ensure that is the case.

Kind Regards,
 
As per my P.M thanks fo the offer , though over two weeks in.

As promised by me in my previous post just to let all know , B.T arrived this morning as promised and suprise suprise as I have mentioned the house is too far from the exchange/line not up to the job.

Plusnet have been told already and I wont even bother to post their reply.

The lady now 'awaits' her full refund. We shall see how long it takes :rolleyes:
 
It does sound like an exchange problem to me.....particularly as the exchange has just been upgraded. I would get on to BT to do a line test - they are NORMALLY pretty good at doing this

all the best

FG
 
Lo Fungi , i think you'll find its a lost cause but thats no problem as the technology has its limits you have to accept that.

As for Bob thankyou for taking an active interest.

Regards Mas
 
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