BT OR PLUSNET. NEITHER.!!! They are the same company

Before I had signed up for broadband, I had gone through this forums and its rating and found Plusnet to be good. Its initial line test speed showed about 5.2mb on adsl as that was what they had at the time. It was also a good deal as I do not over use my limit. WAS IT THE

BIGGEST MISTAKE I MADE. Why???
Reason being I can barely get above 1.1mb down and 0.7mb up. I did the usual thing they recommend - leave the router on for 10 days continous to stabalise the line. But it kept on dropping the connection and I got blamed for switching the router off. They blamed my router. i had tried two and same thing. Still coming up with excuses.
I do not like BT as they just want money and if thing go wrong not interested in fixing it rather come up with threats of if they send an engineer and if nothing wrong, they I will get charged £65. They do not send an engineer straight away. Rather 2-3 days later and when they turn up, its guaranteed that the problem has been fixed before they turn up (from experience) and so they charge for service not rendered.

On another note on landline calls.If you have never checked your bill on regular occassions, you should as I have had calls put on my bill even when the phone as dead. SO to say BT engineers do use your line to make personal calls, as theu engineers will tell you (BT engineers friends - not any engineer you spot)

Back to ADSL. My complains to get the line checks never got off and I was stuck at 1.1mb. They chaged their estimate from 5.2mb to 1.5mb. How can they get this wrong??? SIMPLE. They want the money and lie and once signed up they come up with excuses, have you noticed that the terms and conditions are always to their advantage. Try complaining to OFCOM, Office of Fair Trading, Trading Standards - no one is interested, yet they say they are there to listen to the consumers view and act on their best interest, YEAH RIGHT. They get paid by the likes of BT, Plusnet and other providers.

Plusnet called me up and asked if I wanted to upgrade my service to ADSL2+ and they said it would not cost me anything and I would get much hgher speeds upto 20mb. I said if they cannot get the 5.2mb they estimated, what chances have they got to put me on near 20mb. They were singing high with praises but I said if you want to upgrade go ahead but if you can't be bothered to fix my line before they had not chance of fixing it after the upgrade. The upgrade was done and WHAT A DISSAPPOINTMENT. The speed is still 1.1mb down and they are still coming up with excuses.

Plusnet is currently advertising as the cheapest broadband provider and they will beat any price. WATCHOUT. They contract is 12months NOT 1month as before. They peak usage is 10GB starts from 8am to 12pm, unlimited between 12pm to 8am - if your awake and work at the time its brilliant. IF YOU GO OVER YOUR PEAK LIMIT, you will be charged £5 for each extra 5GB, even if you do NOT use the extra 5GB, this is set as default without you realising it, so you end up paying more than the other cheapest provider. SO PLUSNET IS THE CHEAPEST PROVIDER OUT THERE. THEIR PACKAGES ARE SAME AS BT BUT ITS CHEAPER ON PLUSNET. So if you are a "BT" customer, you are being ripped off.

Plusnet is also advertising that they had UK BASED CALL CENTRES. WRONG. Being part of BT, who have forieign call centres, so do Plusnet and they are unable to put you through to UK office. You will need to communicate with email to get to the UK office, that is, if the email does get passed to the UK office.

SO ONCE AGAIN BT AND PLUSNET ARE THE SAME, IF YOU DO NOT LIKE BT DO NOT MAKE A MISTAKE AND GO TO PLUSNET JUST BECAUSE THEY ARE CHEAPER. TERRIBLE SERVICE ALL ROUND.

Any more details on this £65 charge.

There is a well known charge for if the Openreach engineer finds out the fault was on your side of the network. But given broadband suffers intermittent faults, there is no charging if they find nothing wrong.

If there are calls as you alledge from engineers then the itemised billing will identify them and the charges can be removed, and investigation will arise.

Plusnet's call centres when I last saw them were in Sheffield, are you suggesting they have moved them overseas, or is this inferred from the 'they are part of bt'

On your 1.1Meg down - if you line has a high attenuation then this may be the best you can manage. Have you ever looked to see if the extension wiring in your property is to blame?

Are you looking for help or did you just want to vent your spleen? If you want help then can you post the stats from your router (sync speed, attenuation and noise margin for both upstream and downstream would be the minimum required).

