Supplier change hell

[c0deape]

Due to move from BT FTTP to PlusNet FTTP on the 20th Sept, order placed on the 16th Aug.  Same company, so should be straight forward, right?

20th AUGUST, my line stopped working...

Had a bunch of engineer appointments booked, and have been on with BT support more times that I care to mention, and yesterday was the first time one came to the house (an OpenReach engineer). He got through to someone who said the line is set to MIGRATING (shock...  that's what I said to BT tech support several times and was told that wasn't the case) which is why it's not working.

Additionally, I've been on with BT support pretty much daily since the 20th Aug, each time, they switch on the 4G mini hub, then get an engineer to look at something, they say "looks fine from our side", and the 4g hub shuts down...  Support keep telling me there is a note on the account to keep the 4g alive until I confirm it's working, but that never happens. I also keep getting told it'll be fixed "today".  I've gone through diagnostics with just about every call centre BT has - yes its solid orange, no restarting it doesn't help, yes the normal lights are on the OpenReach box.

I usually use my own router but when that stopped working I put the BT SmartHub 2 back in place for diagnostic purposes, so that's not the reason (as neither work).

It's clear that my account was set to migrate 1 month too early somewhere, but no one at BT knows what to do, and PlusNet are powerless as the line isn't theirs yet.

As much as I'm looking forward to funding my retirement via the automatic compensation scheme, I'd rather have my broadband working...

This is mostly a rant, but if anyone has any suggestions I'd be very grateful!  I suggest someone at BT (wholesale?) needs to close my FTTP account and reopen it

[naylor2006]

Ultimately sounds like complaint territory to me, at least then you'll hopefully get a decent agent who will oversea the case for you and be a single point of contact.

Dreadful situation to be in, we are mostly all customers on these forums, or ex customers so insights are limited onto the accounts side of things, you may have a mod turn up and assist though.

Assuming you have an ONT, what are the lights doing on that and what is the light on the SH2 doing?

With your own router have you looked at the logs on it?

Its not that I think there isnt an issue but some further insight might be helpful.

[iniltous]

Who arranged the change to PN ? , with a normal migration between ISP’s on Openreach , you don’t contact the losing provider ( BT ) only  the gaining provider PN ,  and they control the migration, they set the date for both parts of the migration , the losing provider BT is in effect passive apart from sending the ‘sorry to see you leave’ notification…so did you only contact PN and leave everything to them ? did you receive the ‘sorry to see you leave’ notification ? .

If you followed this and it’s gone wrong , then it’s difficult to see how ‘BT’ are at fault , however , although just a guess , Ofcom have mandated a new switching process called OTS ( one touch switching ) which somewhat nonsensically includes customers moving ISP but staying on Openreach where the GPL system ( gaining provider led ) process is well established , as well as customers moving from ( for example ) a City Fibre ISP customer moving to Netomnia ISP  ( admittedly that’s a unlikely scenario ) .

This  OTS is apparently useless ( it’s not a BT system btw but an independent Ofcom instigated one ) and ISP’s are required by Ofcom  to  test its effectiveness with ‘live’ customers, so you may be a unknowing test subject …obviously it may not be OTS with your situation, but it may be worth asking PN about that .

As far as compensation from BT , it really depends if BT were told September or were told August to remove your  service by PN , BT may have done exactly what they were told by PN , even if that differs from what PN told you .

[c0deape]

Thanks for the reply.

Yea only contacted PN, all dates on emails (from PN and BT) state 20th Sep. Contacted PN after BT, who said line still shows as owned by BT so they can't do anything yet to activate it as its not "theirs" yet.

[c0deape]

Thanks, appreciate were customers here, mostly a rant really 🙂

Hardware wise, all is well, my own router logs don't give away too much, "network unreachable". Expected to see something around handshakes, credentials at least but guess not. My own is a TP Deco.

[c0deape]

Got through to openreach helpdesk who thought I was an engineer (didn't correct them), I feel complete sympathy for the openreach engineers out in the field as a result, they must be saints!

Stuck in a loop of:

"the service will start on the 20th",

Yes but the old service should still work

"that is correct"

but it's not

"the service will be provisioned on the customers requested date"

But the current service isnt working

"one moment"

...

"you'll need to speak to your manager / team lead for further instruction"

[naylor2006]

@c0deape said: 

Thanks, appreciate were customers here, mostly a rant really

Hardware wise, all is well, my own router logs don't give away too much, "network unreachable". Expected to see something around handshakes, credentials at least but guess not. My own is a TP Deco.

Nah I meant what are the lights on the ONT doing?

[c0deape]

Power on

Los off

Pon on

Lan on

Openreach guy did a signal test yesterday too and said it was very good, 17db rings a bell when he was on the phone to the helpdesk

[naylor2006]

Yeah, well that looks fine, I was just interested to see if you had any errors there also which might reflect a more physical issue that has occurred.

[c0deape]

Yea, physically, everything looks good. Hardware, tried 2 routers that worked previously (with different ethernet cables) and neither work so confident its not that. Did full factor reset on smart hub 2 as well.

Mixed messages from various helpdesks, fairly sure they're now just stuck and running down the clock until 20th sept 😞