Line fault over a week old and still no fix in sight.

Come on , unacceptable that my dad has had to wait over a week and so far no joy getting this fixed, also pretty rubbish there was a 3 day delay as a cherry picker was not even available. (so BTO are just as lame as you lot) - and that's a terrible combination to have to rely on.

Also pretty shocking that for no reason what so ever you seem to have put him back into an 18 month contract- no reason I can see, no new gear, no new deal, he's been on 30 days notice for 5 years and then when he considers moving bam, 18 month deal

Are you THAT [censored] these days that you actually get scared people will leave? Well in either case he will be going, your 18 month contract is baseless and void as well as illegal

Hurrah for the daily rental compensation scheme is the only upside. But that's still peanuts at £2 a day.

I am sure it's only the shareholders you "do proud" these days.

So he advised he was thinking of leaving so they offered him a deal based on an 18 month contract which he could either accept or reject with a cooling off period of I believe 14 days
So what is your problem

Edited by deleted (Tue 17-Jan-17 13:30:49)

How much compensation do you expect?

First point to take away with this - buy cheap, buy twice.

Secondly, did he agree to the new contract? They can't just change the goal posts and stick him on an 18 month contract out of the blue. Contract is a contract. Was he made aware that this was going to happen, and did he agree to it at any point?

On a personal note, I left this shower over a decade and a half ago. I saw how it was run, even back then, and so moved on, not looking back. If you/he are this unhappy, I suggest you do the same.

I don't know the full background here, but normally, if you are unhappy with the service, and you call them up hinting you will be leaving, you would ordinarily (if you want to) wait until the service is fixed, before agreeing to any new offer (contract) they may throw at you. Why one would do the reverse is beyond me.

No, he never advised he was leaving. He told me he wanted to so I had a look online and on his account and noticed that a new contract has been added a few days before. To go from £0.00 on cancellation to £180 I am sure would shock anybody.

Was no discussion with Plusnet, so therefore no cooling off period.

Edited by deleted (Tue 17-Jan-17 14:43:47)

In reply to a post by AndyHCZ:

How much compensation do you expect?

The current BT/Plusnet figures work out at just over 80p a day after the third day of no service. It's based on Quarterly line rental x 4 divided by 365. I know it's peanuts but still, he shouldn't have to pay for it - and when on a pension every bit helps.

Seeing as they are giving free stuff away to all and sundry, and based on the fact a landline is a critical utility these days (and for him really is due to who is living there) that's fair enough to request.

I had to edit to get the right formula

Edited by deleted (Tue 17-Jan-17 14:44:46)

The fact is that a new contract automatically has a 14 day cooling off period and when being offered a new contract the agent always explains that there is a new contract and advises this
Have you checked the tickets on his account for the period in question and he should also have received an email with the title "Confirmation of your new contract"
Of course there is always the possibility that an agent pressed a wrong button
Regarding "no discussion with Plusnet" there must have been for him to advise he was thinking of leaving

Edited by deleted (Tue 17-Jan-17 14:52:23)

Can't see anything that states he advised he was leaving.

However, 23prince, he presumably spoke to PlusNet about the fault so wondering what happened in that call? It is possible that the operative taking the call did accidentally do something that put him on a new contract - if so then PlusNet should be able to undo that if he speaks to them.

However, this forum is the wrong place to rant *at* PlusNet. It is not a PlusNet forum. There isn't even any guarantee that they even look at this forum anymore. Rant about PlusNet yes, but not at them - do that on their forums or via their support routes.

I have read all the comments and would suggest that you bite the bullet (time) and get on the phone. Stay reasonable and I am sure it will be sorted. If everything you have written is correct then they will realise that there has been an error and correct it.

At the very least, someone should receive a refund for the paid period where the service was not working.

If these is some financial loss (maybe mobile phone call costs) as a result of the loss of service, then these should be claimed as well.

I find it a little strange if, completely out of the blue, your father is considering leaving Plusnet then suddenly they put him on an 18 month contract without even discussing anything with them.

I assume your father has been speaking to PN support? I guess it's only the retentions team who can offer and extend contracts (other than it being online), so not quite sure how this has happened if he didn't speak to someone other than PN support.