Plusnet were bought by BT a long time ago but are still operated as an independent ISP. They use BT wholesale lines the same as most UK ADSL ISPs. Call centre, as MrS says, is in Sheffield and that should be where you get through to when you ring them (although they might pass it off somewhere else outside of normal working hours).

10GB is fine for many people. However, if you need more then you may be better off upgrading your package.

I assume you have also found how to set the limits on downloads through the control panel to stop it charging for extra download? This is more than many ISPs provide.

Plusnet are not what I would consider the best ISP but on non-LLU exchanges they often work out as the best value (depending on your usage).

On contracts they have a 10 day notice period. However, if you take free connection or free router when you sign up then they expect you to pay for them if you leave within a year - this is not the same as a 12 month contract.

I am not a plusnet fan but I think you have been unlucky to some extent but also it may be possible for people here to help you get the best of your connection.

In reply to a post by Anonymous:

On another note on landline calls.If you have never checked your bill on regular occassions, you should as I have had calls put on my bill even when the phone as dead. SO to say BT engineers do use your line to make personal calls, as theu engineers will tell you (BT engineers friends - not any engineer you spot)

That is a nasty and untrue allegation.

If a BT technician used your line for personal calls then he would be subject to disciplinary action and probably dismissal. Why would they want to? And if you line is dead how could they?

Give some REAL proof not just something you heard.

Think the OP is alluding to engineers dissing off lines to enable them to use them for illicit purposes.
An urban myth and a load of cow dung IMHO.

In reply to a post by Rockh:

Think the OP is alluding to engineers dissing off lines to enable them to use them for illicit purposes.
An urban myth and a load of cow dung IMHO. FACT

A minor correction to your post.

Post deleted by Sadoldman

It not something I have heard. My line was dead, yes dead no buzz, no noise, no dial tone and when I got the bill it had calls on the days the line was dead. How do you explain this. BT could not explain this as well. Any answers suggestions???? before saying someing you are not sure of or you a BT egineer??? The bill does not lie or is it completely full of ' not made calls'

How about a crossed pair? Someone else accidentally got your line - it does happen... and it is clear that if you had no line, that it was connected incorrectly at the cab/exchange.

Any calls that person made, would have gone on your bill. Simple human error.

Matt

Sorry forgot to input.
Your line, if I am not wrong, starts from the BT building, I call it the exchange, down the road, to a green box on the street or a ground connection, where connections are interwinned or made and up the post where there is another connection made and finally to your house. Engineers do not have to come to your house to make a call. They can sit outside, near the green box or on the ground with lots of wires and connect their testing phones to make a call. That is not difficult is it and its discreet as most people walking past see the engineer trying to fix and talking to the office. These are the places the engineers will check if probs with your line NOT only your house.

You are absolutely right. It might have been a crossed pair. Your line going to some one else and you get charged. Once you get charged, try sorting it with BT see whether they are interested in refunding. Its not just me that has got this probs, I know of BT people (engineers and managers) who know of this. I guess you want me to name then so they can get sacked, well I am not going to. These are the people who update places like btsucks.com , btsucks.co.uk.

Other post in this also mentions that the engineers will be subject to displinary and even dismissed. HOW DO YOU KNOW WHERE YOUR FAMILY MEMBER OR YOU FRIEND IS at any one given time. BT, i'm sure does not the technology to track each and every engineer and if they did they would not track them, as it becomes spying. Is any engineer going to admit to using the customers line on the outside. I DONT THINK SO

In reply to a post by Anonymous:

BT, i'm sure does not the technology to track each and every engineer and if they did they would not track them, as it becomes spying. Is any engineer going to admit to using the customers line on the outside. I DONT THINK SO

I think'll you'll find that BT vans DO have tracking on them.

Errors can occur. That is life. Just because one person has claimed an engineer has done this, does not make it factual. I'd put money on that BT engineers have more to do with their time than make a few calls on someones line.

Matt

They are also required to sign in and out of each job, complete paper work on what they were doing.

Perhaps someone wearing a flourescent packet simply opened the cabinet to make a few illegal calls - its the sort of thing of course that happens every day - or is it?

One assumes if the line fault was reported and tested as fault remotely, then until it was fixed it should be pretty easy to show its unlikely that you did not make the calls.

