Openreach Delays Some UK Broadband Installs Due to COVID19

A touch of deja vu is in the air this morning after sources informed us that Openreach (BT) are now notifying UK ISPs that, due to the latest national COVID-19 lockdown measures, many new installs for their ultrafast broadband and some other products will have to be delayed to 1st March 2021 onwards.

Readers may recall that Openreach took a similarly difficult decision (here) to limit many of their new broadband and phone provisions (installs), repair jobs and engineer appointments on a “national basis” almost a year ago, during the first March 2020 lockdown, which was eventually lifted in June 2020 (here). None of this impacts tasks that don’t require an engineer to enter your home (e.g. switching between FTTC ISPs).

At the time the move was intended to protect both their engineers and customers from the then still rapidly increasing spread of COVID-19 (Coronavirus), although the more localised restrictions and mini-lockdowns since then don’t appear to have been nearly as disruptive.. until now.

However, this week saw the UK Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, announce a new lockdown in England to tackle the latest surge in COVID-19 cases. A national lockdown in Scotland was also announced just before this, with Wales and Northern Ireland both already in a similar position. As a result, ISPs have been seeking clarity from Openreach over how they would respond and now we know the answer.

Openreach’s Position

In a new statement the national network access provider recognises that the provision of critical national infrastructure is “key to keeping the UK connected” and for that reason their people are classified as “key workers” (it’s the same for all such network providers), which among other things means that they can still build their network and may continue to go into homes and businesses to undertake “essential work“.

However, Openreach has to keep the safety of both their customers and engineers in mind. On top of that they were “exposed to fluctuating resource availability” during the first lockdown. “It is with this in mind that we are taking action, further limiting our engineers’ time in homes and businesses and delaying non-urgent provision work – e.g. some broadband upgrades to ultrafast,” states Openreach in the notice to ISPs.

An Openreach Spokesperson said:

“Given the new national lockdown, and following government guidance, we’re updating our engineer processes to ensure we continue to keep our people and customers safe. As key workers, we’ll continue to conduct work outside the home.

Where we do need to go into homes, we’ll be prioritising urgent provisions and critical repairs for those customers who need a more stable connection and to avoid a total loss of service. This will mean that non-urgent provisions, such as those who already have a superfast broadband service and require us to work inside homes, may be delayed.

We’ll always aim to spend as little time inside homes as possible, whilst working safely with distancing, ventilation and PPE.”

Summary of the Changes

— As before, provision of home copper and superfast broadband products (e.g. FTTC, ADSL) will continue (most of these don’t require engineers to enter your home). Likewise, repairs will also continue, although they may only enter your home if it’s absolutely necessary, such as to resolve a total loss of service. However, unappointed FTTP orders (e.g. greenfield provisioning) will be unaffected by all this.

— New installs for ultrafast broadband products (FTTP, Gfast and SOGfast) will be pushed back to 1st March 2021 onwards, although an escalation process will be introduced to help tackle cases where the end customer has no existing broadband service or is receiving a service of less than 30Mbps (to help support home working and schooling).

— Many existing (inflight) orders will continue, except for those orders where the customer has an existing broadband service with Openreach above 30Mbps (these will also be delayed to 1st March onwards).

— In terms of Ethernet and business connectivity, they will adopt Amber working conditions. Engineers will generally try to avoid entering a property unless truly necessary, although they will make exceptions for essential businesses, particularly if safe access can be assured. Failing that, only external build to the curtilage will continue.

— The operator won’t do internal survey and network build work for FTTP brownfield MDUs (e.g. large apartment blocks), although they will continue to progress other FTTP build activities.

Openreach said that their engineers will continue to carry out a personal risk assessment for every install (asking people if they have COVID-19 symptoms etc.) and maintain the current safety guidelines. The announcement will no doubt cause some frustration to both ISPs and consumers alike, although at the same time most people will understand why it’s necessary.

We will update against once the operator has issued us with their public statement.

UPDATE 12:47pm

We’ve added Openreach’s statement above.