Could a Rep please check ticket 76384512??

MY father-in-law hasn't had Internet since Saturday and I ran through the fault-checking in the Portal yesterday morning and at the end it said it may take up to 24hrs for the tests to come back. The ticket still hasn't been updated with the results and he's getting desperate to use his Internet.

Could a Rep please check on ticket 76384512 to make sure it hasn't got stuck?

Thanks

Hi there,

It's definitely with our faults team and will be picked up soon, sorry it hasn't been already - they pick these up in the order they come in.

Thanks Matt. I'm trying to talk him down from leaving PlusNet at the moment - he lives out in the sticks and Skype/Email is the only way he keeps in contact with relations living away.

I physically had to take the phone out of his hand as he was ringing PlusNet to cancel earlier

Quick update:

Still waiting in the PlusNet queue! Nothing's been done (after 3 days in the queue) and he hasn't had Internet since last Sunday. His daughter just had a baby and he's missing out on seeing her via Skype. He phoned Sky yesterday who advised him to move and they'll get it sorted straight away.

I know they're just after the business but I think he's ringing PlusNet this morn to cancel and get his MAC code.

In reply to a post by WelshWArrior:

He phoned Sky yesterday who advised him to move and they'll get it sorted straight away.

"Straight away". Interesting. As in within the hour, the day or the week I wonder?

Exactly what I said to him. He's a stubborn fella and I'm still trying to change his mind but I think he's been without the Internet now for several days and with Sky telling him they'll sort it when PlusNet haven't even answered the ticket, he's had enough.

Not much I can do I'm afraid.

Looks like we requested interleaving, that order completed this morning though it's made no difference I'm afraid. I can't see that he's called up to cancel yet so will see if I can get someone from faults to pick it up - hopefully that'll forestall things for a bit longer, fingers crossed.

Thanks Orbrey - I'll tell him you're on it and fingers crossed he'll hang on a while longer.

He said he has tried to ring several times but has been in a queue for so long he's hung up each time - fingers crossed again that the queues stay long

Now that makes a change!!

But what if the SKY queues are shorter?

i think the OP's father in-law wants his internet back asap if he goes to sky it will almost certainly take a week or 2 even 3 to move over so it doesnt matter if skys queues are shorter they are just lying because they want the business

Unless Sky have LLU provision in the exchange your father shouldn't even contemplate them.

Hi WelshWArrior,

I've just taken a look at the Faults Ticket you've got open there and can see you have a Telephone Fault open as of today?

We wouldn't be able to progress a broadband issue whilst that is still open as the telephone service will always take precedence.

As the broadband is provided on the telephone line, it's important we get the telephone fault cleared and closed before we investigate the broadband fault further for you.

There is no telephone fault and he hasn't reported one. He don't have the Telephone with PlusNet anyway.

I just checked the ticket too and I'm not sure where the telephone fault has come from? I have however, updated it with the times that he would be in over the next few days as requested.

Post deleted by MrSaffron

Amazing!

Did not last long, the joys of spammers

Thanks for replying.

I can see that an engineer has been booked on Monday for you between 8am-1pm, fingers crossed this resolves the issue for you.

Edited by deleted (Fri 01-Nov-13 10:59:58)

lol nicely done MrSaffron

Yep fingers crossed for him.

He's a bit nervous about the possible £60 charge now if the problem turns out to be within his home. I've unplugged everything and plugged the router directly into the test socket and nothing. I've tried 2 other routers but nothing so it must be outside surely?

There's not really anything else internally to check if I'm honest to rule the charge out.

Let us know how it goes.

Well the saga rumbles on and he's still without Internet. Current situation:

BT have spent 2 whole days there (2 vans loads of them!!) and are still at a loss to explain the fault other than to say it's an electrical interference fault somewhere between here and the exchange. They've checked internal wiring (no probs thankfully!!) and tried several new pairs from the redundant ones running past house but no joy.

They've no passed it onto their Rainhelp(??) division - whom I've never heard of so god know when he can expect it to be repaired! How does he even track it now that it's been passed on? The BT gu8ys couldn't even give him a Fault Number.

In reply to a post by WelshWArrior:

How does he even track it now that it's been passed on? The BT gu8ys couldn't even give him a Fault Number.

The tracking should still be through the Plusnet ticket. BT (Openreach) should pass details back to Plusnet who should update the ticket. Whether this will actually happen is, of course, another matter.

P.S. still fascinated to know how Sky would have sorted it out "straight away"

Edited by kasg (Tue 05-Nov-13 17:25:00)

I know - he said that to the BT fella and he just laughed at Sky's statement

How is Dad-in-law feeling about it? Two days with two vans must at least have made him think someone cares and that it can't be a simple fault.

Edited by RobertoS (Tue 05-Nov-13 17:37:58)

He's feeling a little disgruntled but knows it must be serious if, as you say, 2 lots of guys can't find the problem but he really wants to be able to Skype my sister in law etc who lives away and has a new baby.

