BE ADSL 2 to Plusnet Fibre Migration Gone Badly wrong

Just looking for any useful advice thats available or just to serve as a warning to others.....Shortish version of story is...

Decided to migrate from BE ADSL to Plusnet for fibre (FTTC) at home. Also taking phone line + calls. Got mac code from Be and ordered on Plusnet fibre via website. Chose Openreach engineer appointment date online only 7 days away. Plusnet then changed this to 14 days away...no problem thats what I was expecting. Plusnet informed us they would migrate broadband first and then landline at later date ...

Openreach engineer turned up on the day 24/04/13 and said there was a problem with the current cable (mentioned batteries and voltage drop ) which would allow phone and adsl 2 to work but would cause problems with fibre. Would require CIvil team to come in and lay new cable in pavement and up drive. (he called it Direct In Ground as its buried.)

We phoned up following day to see if Plusnet were aware of the non event and the answer seemed to be no.

Anyway we have been waiting for news from Openreach when on Friday 10/5/13 both landline and adsl2 broadband ceased.

BE appear to have ceased both. No landline at all and no broadband. On Monday Plusnet told us that the telephone number had been reallocated elsewhere and we would have to have new one. After our complaints they are now trying to get the landline number back.. They have reinstated landline with a temporary number up to now.

Questions
1/ If a number has been ceased on Friday 10/5/13 would it be reallocated to someone else so quickly?

2/ Whose responsibility should it be to maintain the existing service in the light of a problem such as the above (new cable required) BE or Plusnet?

I partly blame myself in hindsight for not seeing it coming?

Any advice gratefully received ?

Thanks

Mark

ps I may be slow to respond for obvious reasons i.e. no broadband.... funny when you havent got it any speed seems good!

Edited by deleted (Wed 15-May-13 18:21:47)

In reply to a post by markj:

1/ If a number has been ceased on Friday 10/5/13 would it be reallocated to someone else so quickly?

No, it won't have been assigned to someone else that quickly, but will have been returned to some "pool" from which it should be possible to get it back if you persevere. Call it and see what happens!

Edited by kasg (Wed 15-May-13 18:37:21)

I doubt in relality your number would be allocated to another customer so quickly, But plusnet and other providers only have the info given by the BTwholesale system,But there should be away of getting your old number back I've known a line to keep the same number even after it hadn't had an active service for over 12mths, (only dial tone and 17070)

Edited by tommy45 (Wed 15-May-13 18:44:29)

The numbers go into a pool, but usually a decent gap before being re-allocated, cases of getting them back can prove difficult.

For the number to cease Be MUST have issued a PSTN cease, which if your fibre had been connected would have ceased too, causing a problem again.

As Be don't do telephone on its own, suspect if you move the broadband away they cease the PSTN, which is the wrong thing to do. They should keep it running and pester you to move it somewhere.

Andrew

2) Did you inform Be that the migration had failed? As the migration did not happen it would be Be's line still but only if you told them it had failed so that they could stop any cancellation that was in place.

even if he didnt why did BE do cease?

I assume all he did was ask for MAC and until that MAC is used the old service isnt cancelled, or did he make the mistake of telling BE to cancel?

The MAC was used.

It does depend on what was said to Be and how they actioned it. If the user either gave notice or asked to cancel then Be would have terminated the line unless told otherwise. If they only asked for a MAC then Be should have kept the line going until the user told them it had transferred (but then people complain as they will then be charged from that date until the notice period ends).

I am also not sure about the phone line here. If it is the phone line that has actually been cancelled then that isn't affected by MAC at all and therefore could be the underlying cause.

I meant used as in migration completed. The migration failed.

The user didnt ask for a line cease so why did BE do it?

I believe Be require notice to be given separately from the MAC request, and expect that is what he did.

Other people when a migration anywhere has failed or been delayed have reported that Be are quite happy to extend the notice period on request. Maybe he didn't tell them?

In reply to a post by markj:

2/ Whose responsibility should it be to maintain the existing service in the light of a problem such as the above (new cable required) BE or Plusnet?

I partly blame myself in hindsight for not seeing it coming?

Any advice gratefully received ?

Too late for advice except to try to get Be (best chance) or even Plusnet (I don't know if they can) to recover the line and number. Then proceed with the broadband setup. Only - it wouldn't be a migration any more, unless Be also reinstate their broadband.

Am I right in this post where I suggest you might have given Be notice and didn't think to get them to delay the cease order?

Hi,

For clarification

No notice was given to BE to cease anything. Just the mac code obtained from them and given to Plusnet.

Plusnet came back to me via their online order progession system to say that they would do broadband first and landline later.

I obviously should have gone back to BE after the failed fibre installation and told them the situation. However from a customer perspective I would nt have known if I would have caused more problems by doing that. Your trying to migrate and by telling BE not to cease anything you dont know what the outcome will be i.e you could mess up the migration and have to start again.

Wrongly I thought they would have sorted it out between themselves.

Presumably this must happen on a daily basis up and down the country...scary

Hi markj,

Feel free to drop me a PM with your username and I'll take a further look into it.

Regards,

For anyone in this situation this email was generated by BE on Friday 10/5/13 - the day that the landline and their adsl ceased. Despite being on the phone to them in a couple of hours the offer of reinstatement in the email generated below doesnt exist. They say they cant do it.

Presumably BT has told them the line has ceased because BE have asked them to cease it in the first place.


Mark

Email text:-

Hello Julie

Looks like something's gone wrong! BT have told us that your phone line has ceased.

Really sorry but we've had to suspend your BE service as we need an active BT line for our service to work; you'll need to get your BT line working soon (within 30 days) or we'll have to cancel your service.

