Thinking back, I think my router also showed connected to the internet, but it wasn't. All lights green. The modem replacement fixed it. Then I unlocked it once the engineer had gone.

In reply to a post by sg07:

Thanks for that tip.
I have done several resets on the router but not on the modem. I found and pressed (several seconds) the reset button and it did go through some sort of reset process - but I do not know if it was to a factory setting. However, after a few minutes of waiting, no change in the symptoms. Still cannot get through to servers.

In the mean time, I have had two emails this morning from PN - they acknowledge the problems and are expediting a solution. Still not holding my breath.

Plusnet staff here, I'll take a look if you like? Feel free to PM me your username.

Matty

Just to update and end this thread.

It is now 7th August 2015 and at about 10:30, I regained access to the internet via Fibre at a nominal 'up to 38Mbps' - though their Sales Rep said I would get 40 Mbps.
I have run three thinkbroadband speed tests and they are reporting 35 to 37 Mbps download which is roughly similar to the speeds I was getting from BT but with burst speeds of 39 Mbps which is much higher than BT. The speed may change over the next few days as the equipment tries to identify an optimum setting.
I fully recognise that the upload speed is slower but I rarely upload anything other than a bit of text and have no intention of using services which would require more than this - so for me this is not a problem.

In Summary, the order process started on 24th June, the switch took place on the 21st July and start of actual use was 11th August.

It is obvious that this has not been an ideal switch and this has been recognised by Plusnet. I have come to an agreement about how we handle the rest of the initial contract (I am not going to try to cancel) and I have asked if they have learned from this experience?
Elsewhere in these forums, there are discussions about Plusnet changing their structures etc.. My experience is that once it was recognised that they had a real problem, I was given access to a person who did have the authority to get things done but who still had to push the requirements through the separate organisations of BTw and Openreach. Today, I got another good Openreach engineer who completed the process.
I was assured that Plusnet's Business Improvement team was looking at my case and just one other similar case. They would be taking actions (training, protocols etc) to try to avoid the same simple mistakes.

I now look forward to using the internet with no further concerns (other than paying the bills) for the ISP.

The high burst speed may be an effect of the Plusnet profile which is probably still set at 40Mb/s not at a bit less than the BT profile
You can check that here https://portal.plus.net/my.html?action=data_transfer...

In reply to a post by sg07:

I was assured that Plusnet's Business Improvement team was looking at my case and just one other similar case. They would be taking actions (training, protocols etc) to try to avoid the same simple mistakes.

All the usual platitudes that we've been seeing for the last couple of years. The only changes we see are usually for the worse and meantime call wait times never improve.

In reply to a post by jelv:

In reply to a post by sg07:

I was assured that Plusnet...would be taking actions (training, protocols etc) to try to avoid the same simple mistakes.

All the usual platitudes that we've been seeing for the last couple of years. The only changes we see are usually for the worse...

Exactly my reaction, @jelv. You took the words right out of my fingers.

When it works, Plusnet is decent, but when something goes wrong, it's really hard to get anyone to fix it -- and that's despite the active participation of Plusnet staff on this forum and their own. Unbelievable.