Plusnet uselessness

i was highly recommended plusnet. and the first 2 times i called their helpdesk i was happy with the service. it was escalted to there internal support team (never heard a peep from them) the first call for the fault i had was mid January 2020

then the 3rd call. and im being asked the same questions, can you factory reset the router, have you connected to the master socket..... oh the line test shows no fault. i cant escalate it....

my response was - well there is a fault, if you look at your radius log, why am i having so many disconnections.

-- Ok we can send an enginner, but if they dont find a fault youll be charged £65. --
2 engineers come, find a rotten joint at the bottom of a pole. fault fixed apparently. case and ticket closed.....

still have fault. so phone again..... and again i get the same scripted questions. am told that its OR's fault they didnt fix it, and there isnt anything plusnet can do. but we can send engineer...65 quid blah blah. -this time i have to point out repeatedly that a constantly disconnecting line IS a fault...... engineer comes and calls me directly to tell me he found a faulty splitter on the DSLAM cab, didnt check anything else, assures me that his "10 out of 10 test" rules anything else out. that was the fault.

Fault remains. i call again. same [censored], different day - but the guy this time was actualy not giving me the script, we chatted for a while and discussed (the start day of the covid lockdown), and he totally agreed that that should not be happening. - so 3rd engineers visit, takes one look at the house and says the drop line is 40+ year old twin copper cable and its corroded badly and actually split (thats something i told the previous 2 engineers and i took photos). this is DEFINATELY the fault he says, and he couldnt understand why the first two didnt even look.

guess what. the fault remains - but this time, i get an update on the support ticket on my account a week later telling me they had heard back from OR, and the fault was now corrected. i mean, it wasnt, and if they had actually looked at there radius logs they would have seen that.

so emailed back, expressing my displeasure at the service. and dont hear back for 4 days (COVID - i get it, i obviously cant be upset about that). except to a forum post by a member of staff, telling me even if they did send another engineer, its unlikely that they could get it more stable and it has to have 3 disconnections a day or is not classed as a fault (i have that saved - it had been up without disconnect for 2 days but 3 on the tuesday previous which showed on the radius log that HE posted - the MAX uptime had been 5 days) - so i fired off another email, and this time a complaint, and i get called less than 2 hours later......even tho it said it would be 5 days (+ some more for COVID which i had said on the email, i know they cant be a priority right now) but within 2 hours i get a call. not for tech help, but to mitigate a complaint.....

so no, im not really that happy with the service from plusnet so far, but here's hoping it turns around sometime in the next 4/5 months.

Edited by deleted (Wed 15-Apr-20 14:09:12)

Are you using Plusnet's Hub One or your own modem/router? If it's the Hub One, what does the log show in the WAN section at the time of each disconnection?

Not using the plusnet H1 offering anymore, but every disconnection was the ol' "PPP LCP sent termination request (user request) " the OpenWRT loaded HH5 router sees much the same, normally the log starts with the log entry "no response to 5 echo requests"

from what i see and have read, somthing is stopping the DSLAM cab responding to the LCP packets being sent by the modem, and after 5 attempts, it boots the connection.

it seems very apparent that the HH5/Hub One has a specific issue by the amount of complaints and forum pages that come up on google with this same log entry. i would rather believe that its just a line fault that the router has a lmited capacity to report about - depending on who you talk to, this is either a conspiracy that goes right to the top, or just the way this equipment handles a problematic line. either way, plusnet/BT seem unable/unwilling to handle it.

Yep same as me. You'll find reports of this problem going back at least 4 years in Plusnet Community and BT forums. I went through a spell of constant disconnects and it was only when I by passed the built-in modem that it stopped. Going back to my original HG612 (almost) solved it for me. I still get a disconnect once or twice a month which I live with.

I was using my own Netgear router for some time before I connected the Hub One and that was no problem at all (until it got hacked ).

When I had the BT and Plusnet hubs (cannot recall model as was 2 to 3 years ago, always had a VDSL2 modem in front. Usually did try the routers as the modem and router, but stability was a lot better with old Openreach modem or the cheapo TP Link W9970 in bridge mode that sits baking in the sun each summer.

Still doing the same with Vodafone router, and now waiting on FTTP roll-out to reach me before switching again.

i wont be just forgetting about it that easy, its just a symptom of an underlying issue, that both plusnet and OR (and BT) have a duty to sort. they cant be just hiding behind there standard operating procedure, and ignoring it.

also, it does apear that over the years they have quietly modified there SOP, to account for issues like this, so they dont have to admit liability or spend any cash monies to solve it. and if they dont, ill make as much fuss about it as i possibly can, up to the limit for a single individual. - im also, obviously not staying with plusnet. it was my mistake to assume that service would be great with budget ISP with the highest levels of customer complaints in the country. you live and learn.

same, waiting for the day the FTTP roles out where i am, or a big smelly, covid bearing 5g tower. so i can have a fast backup for my 2 servers.

In reply to a post by BaptisteIOM:

i wont be just forgetting about it that easy

With something like this I try to make a prediction of whether my efforts will produce any useful result. At the moment I'm getting a consistent 47/8'ish speed (on 55/10) so as I said, one or at the most two disconnects per month I'll live with. I'm normally reconnected in around 7 minutes.

In reply to a post by BaptisteIOM:

Not using the plusnet H1 offering anymore, but every disconnection was the ol' "PPP LCP sent termination request (user request) " the OpenWRT loaded HH5 router sees much the same, normally the log starts with the log entry "no response to 5 echo requests"

from what i see and have read, somthing is stopping the DSLAM cab responding to the LCP packets being sent by the modem, and after 5 attempts, it boots the connection.

Had exactly that myself, using a Trendnet router (same with Hub Zero also). Judging by the amount of times it dropped during a Skype call, it seemed either the DSLAM or the bRAS was dropping just the upstream not the downstream, I personally believe it was the latter as the SNR margin on both was still high, just completely unresponsive upstream.
Eventually got fed up and switched to FTTC, seems stable now.

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

When I had the BT and Plusnet hubs (cannot recall model as was 2 to 3 years ago, always had a VDSL2 modem in front. Usually did try the routers as the modem and router, but stability was a lot better with old Openreach modem or the cheapo TP Link W9970 in bridge mode that sits baking in the sun each summer.

Still doing the same with Vodafone router, and now waiting on FTTP roll-out to reach me before switching again.

I'm still using my original HG612. It's knocking on for ten years old but I'm hoping it'll see me through to FTTP