Openreach visit line fault

Procedure for dealing with line faults

If there is a genuine line fault, we need to get Openreach to investigate and repair it. The Telephone lines in NI are maintained by Openreach and all faults on internet connections and land lines have to go through them. This is true of all landline and internet providers who use their network. The list includes Megganet, Sky, TalkTalk, BT and the myriad of other providers.

You can find out more about Openreach here.

When you report a line fault, we will take you though the procedure for verifying the line fault. This will mean removing the lower front plate of your telephone Master socket and connecting a wired phone directly to the socket. Do not use a wireless. DECT phone for testing the line. Also, do not use a phone which plugs into the mains or one with battery’s in it as these can give false readings.

When you have carried out the above steps contact us with your results. It would be best to do this from beside the socket with the test phone available. Obviously, if the line is not working, you should use a mobile to contact us. If you do not wish to do the line tests, we can arrange our own engineer to do these tests on your behalf. This callout will be charged at the prevailing callout and time rate plus parts. A typical callout might include, cleaning up the house wiring and installing a modern NTE filter master socket.

We will then carry out a full set of line checks which should more closely identify the fault prior to submitting the service request to Openreach. This is the information we need to pass on to Openreach.

An AM visit is defined as between 8:00 and 13:00.
A PM visit is defined as between 14:00 and 18:00.

Please note – an engineer will not enter the premises if the door is opened by an unaccompanied minor. This is standard practice for every company that I am aware of.

We then contact Openreach to verify the time and AM/PM visit times and then confirm with the client.

When the engineer starts fault finding, they could discover that the fault is external and not need to visit the premises. If they find an external fault and fix it, they will report back to Openreach and they will in turn get the message to me. This usually takes a while and if the fault is repaired, you will probably know about it before me! The Openreach engineer may not contact the client directly to say the fault has been cleared.

Openreach engineers may or may not phone in advance of visiting.

There are occasions where there may be more than 1 fault and the fix they carry out may not be the one which gets your line working. For example, lets say there are 2 connection boxes between the premises and the Exchange. Lets say that the first connection box was full of water and had corroded or poor wiring. Lets say the fault was with the 2^nd connection box. When the Openreach engineer sees the problem with the first box, they ‘fix’ it and close the case off. Meanwhile the problem exists on the 2^nd connection box. This means we need to issue a 2^nd fault procedure and go through the process again. Not nice but no way around this.

Abortive charges

If an engineer visit is required for this order and the end user misses the appointment, Openreach will raise an Abortive Visit Charge of a minimum of £108.00. If this charge is raised, in the first instance, it will be passed to you as the customer, which must be paid in line with your monthly service invoice. If you wish to dispute this charge, you must do so within 14 days of the charge being raised.

Contact Openreach

We are unable to contact Openreach directly. After the fault is reported and it is in the hands of Openreach, we cannot do any more to help until the report comes back to us from Openreach. For example, if you discover that you are unavailable for the Openreach visit for any reason the day before the scheduled callout, we may not be able to postpone the visit and they may charge for an aborted visit.

The legal bit

This page is not a legal document.