How Do I Contact Openreach?
You can’t contact Openreach – they operate as an engineering facility to the numerous service providers, such as Sky, Talktalk, Plusnet, BT, etc. Therefore, your service provider deals with them on your behalf. Their website is actually pretty good at explaining what they do (and don’t do).
What About Openreach Visits?
These will be arranged by your service provider. Make sure you make clear to your provider what any problems/requirements are. However,… once the visit is arranged, Openreach are very good in texting the customer to confirm and reconfirm any arrangements made.
You will be given an A.M. or P. M. slot. They will text when arriving at your property, completing the physical work, advising when the service has “gone live”. They will even give you the name of the engineer.
The Day of The Visit. What Do I Need To Do First?
Put the kettle on. Check with the engineer on arrival what he has come to do before they start work. Not all customer service staff at your service provider have a good grasp of what goes on at customer’s premises, and misunderstanding can happen.
Your service provider may have passed on the wrong/partial information. Most Openreach Engineers are fully-equipped with parts and equipment to deal with minor changes to jobs. However, major issues, such as extensive recabling, may need a revisit.
Make Them Some Space Before They Arrive,
If your master socket, or other area of work is behind/beneath something, then move furniture and any other items in order to give them plenty of spare to work. One major issue here:- if they have to move some of your stuff, they may reveal just where you haven’t been cleaning…. Half-chewed dog-biscuits, sticky pound coins, shrivelled take-away items, crawling things, enough hair to fill a mattress. Yes, been there, done that.
Be Kind To Your Engineer.
He is simply obeying orders. He is not responsible for the fault in your network/bad customer service/slow network speeds/grand-daughters acne/pet boxer dog’s flatulence. Generally, Openreach employ good quality people. Don’t use them as punch-bags. Let them get on with the job in solitude. Be kind to them, and they may just go beyond the call of duty. Tea and cake are good.
Understand What They Don’t Do.
My elderly mother-in-law expected the engineer to reconnect her tablet android thingie when he had upgraded her router (causing a password change) Sadly, there are some things that have to be left to the customer. As an independent engineer, I carry out my work but expect the customer to look after their own devices, (or get someone to do it for them).
Am I being mean? Not really – experience has taught me that, for the less-technically-minded, it is easy to blame totally unrelated faults to the last person who touched the equipment. I try and stay out of trouble and let folks look after what is theirs. They need to learn how to connect it. I am uncharacteristically bolshie when it comes to being blamed for imaginary faults caused by basic ignorance.
About Master Sockets and Your Side of Things.
Very often, the engineer is instructed to provide a service to the master socket only. That’s where their responsibility ends. Therefore, if the DIY-cabled sockets attached to it in the past look suspiciously unreliable, wiring damaged and/or decaying, Openreach may just refuse to reconnect them – poor sockets and cables may affect the work they’ve done and stability/speed of your broadband service It’s rather like the issue I described above – a clear demarcation between what’s theirs and what’s yours. Time to call an independent engineer to test and renew/repair your wiring. Openreach could be asked to revisit, but at a steep hourly price.
A Note About Fibre.
If you are having fibre supplied to your house (instead of copper cables), then it’s important that you get Openreach to locate their equipment where you want it. Their ONT (fibre termination box) cannot easily or cheaply be relocated once installed like a copper termination point can.
Anything Else?
Independent engineers, many of them ex-B.T. and highly experienced, are often available to help out with anything Openreach can’t/refuse to deal with. You don’t always need to contact Openreach.. Drop me a line with your postcode, and I might be able to find one for you.
