Openreach preps for extreme winter

Openreach is stepping up preparations for winter after 750 telephone poles were damaged in storms last year.

Since then, Openreach has been reviewing its approach to extreme weather, improving specialist winter kit for its 3,500 engineers across the east of England, looking at whether the network can be re-routed in areas that have proved to be particularly vulnerable to storms in recent years and reviewing how information on any disruption is shared with communities.

The company is providing tips for broadband and phone users in the east of England, which was particularly affected last winter.

Advice includes telling your provider if you’re vulnerable, preparing for an outage, reporting damage and checking your power.
 

Raja Khalid, regional director for Openreach in the East of England, said: “It’s impossible to predict exactly what kind of winter is ahead of us, but we’re doing everything we can to prepare for it.

“The most important thing to us is keeping our engineers and the public safe.”