Catastrophic switch from PlusNet to Orange

PlusNet and Orange are telling me contradictory stories:

Day 1: I ask Orange to switch my broadband and landline from PlusNet to Orange.
Day 2: PlusNet gives me a MAC; I give it to Orange.
Day 3: Orange claims they have requested PlustNet to transfer my broadband from PlusNet to Orange (but not landline: they claim they prefer to switch one service at a time, first broadband, then landline).
Day 11: Orange claims that they have taken over my broadband.
Day 11: PlusNet claims that LLU PSTN cease request on my account had been completed, and that this request was made by Orange.
Day 13: My landline gets disconnected as a result of the LLU PSTN cease order.
Day 14: Orange claims that they have requested PlusNet to transfer my landline to them. The request is immediately rejected because the landline has been disconnected.

Which parts of this story are (not) plausible? Who is lying? Or are both sides telling the truth but there is a third party (BT Wholesale?) who created confusion and has blown up what should have been a routine switch from one provider to another?

The results seem quite catastrophic for me because apparently I will need to wait 3-4 weeks to get the landline reconnected, and another 1-2 weeks to reinstate a broadband connection. Am I wrong to be so pessimistic? Are there better alternatives?

Neither Orange or PlusNet are willing to admit responsibility and keep blaming each other, while being mostly extremely evasive and unhelpful with me, refusing to provide most basic information. Customer services on both sides have shown a lot of incompetence and rudeness. 2(out of 7 I talked to) customer service people at PlusNet sounded like humans, were competent, and tried to be helpful; none (out of at least 10!) to report at Orange!

To comment on the statements by Orange
Day 3: Orange claims they have requested PlustNet to transfer my broadband from PlusNet to Orange
This is a load of rubbish - the request to make the move is made by Orange to BT Openreach. Plusnet have nothing to do with it
Day 14: Orange claims that they have requested PlusNet to transfer my landline to them
Again completely incorrect the request is made to BT Openreach not to Plusnet
Reading between the lines - and I may have got it wrong
The request for the transfer of the broadband from Plusnet to Orange LLU was made by Orange to BT Openreach
I am not aware of a procedure where a transfer to full LLU (phone and broadband) being done in two stages
It would appear that the request for the move of broadband to Orange LLU was either incorrectly ordered by Orange or incorrectly done by BT Openreach.
Plusnet can have nothing to do with it

There have been a few Orange cock-ups of this kind in the last few months. Yours is an interesting one as it gives an indication of what is going wrong.

But there's also something not quite right in what you say. Let's deal with that first - "Day 3: Orange claims they have requested PlustNet to transfer my broadband from PlusNet to Orange". Also "Day 14: Orange claims that they have requested PlusNet to transfer my landline to them.".

Either you misunderstood what they said, or they are clueless. At no point in a migration does the gaining ISP contact the losing one, for any reason at all. The gaining one orders everything from Openreach, using the MAC for the broadband, and I dunno what for the landline.

So to continue ....

In the past, yours would have been a move to LLU, and the procedures there are different from one entirely within BT Wholesale and Openreach. The indicator you give is "Day 11: PlusNet claims that LLU PSTN cease request on my account had been completed".

That I believe. It also means that Orange are completely screwing up, as they are no longer an LLU ISP. However, my guess is that their old LLU procedures are being followed for a transfer of both broadband and landline to LLU. Only I thought Orange didn't do LLU phone. Hmmmm ? In any case I thought both would happen on the same day if they did.

In any case, IIRC there are two ways of transferring the line. One is a transfer, usually done for a WLR (BT line) to WLR, and a simultaneous Cease and reprovide which I think is what is done for WLR to LLU. But!!!

It couldn't be reprovided on LLU because there is no Orange LLU. Only WLR. So the reprovide would fail, and you would be cut off. As you were. Maybe Openreach failed to spot that it time as well.

I'm surprised you didn't get an email from Plusnet at some stage saying the line was going to be disconnected or moved? May there be or have been one in your Plusnet email that no-one I know of ever checks? You are supposed to be able to stop a line transfer on receipt of that. Or maybe that email doesn't happen on an LLU transfer. Which I've already covered would be an Orange cockup.

A third factor is that Orange aren't really an ISP at all any more. It's all done directly by BT Wholesale. Though it seems the sales is still Orange I don't know which provides the support. There may be something it that which is relevant, as for a while Orange LLU customers have been being moved across to BT Wholesale, so maybe there is a procedural mixup there as well when it comes to migrations in

If the OP is in an Orange "network area" (exchange with a former Orange LLU presence) then, as you say, it's possible that the procedure adopted by Orange might have been similar to arranging LLU?

