Openreach rises to challenge of increase in demand – but announces new restrictions on home repairs and connections
Register for free to read more of the latest local news. It's easy and will only take a moment.
BRITAIN'S biggest telephone and broadband network provider Openreach says it is rising to the challenge of keeping the nation connected, despite huge increase in daytime use.
But it has also announced restrictions on what engineers are prepared to do for household customers during the coronavirus pandemic.
With much of the UK population confined to home to reduce the spread of coronavirus and many continuing to work from home, Openreach reports a 28 per cent increase in daytime usage over its UK fibre network in the last week and an 83 per cent increase on last month.
The maximum peak traffic in daytime is between 2pm and 5pm, while the evening peak traffic is between 8pm and 11pm. This is in line with expectations and not as high as the usage levels still seen during evening peak times when people are streaming movies or gaming.
As the types of applications that people use heavily outside of work, such as Netflix, Amazon Prime or Sky Go, use more bandwidth than typical working tools like email, collaboration software or voice and video conferencing, Openreach says it is not seeing any significant issues across its broadband or phone network as a result of the unprecedented numbers of people now working from home.
However, Openreach has also announced changes in working practice in order to keep its 25,000-strong UK team of frontline engineers and their customers safe throughout the coronavirus pandemic.
These include placing a focus on the repair and maintenance of connections that support critical national infrastructure such as the NHS, emergency services or retail and wholesale food distribution outlets, essential public services, vulnerable customers and those without any service.
Engineers will no longer enter customer premises unless they fit into one of these categories and only when absolutely necessary. Where possible, repairs will be completed from outside the premises.
New services will only be provided where it is possible to do so without going inside unless the service is essential.
All engineers will practise social distancing at work, with only one engineer per van.
Catherine Colloms, Openreach’s managing director of corporate affairs, said: “We know that what Openreach does is critical and connecting people has never been more important. That’s why many of our roles have been given key worker status.
"We hope you can understand why we are introducing these new measures. Our engineers are real people, many with families, and we want to protect them at all times. We are doing our best to balance that responsibility with our responsibility to keep the UK connected.”
