In our capacity as a telecoms provider, Computercentric are heavily reliant on Openreach for support and deployment of telephone line and internet services. Line most businesses during these unpredictable times, Openreach has had to quickly adapt to the changing situation, and this document highlights the disruption and changes which may affect our clients.
I will highlight the main points from Openreach below.
- Any orders that can be provided without an engineer going into the premises, i.e. start of stopped lines, like for like transfers, Working Line Takeovers, Migrations, ADSL to FTTC upgrades, FTTC activations at the cabinet, succession provides for FTTP, will all progress as normal.
- Orders that normally require an engineer to attend the premises i.e. new copper provides, Openreach will in the first instance attempt to provide the service externally. If a visit to the premises is still required then the job will be pushed out with a rolling 45 Working Day lead time. Please note if the end customer has been highlighted as being a COVID ‘High Risk’ customer, or their business is defined as Critical National Infrastructure, then engineers will still look to complete these jobs in the premises after accessing the risk level.
- Ethernet orders can still be placed and on the whole will progress. Orders which require a physical survey will be delayed unless highlighted as Critical Network Infrastructure, however desk based surveys will still allow some orders to progress. They will then be built up to the curtilage only unless the circuit is highlighted as Critical Network Infrastructure.
- Number porting is now open for business again and the Openreach porting desk are now back within SLA.
- Tech support – Total Loss of Service faults – engineers will attempt to repair faults in the external network first. They will still enter a premises as long as it is safe to do so. Engineers will ask two risk assessment questions prior to entering. If the risk is deemed too high the Openreach desk will liaise with Computercenrtric to explore alternative solutions
- Tech support – Quality of service faults i.e. speed issues, intermittent connection – engineers will attempt to fix in network but will not enter customer premises.
For any clients requiring more information, we would encourage you to read Openreach’s COVID-19 Response Reference document which is available here.
Essentially, for the bulk of Computercentric clients who take our telephony, broadband or ethernet services, the real-world impact is as below:
- Installation of new services will be delayed significantly, with most jobs now re-booking after 1st June 2020.
- Resolution of problems which require a site visit may be disrupted, and we would encourage clients to be prepared to make arrangements for continuation of business operations in the absence of a fix to critical broadband and phone services.
We will endeavour to keep you up to date with new information as we have it on our COVID-19 Situation page.