In reply to a post by Oldjim:

The request for the transfer of the broadband from Plusnet to Orange LLU was made by Orange to BT Openreach
I am not aware of a procedure where a transfer to full LLU (phone and broadband) being done in two stages
It would appear that the request for the move of broadband to Orange LLU was either incorrectly ordered by Orange or incorrectly done by BT Openreach.

Orange don't do LLU and haven't done for 17 months and even then they didn't do Full LLU.

Shared LLU is the same procedures anyway, as BT Wholesale ADSL is considered to be just another shared LLU provider at the Openreach level

Really only way Plusnet can have mucked up is if they had issued the PSTN cease, or issued a cancellation for any notification of transfer.

When I moved from, not to Orange, I discovered that Orange have "strange" procedures, mainly, I think, because they do not provide a landline service without broadband: the phone line had to be moved first then the broadband ordered once that was complete, because otherwise the whole transfer would fail; and Plusnet (and other ISPs) were unaware of that. (They would always try to move the broadband first).

So perhaps by analogy, when you migrate both the other way, into Orange, then the broadband is under their standard procedures moved first, but this will cause a problem if, as I suspect Plusnet too do not provide a phone line service without broadband, and Orange have not made provision for a simultaneous transfer: since isn't the broadband transfer made through Openreach, and the line transfer made through BT Wholesale, which are different divisions of BT? I guess that getting the two in sync isn't easy. And from my experience Orange and Plusnet are probably ignorant of each other's service restrictions on needing broadband to have the phone line and therefore requiring special arrangements for the transfer, unless the customer makes them aware! My suspicion is that Orange may have to accept the line transfer first in the case of a broadband and phone transfer from a Provider who does not provide a line service without broadband, and you may have to make a special arrangement with them accordingly - do not assume they are aware!

I therefore suspect Plusnet may have cancelled the line, since they have only, so far, received a request for broadband transfer, and if they do not provide a line service only.

I'm afraid as I learnt the hard way, you have to try and understand the bureaucratic procedures (for which read "muddle") that is telecommunications provision in this country, in the name of competition. Orange should at least waive any connection charge in my view. No two providers operate in "the same way" except where the Ofcom regulations require it - and what they don't cover is as important as what they do.

The golden rule is that if you do not receive confirmation from the loosing provider (not the new one) of the telephone service at least 7 days before your expected transfer date, then something has gone wrong and you need to investigate, and even (in my experience) consider cancelling the whole transfer with the old provider if the answers are not satisfactory. (Mind you I got no such notice from Orange when I left them as my telephone provider).

Edited by deleted (Wed 29-Aug-12 08:34:10)

Plusnet will not provide or take over a phone line unless the (prospective) customer has or orders broadband from them as well, but if the customer later migrates the broadband away they can keep the landline. Unless of course the broadband migration is to an ISP that requires the landline, such as you say Orange does, or Sky does now as well. TT LLU always did.

In this case Plusnet do not receive a request to do anything. They issue the MAC for the broadband and wait and see what happens about that. Regarding the line being moved away, they receive a notification that this is about to happen, and most CPs then contact their customer to ensure this is intended - an anti-slamming procedure to achieve the same result as the MAC for broadband.

If the customer then notifies them that it is indeed intended, or does nothing, it goes ahead. If the customer tells them it is not intended they can issue a refusal and keep it.

As I understand it BT Wholesale are not involved in line rental moves, though I may be wrong. The reason I think they are not is that "Wholesale Line Rental" is an Openreach wholesale product, not a BT Wholesale one. I have found some BT Wholesale line rental data, but this seems to be business contract related.

The cease on the line could have been erroneously placed by Orange, which they have done in the past, or the OP may have given notice of termination of his requirement for the line at some earlier stage and it was in fact placed by Plusnet. Which doesn't tally with the information given to us so far.

In reply to a post by XRaySpeX:

Orange don't do LLU and haven't done for 17 months and even then they didn't do Full LLU[[/i].

That's what I thought. WHich is why I was surprised at the "LLU PSTN Cease". But MrSaffron seems to have cleared that up.

Odd that they didn't notify the OP it was going to happen though, only when it had completed.

@Oldjim @RobertoS
You are of course right: Orange have not been in touch with PlusNet directly; in fact PlusNet have referred to Orange as "winning service provider" and did not even know who they were. This, and the existence of BT Wholesale and their role, I have only learned after 4 hours of talking to more or less clueless (or sometimes malicious?) people at Orange and PlusNet.