To get BE again, you will have to pay a £10.21 reactivation fee, though we will waive this if you contact us within 7 days of deactivation. There may be a connection charge as well, if we need to get the BT guys
to plug your line into the BE network. Why has this happened? There's quite a few reasons actually: you might have moved house, changed your phone number, or you've cancelled your line because you
don't like BT anymore.

Please get in touch with us ASAP on 0808 101 3430 - we'd love to hear from you...even if it's just to say good-bye.

All the best

Everyone @ BE


Be Un limited
Company # 5262862
Wellington Street, Slough, Berkshire SL1 1YP.

In reply to a post by markj:

Decided to migrate from BE ADSL to Plusnet for fibre (FTTC) at home. Also taking phone line + calls. Got mac code from Be and ordered on Plusnet fibre via website. Chose Openreach engineer appointment date online only 7 days away. Plusnet then changed this to 14 days away...no problem thats what I was expecting. Plusnet informed us they would migrate broadband first and then landline at later date ...

After re reading your post this will be what trggered the cease on your be services, As you cannot have a active BE home phone service without a active dsl service also,

So when plusnet used the MAC code and BE got the migration confirmation from openreach this would of triggered a cease on the phone line on their wonderfull or should that be woefull systems , BE should have explained this fully to you with regards to the pstn service,



To successfully migrate both PSTN and ADSL away from BE/02 switch the PSTN first ,Plenty about it in the BE member forums

Edited by tommy45 (Thu 16-May-13 16:05:35)

I was in the same boat as you back in November and I got this email from BE, it perhaps explains why they terminated your account!

Some people believe its best to transfer the phone service to the new provider first... Plusnet, however, usually choose to move the broadband service first, presumably through experience.

Thank you for contacting us and we are sorry to hear that you would like to leave us.

We sent the MAC request and you will receive your MAC code in a separate e mail.

Please note that requesting a MAC does not mean a cancellation of the account - you will also have to specify a cancellation date. If you do not contact us to start a manual cancellation, your account will be automatically canceled with an express termination fee.

If you have a be landline service You must move /switch telephony providers first or you will end up in the same situation as the op is, in xdsl limbo , It's not the gaining providers fault or BT openreaches, but the way the BE internal systems are programed to work

Presumably the fibre order is what messed up the migration, because WLR -> WLR transfers should be a piece of cake. If Plusnet would have taken the voice line over in advance of the broadband the the voice line would still be operating and the number wouldn't have been lost, even if the OP would have been without broadband until the fibre work was done.

If this couldn't be done due to inflexibility in Plusnet's order provisioning systems perhaps this needs to be addressed.

Thanks Chris for your interest I have sent you a PM with the acoount details. Mark

It's also an inflexability in BE unlimited's system too, as it would not matter who the new provider was, if they attempted to migrate the adsl first the result would be the same as in this case, But the fact that it was a migration to an FTTC or another SMPF LLU/WBC product would not make a difference to the outcome if you go deeper into this it is BE who are to blame here's my opinion as to why

They sell WRL3 PSTN services as well as ADSL SMPF LLU , the two are in no way tied together as the WRL3 product can be with any other supplier, It's BE unlimited /02/telfonica uk who have made up this silly rule that they can't/won't provide a WRL3 service without the customer also having their Broadband too and then insisting this must remain active even when migrating both services away,
Also the fact that they actually do not actively relay this important info to those customers who have an active WLR3 service with them at the time that they request a MAC code for the BB and or give the required 30 days noitice/cancellation) is totally wrong, With the ammount of customers leaving common sense should prevail for once ,they should overide their inept internal systems

Edited by tommy45 (Thu 16-May-13 18:01:43)

In reference to help.bethere.co.uk/help/support/contract_length:

The BE Landline contract is tied to your BE Broadband contract. If you have six months left on the Broadband, then you've got six months left on the Landline. No Broadband contract means no Landline contract. Simples.

As it says - simples.

In reply to a post by tommy45:

It's also an inflexability in BE unlimited's system too, as it would not matter who the new provider was, if they attempted to migrate the adsl first the result would be the same as in this case,

But ADSL wasn't migrated, it failed. And the line ran on for some time after migration day.

What probably happened is that BE put a 30 day cease order on the account when the MAC was requested.

More likely they did an express cancellation when the MAC was used.

In reply to a post by Oliver341:

In reply to a post by tommy45:

It's also an inflexability in BE unlimited's system too, as it would not matter who the new provider was, if they attempted to migrate the adsl first the result would be the same as in this case,

But ADSL wasn't migrated, it failed. And the line ran on for some time after migration day.

What probably happened is that BE put a 30 day cease order on the account when the MAC was requested.

Well further reading of the be user forums shows that customers have been cut off when moving the line rental first (working line takeover) their dumb system has thought there was no longer a working line present so ceased the ADSL ,lol
What a badly organised outfit they really are And there are cases of people being disconnected before the 30 day period has elapsed (ADSL) as no notice is required when switching between WLR3 telephony providers

Edited by tommy45 (Thu 16-May-13 20:46:46)

In reply to a post by tommy45:

And there are cases of people being disconnected before the 30 day period has elapsed

Express cancellation is done in 10 days.

Regardless of the specifics of this case, the BE/SHC billing systems do need an overhaul, I agree.

Edited by Oliver341 (Thu 16-May-13 22:20:45)

In reply to a post by Oliver341:

Regardless of the specifics of this case, the BE/SHC billing systems do need an overhaul, I agree.

they have needed sorting out probably since they started out or very soon afterwards, But they have done nothing, so have no excuse when the brown stuff hits the fan

Perhaps if they had another 7 years Telefonica would have gotten round to it.

There again .....

Hi Mark,

I dropped you a reply to your PM.

Chris