Engineer visits
Your connectivity installation experience can vary depending on the type of order you placed. For example, an engineer will visit your premise if you ordered a New Provide, but they may not if you ordered a Migration.
In this article
- When should you expect an engineer visit?
- On the day of your engineer visit
- Common issues with engineer visits
In the UK, most consumer and business connectivity installations are performed by Openreach engineers. Openreach maintains nearly all of the UK's national telephone and broadband network. Openreach may also use sub-contractors to complete installations.
In the event of a broadband fault, your service's Care Level dictates how quickly Openreach will attempt to resolve the issue. If your broadband is critical to your business, we recommend selecting Care Level Enhanced at the point of order. Care Levels can be updated after the service is live.
When should you expect an engineer visit?
New Provide orders
An engineer should always visit your premise to perform a New Provide installation. A New Provide order consists of an engineer installing a brand-new copper or fibre line.
Other order types
An engineer may not visit your premise to perform a Migration, Workling Line Takeover, Restarting a Stopped Line or Succession Provide order. The aforementioned order types can be completed wholly remotely, or by doing work at the local exchange or street cabinet.
Force an engineer appointment
You can always force an engineer visit by selecting 'Appointment Required = Yes' when ordering your connectivity in Metis. This should be selected if the location of the line is unknown, or if the line is damaged. Some customers also just prefer to speak to an engineer to ensure the work is carried out correctly. Refer to your Pricing page in Metis for price information.
On the day of your engineer visit
Be ready for your appointment slot
Engineer visits are given either an AM or PM appointment slot. AM is from 08:00-13:00 and PM is from 13:00-18:00. You must be available from the beginning until the end of your appointment slot, and be reachable on the given onsite contact number otherwise you risk receiving an Abortive Site Visit charge.
Confirm what work is required
We recommend that you confirm with the engineer what work they are tasked to carry out and ensure it matches your order. If in doubt, you can contact us to confirm exactly what the engineer should be doing. If the work doesn't match up, then you can politely ask the engineer to speak to us.
Tell the engineer about any existing services
We recommend that you advise the engineer of any existing services that must not be deactivated or used for the new service. If your existing services are not already labelled, then you could label them with the service reference or a simple but effective: 'DO NOT TOUCH'.
Common issues with engineer visits
Whilst most engineer visits are completed without issue, at the time of writing we have noticed an increase in issues ranging from engineers being unaware of the order type to breaking an existing service to install the new service.
Engineer unaware of your order type
In some cases, we have seen engineers arrive for a New Provide but instead, attempt to use an existing line which may already have an active broadband service.
If possible, we recommend talking to the engineer and confirming the job before any work is started. If the engineer is working at the exchange or local cabinet and you notice an existing service has gone offline, contact us immediately, and attempt to contact the engineer to tell them what happened.
Engineer broke existing service
As above we recommend you contact us immediately to advise what happened so we can feedback to the supplier. If possible, contact the engineer to tell them what happened in case they can fix it whilst onsite.
If the engineer has gone AWOL, contact us and we can raise a Restoration Fault, where another engineer will go out and fix the broken service.
New service not working as expected
The engineer should confirm end-to-end connectivity at your premise but in the event this doesn't happen, contact our support desk. We can run Diagnostic tests to confirm connectivity and, if required, raise a Dead on Arrival fault where an engineer will come out to fix the issue.