March 26th 2020
BT OPENREACH - COVID-19 UPDATE
During the COVID-19 pandemic, we will be bringing you up to date information affecting the comms industry to keep our clients informed. Please see below for the latest update regarding BT Openreach services.
Effective from midnight on 24th March, Openreach announced that a nationwide MBORC had been declared (matters beyond our reasonable control) for provision, repair, missed appointments and the availability of appointments.
In line with the Government advice on social interaction and movement, Openreach will be restricting engineer visits, effectively limiting service delivery to self-installs until 1st June at the earliest.
So what does this mean for us and our customers?
Openreach contact centres are currently closed, which is having an impact on obtaining updates and queries.
New Orders
Openreach will continue to accept new orders for installations but these will be delayed with available appointment dates likely to be after 1st June.
What do the restrictions on engineer visits mean?
Any order that requires internal work, including WLR orders for Single Analogue lines, will be delayed until June unless they meet one of the following criteria, which if they do, will be handled on a case by case basis with BT through an escalation process (for which we are still obtaining details).
- Self-install activities (i.e. where there is no engineering visit to the end customer premises)
- Service to vulnerable end customers (in-home and carried out safely, only where essential)
- End customers who have no other form of broadband or telephony available – BT will work with us to look for solutions that do not require a home visit
- On-premises work for critical national infrastructure customers (NHS, pharmacies, utilities, emergency services, retail and wholesale food distribution outlets, financial services businesses and other categories defined by the Government)
What orders can go ahead?
Any order where there is no internal work will progress as normal for example:
- Like for Like transfers
- Upgrade from ADSL to FTTC
- Activating a new Broadband Service on an existing line
Orders currently in flight
Appointed jobs will be converted to non-appointed and Openreach will attempt to complete orders to provide service only to the external part of the building. If internal works are required, they will need to be reappointed after 1st June.
Faults/Repairs
Repair work will continue to be focussed on restoring service with safe working practices and with revised processes to further reduce social interaction wherever possible. Engineers will be asked NOT to enter the end customer premises and to enable/restore service where possible from outside of the premises.
What's next?
We will continue to monitor the situation on a daily basis, bringing you any further updates as we have them.