Associate
I'm going to be as through here since I think I've recently lost several braincells from what I see as the rank stupidity I've seen in the responses I've got from plusnet recently.
This whole saga started 3 months ago, but it originated from when I went to the plusnet forums after my router (which was issued by plusnet) kept on rebooting itself without reason and they recommended just sending out the new hub one which I was initially hesitant about as I was planning on buying my own modem/router, but considering that it was only going to cost postage I decided to get it to act as a backup once I had my own kit.
About two days after the new hub arrived and was set up I started getting infrequent connection drops where the connection would go down and come back up about a minute later (or slightly more depending on how long it took to establish authentication or whatever) which I reported and an engineer visit was requested who did the basic tests, but couldn't get the internet test to pass so he tried the test from the pole to the cabinet and ended up doing a D side divert and reset my profile which fixed my lower then usual download speeds, but the connection drops continued.
Before the (or maybe after) second actual engineer was sent out, I decided to rule out the hub as the cause and since the reboot issues weren't as frequent as the connection drops I knew that I could use it for long enough without it diluting the results with reboots, but while the router didn't show any signs of drops (and there weren't any picked up by plusnet) the openreach modem kept on losing DSL sync (when these drops occurred with the hub, the logs showed that the DSL connection was lost at the same time as the ppp session ended) which I have mentioned on several occasions to plusnet but it appears to have fallen on "deaf ears" even now.
Between then and now I've had another 5 (or maybe even more) engineers come out and while the second actually fitted a pre-filtered faceplate and the forth did a lift and shift even though openreach couldn't see any issues but did it just in case there was an issue that wasn't being detected by them, it wasn't until engineer 5 and my explaining what I see happen with the hub during these connection drops who then stated that it was an authentication issue and nothing to do with the line (which had passed muster each time it was tested), so I went back to plusnet who confirmed that it was indeed an authentication issue after looking at the router.
They then decided to send out a replacement hub which I knew wouldn't fix the issue but I decided to humour them, and once I get the new hub and set it up it didn't even take a day for the connection to drop again and once I informed them they did another check and said there was an issue on the line and that another engineer had to be sent out who of course confirmed what engineer 5 had said that it was an authentication issue and wasn't an issue at my end which is where everything stands today, but there's a little bit more that happened afterwards that has taken this down the path of what I consider to be braindead stupidity.
This engineer reported to plusnet that I had various specific IT equipment connected to the network and they requested that I disconnect these items from the network to see if the drops continue, and just for record the following is all that is connected to the network
2 Computers (one is my general use system (which I also use for streaming) and the other is just used for watching streams on twitch, watching content that I can access quicker without having to go through the pain of having to dig through everything on my roku and general management of my own streams which includes (which isn't running all the time) the chat bot and weren't on during a large amount of the connection drops)
1 iPod touch 4th generation (already eliminated well beforehand as I'd taken it off the network already)
1 Netgear 5 port 10/100 switch (also eliminated it as a possible cause as I switched it off as the only thing connected to it at the time was another of the devices that wasn't being used at all at the time)
1 Raspberry Pi model 3b+ (used as a retropie system and is hardly ever turned on with the last time being after all this started as connecting the hard drive to the hub was the only way to get it to use it without it freaking out plus it is now under my TV where it sits in a powered off state)
1 Roku 1 streaming box (unlikely to be causing the issues, but is going to be taken out of service once I find a viable replacement)
1 Huawei Ascend y300 (unlikely to be a cause since it switches off its wi-fi when in standby mode)
1 Canon MG3650 wireless printer (only ever turned on once every two weeks so I can print out my evidence for the job centre and wasn't even connected to the new hub for about a week)
Even though the drops have become more infrequent, they are still happening and this response from plusnet is the last straw that is now sending me towards the ombudsman service as I'm certain that they are clutching at straws as they have before during this as they tried to blame an alarm system or such that doesn't exist because some of the drops in a period of a week were happening around the same time and would rather have a second opinion (if there is someone here with relevant knowledge) if the recent responses are them pulling garbage out of their backsides before I take all the evidence I've collected and hand it over to the ombudsman service to let them deal with it.
