What's the lead time for installing a second ONT? Might have been easier lol

It very well could've been. Installing multiple ONTs to me seems a waste of resources, though.

There's nothing stopping a newly installed ONT from having a provisioning error on the service running on it. Have seen it happen. :)

/me pokes.

Sooooo heard anything as of yet? 

To me this seems rather like chorus stonewalling for the sake of stonewalling and 2Degree's unfortunately poor ticket management not helping the case what so ever.

Nothing new as of the moment, no.

I didn't hear anything back from 2degrees, so called back on the 7th of August (Monday) around 5:20pm to query what was happening. I was informed that they're waiting on further info from Chorus, and the issue is under investigation on the Chorus side.

I asked the agent whether they could enquire with Chorus as to what was happening there and then. They said no, as Chorus were closed. After I insisted on querying it with Chorus they went away for a while to check things. After a few minutes with Pharell Williams and Imagine Dragons the agent let me know Chorus are closed, and I should call 2degrees back during business hours to chase it up.

I asked whether the number they called Chorus on ended in XYZ, and was told no. After further insistence that they follow up with Chorus on the number ending in XYZ, and some more time on hold the agent came back to confirm that no new information had come through from Chorus, and that Chorus are investigating on their end. I again stressed that the issue doesn't seem to be following the escalation matrix as it should be, and that something is being missed. I also queried why I should need to chase Chorus (via 2degrees during business hours) when I cannot contact Chorus myself regarding the issue. I didn't get much of an answer to this.

Due to needing to organise other things at the time (GoT viewing with friends. Was a good episode!), I decided to end the call rather than push further. When saying goodbye the agent confirmed they would ensure things were followed up with Chorus, and I'd be kept informed.

I called back up on the 8th of August around 8:15pm to query what was happening. After explaining the situation the agent went to check on what was happening with the fault ticket, and hung up on me in the process. Likely just a case of human error, at a guess. It happens.

I called back again around 8:20pm to follow up and explained the situation to the agent. He checked the ticket, advised that it's still under investigation by Chorus, and that no new information has come through. He also advised that the best bet is to call back during business hours so that 2degrees can then chase Chorus while I'm on hold. I again queried as to why I should need to do this, and asked for the agent to contact Chorus there and then. After I was informed they wouldn't be open, I questioned this and was placed on hold so the agent could try and enquire with Chorus.

After a deep and meaningful with Sam Smith, the agent let me know the issue is under investigation by Chorus, but no new information was available. I queried as to whether there are SLAs being breached between Chorus and 2degrees, and asked the agent to request an ETA, along with screen shots of AMS showing how the ONT is provisioned on the ticket. He confirmed he'd put this in, and get back to me this evening if any new information comes to light.

I'll keep the thread updated as new information comes through. As of this post I'm still getting a resolute 55Mbps down.

I came home today to find that speeds are now correct, as shown above. This is running through my Equipment - the Fritzbox is acting as an ATA and switch. I can even get full speeds over WiFi!

I called 2degrees to let them know on the 9th of August around 8:15pm, query what happened on the ticket with Chorus, and organise returning the Fritzbox which went walkabout. The agent I spoke to confirmed Chorus had checked AMS, and said that the ONT is provisioned correctly.

While the ONT does indeed seem to be provisioned correctly now, it is very interesting to me that after being specifically asked to check their back end system in order to screen shot it, and someone at Chorus doing so speeds are now correct. Prior to this every other conceivable excuse seemed to come out of the wood work, delaying things further. In my view the source should be chased up on it to ensure it doesn't happen again in the future.

I'm happy that this is now resolved. Overall though I'm disappointed that the source of the trouble took so long to find and resolve. It's my opinion that had I not been chasing this so aggressively, it would've gone on for longer. I hold this opinion because I observed very little follow up as to what was happening with the fault ticket with Chorus along the way, and have a good idea on how long it generally takes them to reply to queries.

If anyone from 2degrees is watching, I have some feedback:

I firmly believe that had this gone up the escalation chain with Chorus sooner, it would've been resolved much quicker. If I were a regular customer with no knowledge of how or what to troubleshoot, nor how Chorus work, I would've been stuck, either to accept the low speed or churn to another ISP. The option to give up and churn was very tempting. I only didn't do so because I'm stubborn.

Your agents should be trained on as many internal systems as possible. Having some team members capable of running iperf, and others not knowing what it is is to me a bit concerning. It's a powerful tool, and I imagine could go a long way when troubleshooting speeds with other fibre customers. Being given different information by different team members, and seemingly having my input ignored in order to check off boxes that had already been checked on prior calls was not an enjoyable experience.

Neither was the accusatory call I received on one occasion from a team member essentially stating that the problem was on my end, and 2degrees would not be following it up any further. I didn't see the logic behind this since direct from the Fritzbox speeds were still wrong. Querying this with the agent didn't seem to change their mind. It to me seemed like a combination of work avoidance on a difficult case, and a lack of empathy for a customer in a difficult situation. If I were made aware of such a call happening at my place of work the agent responsible would end up in a disciplinary meeting with their direct manager.

If your team say they're going to follow up or call back, ensure it happens. Of the many times I was told someone would contact me again with further info, this very rarely happened.

Give all team members an overview of which teams at Chorus work which hours, and when and how they can be contacted. I was told on multiple occasions that Chorus weren't open when I knew they were. Give each team member training on the Chorus escalation matrix, how to use it, and their SLAs. Empowering team members to make decisions on their own without needing to put the customer on hold to get a decision, and chase responsible parties where necessary can go a long way.

Your email game also needs work. To me it's not reasonable for it to take days to reply to a customer's email. I would've preferred to resolve this whole thing via email, however due to the response times felt forced to call about it.

I've been a 2degrees customer since the Snap days, and have always recommended you to friends and family since I like your network's performance, peering policy, lack of CGNAT and IPv6 being available by default. Back in the Snap days the customer service was also top notch, on the rare occasions I had to make contact. I've seen/heard accounts from various people that the customer service aspect has changed. I hadn't encountered it myself up until recently, which is a great, great shame.

I'm happy to provide further details to anyone from 2degrees privately on this case, should it be requested.

Thank you to all of those who contributed, either through suggestions or offers of help. Also a big thank you to those who contacted me privately about this. You know who you are. :)

This thread can likely be closed now, but I'll leave that decision to the powers that be.

L

Very frustrating and time consuming for all. Like you say, without your knowledge and perseverance, it probably wouldn't have been fixed.

So, was it definitely the ONT provisioning?

2degrees didn't change anything today, as far as I'm aware. Neither did I.

Only after Chorus were specifically asked to check and screen shot the back end (at my request) did the line start performing as it should. Take from that what you will.

linw:

 

Very frustrating and time consuming for all. Like you say, without your knowledge and perseverance, it probably wouldn't have been fixed.

 

So, was it definitely the ONT provisioning?

 

That's what it would appear based on the noticeable facts.

This can sometimes happen with chorus unfortunately.

I'm sure you would get it with any sort of work completed though..

"Ok okay i'll look under the hood?" "Oh sh!t we missed this, lets just fix it up, All looks fine here"

No issues found here, seems to be working fine in our testing as of responding.

you see this with many places sadly, IMO if an issue is found i'd personally prefer a hey, yeah we noticed a human error that has been corrected.

Glad to hear it is all sorted!

@2degreesCare some pretty good constructive feedback there too.

inb4 the landlords gigabit connection on port 1 is now limited to 55 Mbps 

 I've checked that. Still getting full speed any time they test. :p

Thanks for your feedback Lorenceo. As per our PM we'll pass this onto the appropriate managers.

Cheers

^POB