A bit of bad press

http://www.thecomet.net/news/hitchin_pensioner_left_...

Hopefully all will be resolved soon...

The landline yes, but the broadband? Not a critical utility despite everyone protesting otherwise.

His internet does not stop him calling 999, his lack of phone is the only story here to me, for which he has a right to complain

I would guess that the underlying failure to fix it is down to Openreach - I am not trying to excuse Plusnet's customer service in saying that.

Relying on just one solution is not recommended. He should have a basic mobile backup or something similar at the very least, especially given the circumstances. Nothing is guaranteed to work 100% of the time.

Agreed, the landline is the issue, and almost certainly down to Openreach. BT had and hopefully still has a priority scheme for vulnerable customers which our community group found very effective. Plusnet does not seem to have such a scheme and it's all but impossible to ask them about it. A PAYG backup mobile is fine as long as the owner can operate it, remembers to keep in charged, and has a signal (not always available in rural areas or steel-framed buildings such as the one I visited this morning).

Also to occasionally use that phone for out-going calls, to maintain its registration etc.

In reply to a post by kasg:

I would guess that the underlying failure to fix it is down to Openreach - I am not trying to excuse Plusnet's customer service in saying that.

No - we all agree it's down to Openreach

so do you know what the issue is any why the line is down -- i thought not !!!!
there are a number of reasons why that might be out
I remember an issue in that part of the world people had been shooting "" and shot down part of the telephones cables --

In reply to a post by Fastman2:

so do you know what the issue is any why the line is down -- i thought not !!!!
there are a number of reasons why that might be out
I remember an issue in that part of the world people had been shooting "" and shot down part of the telephones cables --

Whether people shot the cable down or not that's still Openreach's problem assuming they were appropriately informed.

Plusnet are a part of BT Group so the issue lies somewhere within there, and this isn't good enough.

Perhaps bringing on board a company to use them as a cheap, sub-standard, no-frills TalkTalk clone based around BT Wholesale products with ancillaries like customer service and other things cut to the bone to cut costs wasn't such a hot move.

In reply to a post by Fastman2:

so do you know what the issue is any why the line is down -- i thought not !!!!
there are a number of reasons why that might be out
I remember an issue in that part of the world people had been shooting "" and shot down part of the telephones cables --

No, If it's physical only someone on site would know. But if I still had access to all the toys then if it was non physical the yes I could probably have told you.

Don't assume what you don't know.

So how long after he contacted Plusnet did it take for Plusnet to raise the fault with OpenReach and book an engineer?

OpenReach may not be wholly to blame for the delay in it being fixed.