COVID-19 – Openreach Begin Phased Return to In-Home Installs UPDATE

Some good news for those waiting to get a new UK broadband or phone line installed. Openreach’s (BT) engineers are today beginning a “phased return” to conducting work in-home, such as repairs and provisions (installations) of new ISP products (e.g. FTTP, G.fast, Phone Lines etc.).

Back in late March Openreach took the difficult decision (here) to limit many of their new broadband and phone provisions (installs), repair jobs and engineer appointments on a “national basis.” The move was intended to protect both their engineers and customers from the then still rapidly increasing spread of COVID-19 (Coronavirus).

As a result of that action many installs for new FTTP and G.fast lines, among other services, were delayed and a number of ISPs even opted to withdraw related products from sale, albeit only temporarily. At the time the operator indicated that they hoped to start returning to some degree of normality around 1st June 2020.

The good news is that the spread of COVID-19 is gradually being tackled and the UK lockdown is slowly beginning to soften. Due to this Openreach has informed us that they will, from today, begin taking steps to allow for engineers to conduct work in-home again, such as repairs and provisions. This forms part of a new process for in-home work, which won’t be quite the same as before.

A Spokesperson for Openreach told ISPreview.co.uk:

“After careful consideration and following the Public Health England guidance, we’re going to conduct a phased return to working inside customers’ homes and businesses, starting from today.

We’ll still prioritise working from outside the property first, and we’ll only go inside if the provision or repair job is low risk and takes a short amount of time.”

We should stress that Openreach, much like the UK as a whole, will be constantly reviewing their processes. “The health and safety of our people and our customers will always be our highest priority,” said the operator. In other words, if COVID-19 is beaten (most likely only once a vaccine becomes available) then they’ll be able to return fully back to normal, but if there’s a second or multiple future waves then they might have to re-impose some limits.

UPDATE 20th May 2020

We asked Openreach how they assessed whether a job is low risk and takes a short amount of time and have received the following response.

Openreach Statement

We define whether a job is low risk by ensuring the customer has answered ‘no’ to all three of our screening questions:

– Have you or anyone else living here been diagnosed with COVID-19 or have been asked to self-isolate?

– Do you or anyone else here have Covid-19 symptoms? (categorised as at least one of the following – new continuous cough, high temperature, loss of/change in normal sense of taste or smell)

– Have you or anyone else living here received an NHS letter confirming you’re classified as an extremely vulnerable person and should stay inside (known as shielding) for 12 weeks?

The engineer will only spend a short time in the home. However, prior to our home visit, we share a video with our customers which shows them what we expect of them – i.e. to stay in another room, wipe down surfaces where the engineer will work, open a window to provide adequate ventilation and understand that any post-work conversation will take place via What’s App or from outside the home. This way of working has also been agreed with communications providers.