Plusnet : a cautionary tale

October 20th, 2009 @ Gareth Bult // No Comments

Or as we now like to call them, “minus net”

We’ve been using and recommending Plusnet to people for may years (six+) however more recently their quality of service [from our perspective] has been on the decline. Specifically with regards to our main ADSL line, we’ve had problems that they have been unable to address.

After the performance of our line took a ‘nose dive’ [apparently as the result of changing the interleaving on the line] we requested they ‘undo’ their changes to our service. After three weeks of drop outs and performance that almost made the line unusable we decided we had no choice but to look elsewhere.

Another week went by of “we’ve done it” (when they’d not) and “we’ve done it but it won’t take effect yet” and a migration order went through requesting the service be transferred to “Zen Internet”.

Zen were very helpful and estimated no more than an hour’s downtime based on a normal migration. Effectively they set up their service immediately, then when BT threw the switch their service would be live and waiting.

Plusnet were not terribly happy about the decision and billed for an additional month’s worth of service telling me that I needed to give a month’s notice prior to cancellation.

Anyway, imagine my surprise when three days prior to the migration completing, the ADSL line suddenly ceased to function!

My reaction was to log into my Plusnet account in order to log a ticket (using a mobile connection) but no, that too refused my connection!

So I called Plusnet support (not something I’d generally recommend unless you have time on your hands) to query the issue.

“Sorry sir, your line is no longer with us, we’ve closed the account”.

Wow! A complete migration to another ISP within 48 hours of order, a record! .. off I went to plug Zen’s authentication details into the office router. But, hang on .. that too is giving “authentication failure” when trying to connect to the Internet.

Now .. “authentication failure” is pretty specific. The router is trying to authenticate against an ISP, and the ISP is actively returning an “authentication failure” error code.

I do know a thing or two about ADSL authentication, it uses a protocol called RADIUS. In a previous life I used to work for an ISP and coded their RADIUS server. This experience tells me that the initial reason I’m not getting connected is purely because the ISP to whom the ADSL line is connecting is refusing my login details.

Next, a call to Zen support.

Very pleasant experience, zero wait time (10:00am Sunday) and a very knowledgeable chap on the other end of the phone who was able to query the BT RADIUS logs and confirm what was happening at the far end.

On trying the Zen credentials, nothing at all appearing in the logs.

On trying the Plusnet credentials, login failure appearing in the logs.

Now I might be a little out of date and indeed I might be wrong, but this tells me categorically that I’m trying to authenticate against Plusnet, and as they’ve told me the account is disabled, I’m getting the response I now expect.

On examining the BT work log, he was also able to confirm that BT had not completed the work required to switch the line from Plusnet to Zen.

So, the line was still with Plusnet, they’d just turned it off!

Ok, mistakes happen .. more often than not with Plusnet, but still .. another call to Plusnet. After 15 mins I finally got through to someone in customer services – I won’t quote his name here, let’s just call him “SL” for now.

Simple request, you’ve turned off my account prior to the migration completing, please could you turn it on again until the migration is complete – after all, I’m paying for the service for another month!

- I’m sorry, it’s not with us any more.

Urm, yes it is (I explain what as above) ..

- I’m sorry, it’s not with us any more.

Urm, I’ve just explained that it is .. it’s not going to cost Plusnet anything to turn the login/password back on [because I am still paying for the service!] so could you just turn it on then you can say “told you so” when it still doesn’t work. (but of course it will work!)

- I’m sorry, it’s not with us any more, there’s nothing we can do.

Urm, the RADIUS authentication is Plusnet’s, nothing to do with BT, you can do it.

- Look, we’re going round in circles, I’m sure we’ve both got better things to do, we’re not turning it on.

Urm, no wonder you’re losing business!

As of this morning (3 days downtime) the line migration completed and once again I seem to have a relatively stable line that’s not dropping every 10 minutes. [but now with Zen] I’ve had a little back-pedalling from Plusnet, a refund of the cancellation notice period and an apology for their “uncharacteristically poor service”, but no reason for (a) cutting off the service prematurely or (b) refusing point blank and outright rudely to reconnect it.

A busy few months coming up .. lots of lines to move!