Following the Government's strict new curbs on human activities in the UK to tackle the spread of coronavirus Openreach is to prioritise only essential work and 'absolutely minimise' work that requires engineers to enter end customer premises.
Openreach also noted that it will shortly announce national MBORC, a contractual provision contained in all Openreach contracts which releases it from liability under certain circumstances, such as incidents 'beyond its reasonable control'.
Openreach stated that provision work carried out by service delivery and fibre and network delivery will be limited to self-install activities, where there is no engineering visit to the end customer premises; and service to vulnerable end customers (in-home and carried out safely, only where essential).
For end customers with no other form of broadband or telephony available Openreach will seek to deal with these via escalation channels jointly with the CP to find a solution that doesn’t require a home visit.
Openreach will also prioritise 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).
Repair work for both volume and business products will continue to be focused on restoring service with safe working practices, and with revised processes to further reduce social interaction wherever possible.
Appointment books have been closed for new appointed provision with books moved out to 1st June 2020.
Openreach said it will attempt to complete appointed inflight orders outside of the premises.
Non-appointed orders will continue to go ahead where no visit is required to go to the premises.
Engineers will be asked not to enter the end customer premises and to enable/restore service where possible from outside of the premises.
Openreach will be asking CPs to work with their end customers to understand alternative means of connectivity and to limit the movements of end customers between networks, due to the likelihood of an in-home visit being required.