One assumes you escalated the issue via BT complaints and if that went nowhere have involved the relevant authorities? Widespread abuse by BT engineers would be certain to get many column inches in the press.

Responding on perhaps the central complaint you make:

In reply to a post by Anonymous:

Back to ADSL. My complains to get the line checks never got off and I was stuck at 1.1mb. They chaged their estimate from 5.2mb to 1.5mb. How can they get this wrong???

The estimated speed is just that, estimated speed. The wholesale checker uses the last known profile for that telephone number.

So it might be that someone with that telephone number was getting 5.2Mbps at your address at some point.

Or, it could be that broadband has never been supplied, in which case the 5.2Mbps is more or less a guess based on line length.

Or, it could be that the number has been swapped when your line was provisioned, and the person who used to have that number had a much shorter/better line.

Now you're up and running, YOUR profile is used to make the estimate more accurate. Which might help the next person but doesn't help you.

This isn't a case of reneging on a deal as such or anything mischievious going on, it's the way that the estimator works.

What's not clear if is the line syncs at 5Mbps but you only get 1Mbps throughput (in which case you can then complain about Plusnet not having the bandwidth) or whether the line syncs at 1Mbps which potentially means that is all any provider can push down the line to you.

As others have said you might be able to improve on the speed you have now. Since if the prior person got over 5Mbps then checking your router and connection/extension is worthwhile.

Plusnet is owned by BT, that said, that has nothing to do with the speed the bit of wire connecting you to the exchange can supply.

No, I am not a BT Technician - but had a senior management role with BT for many years. Abuse of customer equipment can result in dismissal and it has happened in the past and will in the future.

There are many reasons for what might of happened. A wiring error, damage to a cable that was repaired incorrectly, a third party breaking into a cabinet and using a pair ...

OK, think about it. You want to make a call, you don't fancy using the free (yes, free) mobile you have been given, what's your next choice ? Risk disciplinary action, and use a punters line, (sat by a noisy street cabinet,) or use the free lines in the exchange.. there's a kettle, a comfy chair .........

I am sure you have a genuine grievance, but the old chestnut about the engineer using your line ..... perleese !

I think'll you'll find that BT vans DO have tracking on them.

Yes they do. [sad]

In reply to a post by Anonymous:

They can sit outside, near the green box or on the ground with lots of wires and connect their testing phones to make a call. That is not difficult is it and its discreet as most people walking past see the engineer trying to fix and talking to the office.

Whenever I see an engineer at a street cabinet talking on the phone to anyone it is always a mobile he is using.

The subject of the conversation is usually his trying to find a spare pair that works due to a customer's line being down. Most suggestions he gets turn out to be duff as well.

_________
btsucks.co.uk
_________

LOL, good site, it's been hacked

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

In reply to a post by Anonymous:

They can sit outside, near the green box or on the ground with lots of wires and connect their testing phones to make a call. That is not difficult is it and its discreet as most people walking past see the engineer trying to fix and talking to the office.

Whenever I see an engineer at a street cabinet talking on the phone to anyone it is always a mobile he is using.

The subject of the conversation is usually his trying to find a spare pair that works due to a customer's line being down. Most suggestions he gets turn out to be duff as well.

firstly i think you need to chill out, all this ranting wont be good for your heart.

to even suggest that an engineer uses your line for illicit calls is ludicrous, armed with a free mobile phone for business and occasional personal and also having an exchange full of phones to use and something else that no-one has mentioned regarding cabinets are the cabinet speakers(tel line for testing purposes)if they are there. there is no need whatsoever.

there are dozens of reasons this MAY have happened, crosses,splits,faults,dodgy phones and dishonest kids.

the other possibility is that maybe you have a grievance with someone and they are doing this to get at you, if so then clearly its working.

regardless of what engineers say about current situations we are very fortunate to work where we work. all our kit is supplied, holidays, sick pay, not over stretched, lots of opportunities, job security and i could go on and on. i have a good lower management team and i actually enjoy coming in everyday.

so to say that myself or a colleague would behave in a manor such as this is ridiculous.

Post deleted by billford


Filter evasion.

Edited by billford (Sun 09-Jan-11 16:44:04)