Openreach has partnered with what3words to make it easier for members of the public to report damage to broadband cabinets, telephone poles and overhead wires.
What3words grids the whole Earth into three metre squares, with each square given unique words to make it easier to pinpoint an exact location.
For example, Openreach’s London HQ is recorded as ‘lock.factor.tall’, our Peterborough engineer training school is ‘casino.memo.jacket and BT’s Ipswich based research and development facility, Adastral Park, is ‘lollipop.texted.slime’
Reporting the exact location of damage to Openreach’s nationwide phone and broadband network can sometimes prove difficult, particularly if the damage is in a rural or remote location or situated between villages or local landmarks.
Openreach’s 35,000 plus engineers and our customer facing teams are able to use what3words and members of the public can report vandalism, damaged equipment or safety concerns by visiting Openreach’s website, contacting Openreach’s Twitter or Facebook teams or by calling 0800 023 2023 (Option 1).
Peter Stewart, Openreach’s UK Operations Director for Service Delivery, said: “This should make a huge difference to how safety issues and damage to our network are reported to us and how easy they are to find quickly.
“We have the largest phone and broadband network in the UK, used by hundreds of different service providers, covering everything from city centres to the most rural and remote locations.
“Many of our poles and overhead wires are in areas with no easily identifiable features nearby, so it can be tricky for people to report exactly which pole has been knocked over or which overhead wire is damaged.
“People can report damage to our network directly to us, but any faults with home or business connections should still be directed to their service provider (the company they pay their bill to) as they can easily distinguish between problems affecting our network and all the common issues that might arise inside a home or business – for example faulty routers, hubs and wifi extenders.”
