Hi all,

The service was activated on the 10th May, and a fault was raised. The automated tests completed and the fault was picked up by our agents on the 11th and escalated to our suppliers as an authentication issue.

Our suppliers cleared the fault on the same day (11th), unfortunately our agents didn't then pick it up until the 13th when a boost engineer visit was booked. This was booked for the 23rd, which accounts for the major part of the delay.

The fault was picked up again on the 25th following the engineer visit, unfortunately no notes were available so the fault was reraised with a request to rebuild the circuit on the RAS. The fault came back requesting an engineer visit, so it was escalated back to a team leader with further details on the request to rebuild on the 27th.

We picked the fault up on the 30th and booked another engineer for the 3rd which would still be in place if an LLU cease order hadn't been placed yesterday on the 31st - unfortunately as soon as that happens any orders or faults on a line are closed.

@mr_spokey - I'm sorry you feel we didn't respond promptly enough and that we weren't able to get the service working for you.

In reply to a post by orbrey:

Our suppliers cleared the fault on the same day (11th), unfortunately our agents didn't then pick it up until the 13th when a boost engineer visit was booked. This was booked for the 23rd, which accounts for the major part of the delay.

Thanks for the explanation, Matthew.
10 days waiting for a "boost engineer" is not good news, especially in a "system down" situation.
What does a boost engineer do ?

Wagstaff

A broadband boost engineer is specially trained and empowered to investigate both sides of a customers connection, the network side and south of the NTE. Boost engineers are generally tasked where a fault appears complex or where internal issues may be suspected. Generally Boost Engineers provide a better end to end service with higher first time fix rate.

More info here BT Broadband Boost

Mark

If you had stuck with Plusnet they would have credited you with the time you were unable to access the service (and probably a bit more besides). You haven't given them a reasonable opportunity to resolve the fault so I'd think you have very little prospect of getting the charges waived.

Three weeks is more than a reasonable amount of time when there is absolutely no broadband, much longer than I would have given them.

Not wishing to play the Devil's Advocate but now, in retrospect, this looks like a case where if the communication channel between the ISP and the EU was not so poor, the ISP would not have lost a customer.

Between activation on the 10th and Plusnet's last action on the 30th an maximum of 5 days of the delay in resolving the problem was down to Plusnet, the rest was down to the supplier (BT).

The more cases like this I see the more I think that things are getting worse at BTw and OpenReach.

Worse, probably because busier. Like many firms budgets are tight but usually trying to do more from the same staff levels.

Also for BT Group as a whole as its shrunk the older (i.e. good pension/redundancy package) people will often jump at the chance to go, taking expertise with them, which if clever they can take to another teleco and work again.

That's easy for you to say when you have a working internet connection and are not paying £10 / 1Gb of slow mobile broadband. As for the charges would you pay for a service that you never received?

In reply to a post by jelv:

Between activation on the 10th and Plusnet's last action on the 30th an maximum of 5 days of the delay in resolving the problem was down to Plusnet, the rest was down to the supplier (BT).

Surely, as far as broadband is concerned, the customer�s only recourse is to the ISP. Perhaps, Mr Saffron could clarify this.

In this particular case, the OP was dealing with Plusnet, and however much you try to apportion blame, the ultimate responsibility for this fiasco is Plusnet�s. Having said that, I think you are right to identify BT as very much part of the problem.

Wagstaff