Tell him he's lucky we aren't 150 years further on, when teleportation by disassembly and quantum transfers/reassembly goes wrong! .

How about they post a few pics online and you get him a dongle for a few days? I assume Skype through a dongle would be too expensive.

hahahahahaha!!!!

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

Tell him he's lucky we aren't 150 years further on, when teleportation by disassembly and quantum transfers/reassembly goes wrong! .

Brings a whole new meaning to the term packetloss

They've no passed it onto their Rainhelp(??) division - whom I've never heard of so god know when he can expect it to be repaired! How does he even track it now that it's been passed on? The BT gu8ys couldn't even give him a Fault Number.

Sounds like it's had a REIN case raised against it, if so a reference from the Openreach REIN team will have been added to the task notes somewhere. A REIN trained engineer will attend, though not appointed, to see if they can locate the source of the interference. Your Dads place must be quite close by to the source, since it only causes total loss of sync near it's 'epicentre', further away, its affects will be milder, slow speeds, high errors, etc.

As for timescales, there you are in the lap of the Gods......... Plusnet are the people to chase, and to chase Openreach on your fathers behalf.

I've just taken a look at the Faults Ticket you've got open there and can see you have a Telephone Fault open as of today?

Could this be the 'dummy' CSS task raised by Openreach to work on the REIN case ?

Zarjaz - many thanks for the helpful info and for the correct spelling of rein haha

Fingers crossed they get there soon then

What about my dongle idea? So at least he gets a minimum level of visual contact.

Edited by RobertoS (Tue 05-Nov-13 22:21:48)

I put that to him but he's sop short of money at the moment that he's decided against the idea - thanks anyway.

I just had a phonecall to say his other daughter's just given birth to a baby girl now so he'll be getting even more impatient haha

Our faults team are chasing this today and we'll update as soon as we can.

Sorry for the wait.

Thanks Chris - I was beginning to think they'd forgotten about him. He was promised an update from the REIN team yesterday via the Portal but nothing.

He's now been without Internet for nearly 3 weeks!!!

Well nearly 2 weeks into this fiasco now and the ticket's been updated today - guess what it said?

That we should check back next week for another update!!! The father in law is now furious - he's had no Internet for nearly 3 weeks and they can't even give him a date for when a REIN Engineer will take a look

What the hell is going on there at PlusNet? My father in law now hasn't had Internet since 26th Oct and I just logged in for him to check his ticket and they've now closed the fault!

This is absolutely unacceptable!

I have no idea about the PlusNet ticketing system, and why the ticket would have closed.


Unfortunately, your father-in-law's case has reached the 'difficult to fix' stage. If it is REIN, one or more sources of radio frequency noise are getting onto the wiring - and the source(s) of that noise are almost certainly outside Openreach's direct control.

Depressingly, there is a fair amount of equipment that fails to comply fully with the EMC regulations, but most users are unaware of this and some don't care even if the effect of their defective equipment is pointed out to them. One cause at this time of the year is flashing Christmas lights - but 26 October seems a bit soon for those. It might be a faulty power supply in some equipment.


I expect the Openreach engineers have suggested this already - but what happens if he turns off all other electrical equipment other than the router, then turns on just the router? I really do mean all other equipment, other than anything with safety of life consequences - it's only for 5 minutes. If his router synchronises, he has a process of elimination to carry out at his house, which is the best possible case as fixing the root cause is in his power. If his router fails to synchronise, the source of the noise is likely to be external.

The Kitz advice on REIN might be worth reading, though it's not always easy to track down REIN with an AM radio.


There's only so hard that an ISP and their customer can push on REIN issues. Especially if your father-in-law is the only person affected, Openreach and BT Wholesale could go down the "too hard to fix" route and offer to end the broadband contract without penalty.

So long as PlusNet keep as much pressure on Openreach as is reasonable, moving to another ISP won't help. The work done so far indicates the problem is not just with your father-in-law's current pair of wires, but equally affects available spare pairs. Whichever ISP he chooses will use the same troubled pair, unless he has access to a non-DSL service at reasonable cost (cable, satellite or mobile).


I'm sorry it's not better news.

The fault ticket isn't closed, it's a nitification that has come from our suppliers, we do have this escalated and I'll chase Nick now for an update.

That's great Chris - thanks However I do think the ticket update is misleading:

"The broadband fault has been closed by the supplier. Should problems re-occur, please restart the Broadband Fault Checker."

It suggests that as far as PlusNet are concerned the fault has been remedied which is certainly not the case here.

I agree, it's a KCI(Keep customer informed) that has come through from our suppliers that initiates this, maybe we need to look at how this comes across to you as this case proves.

haha yeah there was a bit of panic from him when we read that!! Thanks for keeping on top of it Chris.

It doesn't mean that BT have washed their hands of the fault though does it? As far as he's aware, the BT REIN engineer hasn't been near his house as of yet.

No, as far as I can see a REIN case has been opened so we shall continue to pursue this.