Landline Fault - Plusnet Charging For Call Divert

wongawonga

Gambler wrote: »

Oh well time to move back to BT.

No contract either so you can go back to BT at anytime and pay more if you want to,and avail yourself of free call divert to a mobile if you have a fault.Or you could stay with Plusnet and payless out, and possibly get a refund of extra charges incurred by fault.:D

money_saving_matt

Buzby wrote: »

You misunderstand. Just as was in the early days of cellular, the Government mandated that the networks were not to deal with the customers directly, only 'Service Providers'. This meant that if a customer required mobile connectivity, they had to go via the middleman and pay additionally. Eventually, the networks set up their OWN 'service provision' operations, and now - service provision is just but a memory for mobile.

This is exactly the same situation that we find ourselves with landlines. BT Openreach do the work, and the service providers do the billing. You have the choice of going with a network-owned supplier (BT) or with someone that simply sends out the bills.

Having lived this since 1982 and seen the waste of money and non-customer benefits, begs the question who do you go with, the firm that has the closest ties to the network operator, or some branding exercise that simply has the ability to phone BT Openreach and arrange an install. The monkey and organ-grinder scenario is a pretty good realisation of the current situation.

As for them all being the same, this is just nonsensical. I've specified a number of services I require, but the virtual providers either cannot provide, or say they are not available.

Have you tried to get ISDN, CLI Presentation, Call Sign or a range of other whizzo features? BT will provide them if you ask, but what of the rest? They'll only do this if there's a market, but they are NOT all the same.

I've yet to find an Openreach service that BT will not make available to their customwers. I've found loads that the other carriers can't be bothered with - so the answer is both practical and to the point. If you go with the company that has the ability to offer the greatest range of services, it may cost a little more - but at least you get them.

One of your points seems to be that BT Retail are better because they have the closest relationship with the network provider (Openreach). Although they are both part of the BT Group, to get an order or fault into Openreach, BT Retail have to use exactly the same process as Plusnet and everyone else. What makes this point even more moot is that Plusnet are *also* part of the BT Group (following BT Group's purchase of Plusnet in 2007), so by your logic both Plusnet and BT Retail are the "organ grinders" and everyone else "monkeys".

No WLR provider can phone Openreach to raise an order or a fault (not even BT Retail). Every order or fault request has to go through Openreach's Equivalent Management Platform (EMP).

When you phone BT Retail to place a new line order, the process is:
Your order -> BT Retail's system -> Openreach's EMP system -> Openreach's many back-end systems -> Engineer

If you phone Plusnet (or any other WLR provider) and request the same type of order, the process is:
Your order -> Plusnet's system -> Openreach's EMP system -> Openreach's many back-end systems -> Engineer

This is what I mean when I say that all WLR providers are on the same level; nobody has "direct access" to Openreach or is any closer to the systems responsible for queuing and managing orders/faults - everyone is the same distance away.

When it comes to billing your line rental charges, the relationship is exactly the same:
Openreach -> BT Retail -> Customer
Openreach -> Plusnet -> Customer
Openreach -> TalkTalk -> Customer

Every month Openreach produce a bill for each of their customers (BT Retail, Plusnet, TalkTalk etc.). At the same time your WLR provider produces a bill for you. If you are a BT Retail customer you don't get a bill from Openreach or from the BT Group - you get a bill from BT Retail.

I think the point I would most like to make is that BT Retail are a customer of Openreach, just like Plusnet, TalkTalk and everyone else. The fact that they are part of the same group does *not* affect the services they can choose to offer their customers. If BT Retail were able to get things done faster or get information that other providers cannot, they would be in breach of the undertakings provided by BT to Ofcom as a result of the Enterprise Act 2002.

In my opinion the difference between all the WLR suppliers can be summarised as:

1. The products they offer
2. Their customer service
3. The price
4. Their internal systems

I agree with you that not every WLR provider offers the full suite of products, and if you're in the market for something other than a residential phone line with caller display etc. then your choice of WLR provider will be limited. It is likely that BT Retail have support for a wider range of products and features than Plusnet, particularly given that BT Retail's focus is both business and residential, and Plusnet's focus is almost entirely residential. Why would Plusnet spend the time and resources equipping their systems to support ISDN when their target market is residential? This is the great thing about the state of the market today - anyone can become a WLR provider and can choose to tailor their offering to the sector they choose. The market will decide which providers will sink and which will swim, and everybody has a free choice to buy WLR services from whoever they want.

Anybody on these forums can ask questions about where to source their WLR services from, and I suspect that if their requirements are particularly unusual then the smaller or more focussed providers will not be suitable, but it doesn't make them bad suppliers.

To reiterate a previous point; it is Openreach that carry out the actual work when you order a phone line, and they do this on behalf of WLR providers like BT Retail and Plusnet. BT Retail have no better access to Openreach than anyone else, and there are no "close-ties" as this would breach their undertakings to Ofcom.

BT Retail and Openreach belong to the BT Group but they are *not* the same company.

wongawonga

matt_b wrote: »

It is likely that BT Retail have support for a wider range of products and features than Plusnet,

BT Residential offer exactly the same set of call features as Plusnet do. Most of them dearer.