In reply to a post by Oldjim:

The fact is that a new contract automatically has a 14 day cooling off period and when being offered a new contract the agent always explains that there is a new contract and advises this
Have you checked the tickets on his account for the period in question and he should also have received an email with the title "Confirmation of your new contract"
Of course there is always the possibility that an agent pressed a wrong button
Regarding "no discussion with Plusnet" there must have been for him to advise he was thinking of leaving

No one spoke to Plusnet, my dad decided he wanted a better deal and told me only. I then went looking online and then I went to his account. In this day and age if you want to leave an ISP and you are not in a contract there is no need to ring them UNLESS someone wants to barter a new deal, contract or not. He didn't

Nothing online. I have gone through all the past tickets, but I could only do that because there was this existing ticket on there about the fault and I could do a date range, no where else can I find any link to the ticket system anymore.

In reply to a post by AndyHCZ:

I find it a little strange if, completely out of the blue, your father is considering leaving Plusnet then suddenly they put him on an 18 month contract without even discussing anything with them.

I assume your father has been speaking to PN support? I guess it's only the retentions team who can offer and extend contracts (other than it being online), so not quite sure how this has happened if he didn't speak to someone other than PN support.

No no one has spoke to him and this was not about the fault. The fault started last Monday on the 1 single day that some usage actually appeared on the portal. They did this to him in June, but my dad is not really into checking online stuff he just gets his service and pays his bill. It was me who discovered it whilst looking through the fault ticket and going back a few months.

Hes got the same kit I installed 2 years ago - on the same line and package, nothing to suggest why there is a new contract but its been in force since June. All it says is "product changed from Fibre unlimited to Fibre unlimited" and " Phone changed from line only to line only" - and that's it. So I thought maybe they have put a discount on (which would explain the re contract) but nope. Bill has not budged since that date. He used his mobile to get online and I know 4GB won't last long but I don't think he will care about that. He was more worried that my nearly 90yr old Gran wouldn't be able to call him if she needed to when he was out. She's of the generation where mobiles and internet are alien.

Anyway we will see what happens and when.

Your OP suggests that the 18 month contract and the now wanting to leave were related causally - if one happened over 6 months ago and the other has only just happened then they aren't. Neither is the fault causally related to the contract.

So, over 6 months ago for some odd reason PlusNet put him on a contract and it has just been noticed because there was no reason to look before now. The only way to resolve that will be to talk to PlusNet either via their forums or via a support ticket - posting here will likely change nothing as PlusNet seem not to have a presence here any more. Hopefully PlusNet will accept their error and rectify - if not then it may end up having to go to arbitration - a pain but unfortunately the industry practice.

I would strongly suggest getting the fault sorted before moving as taking a fault to most ISPs is a nightmare in itself.

I only noticed the contract whilst looking back over this fault ticket, which means I could search for older questions. Now it's all been removed from the portal, typical Plusnet.

It was sorted this morning. Oddly enough after I requested that they look at their compensation scheme was it removed.

He will be moving anyway..

In reply to a post by 23Prince:

fact a landline is a critical utility these days (and for him really is due to who is living there) that's fair enough to request.

I disagree, I don't have a landline.

Over 50% of households can have fixed line broadband with no landline from Virgin, and I know many young people that just have a mobile phone and 4G for broadband.

A landline is not critical.

What do you think the wires that your Virgin broadband comes through are?

A landline. With no telephone service, and line rental included in the broadband price. No point in them showing the line rental separately as you can't have anything but Virgin Media on the physical line.

Unlike Openreach lines where any provider who wishes can provide several services, often with different phone and broadband providers simultaneously.

What do you think the wires that your Virgin broadband comes through are?

We could get quite pedantic here. The wires are in fact wires. To deliver Internet connectivity requires a carrier of some kind - this could be wire, fibre, radio, etc.

OED defines landline as:

A conventional telecommunications connection by cable laid across land.

Virgin are now providing some connections that are fully fibre so in that case landline definitely doesn't fit - and I am not sure I would class broadband as "conventional telecomms connection" as it is too knew to be considered that.

So, probably better to split the carrier from what is being carried. Broadband and voice both need some form of carrier. Virgin offer services without the voice component which does reduce the cost to the consumer. However, you yourself use Pulse8 who manage to deliver a voice service at significantly lower cost than most providers and not that much higher than Virgin are charging for the carrier without voice.

So, whether you have voice or not the carrier medium needs to be paid for (even in wireless where the carrier is wireless access points and backhaul - and possibly payments for wireless spectrum if not using the "free" spectrum).

I believe in this day calling it a landline just confuses things - in a growing number of cases it has nothing to do with a landline and to be a landline it needs to carry some sort of traditional communication and I would not include broadband in that definition personally.

