We were in contract with Plusnet until November originally on FF900. In December I upgraded a phone and was offered 10% off all my lines if we took broadband so I said yes.
I was very specific about being in contract and I was told it could be delayed to start when Plusnet ended.
After the sale was made I was told I needed to contact and stagger the activation manually which was a bit deceptive but by then I had agreed.
So it gets to Feb and I've spoken to CS via the app to ask to delay since I don't want to to hit with cancellation costs. The day before the proposed activation I called to check it was all good and they said it wasn't so they attempted to cancel.
At midnight it switched to BT, so I had to get up in the night to change the router SSID and passphrase so my partner and I could work from home. I called BT and they said the line would cease to work at midnight and I had to wait 2 days for it to clear so I could reorder.
At this point I was posted a 4g router but obviously with -112dbm signal at my windows we knew we couldn't work from home on that connection. I am an IT Infrastructure engineer so we need a good connection for remote access, VOIP and it needs to be stable. I also rely on WiFi calling because I'm on call for critical failures and need to be reachable and available.
This led us to have no choice but to purchase a Starlink mini which I ran into my existing router to keep our house afloat. I had to run to Currys to buy the Starlink which was a complete nightmare then get it all set up in the dark and try to prepare so we had connectivity to work from.
I complained and I was told EE couldn't cover my cancellation costs (£348) because the limit was £300 even though I had notified them well ahead of activation to try and stop this from happening.
A couple of days later I ordered EE FF1600 and initially we were told a week to wait for Openreach to attend, that was then pushed back to 2 weeks. 15 days after we lost connection.
Meanwhile I'm trying to complain and totting up costs to keep a record.
On 31/03 Openreach attended and fitted a newer ONT capable of 2.5gbps for the faster connection. We tried my router and EE's but nothing was coming in. He left saying it would go live by midnight. He did all the registration and stuff with the ONT and did a light test on the fibre which confirmed everything to the ONT is fine (it has worked for almost 5 years and never had any issues with the previous ONT.
I waited, then updated the complaint and they sent an EE/BT chap out on 02/04 who said it is an Openreach issue or maybe an account issue. He was going to update the ticket and feed back to the complaint.
I checked the status the next day and it said they had run more tests and now the line is running perfectly. It is not and never has been connected, doesn't have a static IP and has been flashing orange since we plugged it in.
I've obviously rebooted the ONT and router, left the ONT off for 30 mins and turned back on and I've checked everything else. We are using the WiFi Hub Pro 7 and extender. Extender is turquoise and the router is flashing orange still.
I am seeking the Ofcom recommendation of £6.10 per day due to the failed activation, costs for the Starlink and data bundle, the full cost of cancellation fees for Plusnet and 3 months of broadband to offset the misery.
We have already had a bill from EE for 42.99 and on 07/04 we haven't even had a hint of broadband yet.
Is this common? It's being handled by the executive office because I copied in Allison Kirkby and Marc Allera but they have stopped replying and I'm really really starting to lose my patience now.
I did my part to stop this from happening and due to the confusion in the background I have had to accrue cancellation costs and fees to keep my partner and I able to work and be contactable.
They said that because they provided the 4G modem that somehow means they have done their part but I clearly explained that a premium smartphone cannot get signal so a cheap little Chinese 4G box with a worse antenna is not likely to be able to serve 2 laptops for work.
The EE engineer agreed that they might be good for a good signal area as an emergency but not for anything like our situation.
What do I do? I'm very tempted to bin everything we have with EE because they haven't held up their end of the contract at all. We have multiple lines and spend far too much with them and have add to plan stuff too.
Feeling like a complete mug. Our original BT and Plusnet services were live on time and absolutely flawless. EE get involved and they've absolutely screwed everything up.