This whole saga started 3 months ago, but it originated from when I went to the plusnet forums after my router (which was issued by plusnet) kept on rebooting itself without reason and they recommended just sending out the new hub one which I was initially hesitant about as I was planning on buying my own modem/router, but considering that it was only going to cost postage I decided to get it to act as a backup once I had my own kit.
About two days after the new hub arrived and was set up I started getting infrequent connection drops where the connection would go down and come back up about a minute later (or slightly more depending on how long it took to establish authentication or whatever) which I reported and an engineer visit was requested who did the basic tests, but couldn't get the internet test to pass so he tried the test from the pole to the cabinet and ended up doing a D side divert and reset my profile which fixed my lower then usual download speeds, but the connection drops continued.
Before the (or maybe after) second actual engineer was sent out, I decided to rule out the hub as the cause and since the reboot issues weren't as frequent as the connection drops I knew that I could use it for long enough without it diluting the results with reboots, but while the router didn't show any signs of drops (and there weren't any picked up by plusnet) the openreach modem kept on losing DSL sync (when these drops occurred with the hub, the logs showed that the DSL connection was lost at the same time as the ppp session ended) which I have mentioned on several occasions to plusnet but it appears to have fallen on "deaf ears" even now.
Between then and now I've had another 5 (or maybe even more) engineers come out and while the second actually fitted a pre-filtered faceplate and the forth did a lift and shift even though openreach couldn't see any issues but did it just in case there was an issue that wasn't being detected by them, it wasn't until engineer 5 and my explaining what I see happen with the hub during these connection drops who then stated that it was an authentication issue and nothing to do with the line (which had passed muster each time it was tested), so I went back to plusnet who confirmed that it was indeed an authentication issue after looking at the router.
They then decided to send out a replacement hub which I knew wouldn't fix the issue but I decided to humour them, and once I get the new hub and set it up it didn't even take a day for the connection to drop again and once I informed them they did another check and said there was an issue on the line and that another engineer had to be sent out who of course confirmed what engineer 5 had said that it was an authentication issue and wasn't an issue at my end which is where everything stands today, but there's a little bit more that happened afterwards that has taken this down the path of what I consider to be braindead stupidity.
This engineer reported to plusnet that I had various specific IT equipment connected to the network and they requested that I disconnect these items from the network to see if the drops continue, and just for record the following is all that is connected to the network
2 Computers (one is my general use system (which I also use for streaming) and the other is just used for watching streams on twitch, watching content that I can access quicker without having to go through the pain of having to dig through everything on my roku and general management of my own streams which includes (which isn't running all the time) the chat bot and weren't on during a large amount of the connection drops)
1 iPod touch 4th generation (already eliminated well beforehand as I'd taken it off the network already)
1 Netgear 5 port 10/100 switch (also eliminated it as a possible cause as I switched it off as the only thing connected to it at the time was another of the devices that wasn't being used at all at the time)
1 Raspberry Pi model 3b+ (used as a retropie system and is hardly ever turned on with the last time being after all this started as connecting the hard drive to the hub was the only way to get it to use it without it freaking out plus it is now under my TV where it sits in a powered off state)
1 Roku 1 streaming box (unlikely to be causing the issues, but is going to be taken out of service once I find a viable replacement)
1 Huawei Ascend y300 (unlikely to be a cause since it switches off its wi-fi when in standby mode)
1 Canon MG3650 wireless printer (only ever turned on once every two weeks so I can print out my evidence for the job centre and wasn't even connected to the new hub for about a week)
Even though the drops have become more infrequent, they are still happening and this response from plusnet is the last straw that is now sending me towards the ombudsman service as I'm certain that they are clutching at straws as they have before during this as they tried to blame an alarm system or such that doesn't exist because some of the drops in a period of a week were happening around the same time and would rather have a second opinion (if there is someone here with relevant knowledge) if the recent responses are them pulling garbage out of their backsides before I take all the evidence I've collected and hand it over to the ombudsman service to let them deal with it.