Are you sure Virgin are doing FTTH? I just googled it but didn't see anything to suggest they are doing so.

Re pedantry and definitions, I suggest you should also have looked up the OED definition of telecommunications

Communication over a distance by cable, telegraph, telephone, or broadcasting.

That seems to me to include TV and internet communication.

As for no voice component on Virgin, several CPs now provide naked broadband. AAISP being the best known on these forums, but I have seen others.

The point really is that VM has a wired physical connection carried over lines buried underground. The maintenance cost is covered in the user subscription. Exactly the same as with Openreach connections.

Edited by RobertoS (Thu 19-Jan-17 11:02:04)

Agree with your definition. But, the confusion with "landline" is most people consider it as phone. If we could change it to "carrier" rather than landline it might help break that link.

Andrew himself did a news article on full FTTP from Virgin as part of Project Lightning here so I assume they are doing it.

Edited by ian72 (Thu 19-Jan-17 11:25:14)

Thanks for the Lightning link . I had a sneaky feeling I'd seen something, but a quick google didn't show it.

Don't forget BT, Sky, TalkTalk and Vodafone all don't mention landline charges these days in their headline broadband pricing. So little different to how VM have always been.

Indeed. Landline has become a very muddied description of anything.

As we know the carrier is always needed. The voice may not be. With Virgin and a few others it is possible to get the carrier without the voice component and save a bit of money. Most though still seem to work on a model that the voice could give them additional profits so give no option to have the carrier without it.

But, in 5 years people might forget about the split of costs anyway following the advertising rules changes and maybe then we will be able to forget about which bit is "landline" and which is "broadband" and just compare providers on a total cost.

But, that of course gets complicated where people (like yourself) split the carrier and broadband between providers and in those cases the split will still be visible.

I don't see how providers justify current carrier charges based on the wholesale price except that they are using it as a way to keep their broadband charges competitive.

Anyway - It was fixed yesterday and they came back today with the usual response.

"Our suppliers have informed us they have cleared a fault on your line. They believe this has rectified the issue you reported to us.

I hope this clears things up for you. There is no need to reply to this ticket if the matter is resolved. This ticket will remain open with you for the next 14 days. After which It will automatically close leaving a full copy of the notes on your account."

Totally ignored the previous reply for the guidelines on how to claim for the loss of service, so we have asked them again to look at it - It's clear it's more copy and paste and less actual human attention that it used to be.. and it sucked back then too.

so I assume they are doing it.

Yes, but by no means everywhere, the majority still being a copper pair for the speech and co-ax from the local cab for the t'interweb.

I thought I read (but its not in that link) that the VM FTTP was delivering RFoG (Radio Frequency over Glass) so there will have to be some sort of ONT that converts the fibre into coax for the internet and TV services. I assume this is so the same head end equipment can be used. Quite dramatically different to GPON that most other FTTP are deploying.

Of course it will be less than 10% of the national VM network when finished, as there is a LOT of coax in the ground. Some of it (e.g. Parts of Southampton) now abandoned as it was so poor.

In reply to a post by jchamier:

I thought I read (but its not in that link) that the VM FTTP was delivering RFoG (Radio Frequency over Glass) so there will have to be some sort of ONT that converts the fibre into coax for the internet and TV services. I assume this is so the same head end equipment can be used.

Precisely.

And not only the head-end equipment will stay the same... The ONT will convert RFoG back into RF over COAX, and the coax will plug into a standard VM cable modem.

But it should at least mean an end to the congestion issues caused by the coax in some areas.

I'm not sure why it would mean an end to congestion, per se. It will depend how many FTTH users logically share the same output from the head-end. I don't think the output is exclusively yours; nor on the upstream.

I also have a vague recollection of being told that the physical fibre layout could be a PON rather than point-to-point, but I think that is beside the point in this case.

In reply to a post by WWWombat:

Precisely.

And not only the head-end equipment will stay the same... The ONT will convert RFoG back into RF over COAX, and the coax will plug into a standard VM cable modem.

And I suspect the same Tivo and TV6 boxes ; so Virgin can offer their standard services to all homes. The Fibre to the home means they can have longer runs between cabinets, so less installation cost - and it may be more resilient to weather when strung on poles than the coax cabling.

RFOG - Radio Frequency Over Glass

Did I say something wrong? Or are you making sure others know what I was talking about?