Alan Duncan – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Culture, Media and Sport

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Alan Duncan on 2016-02-09.

To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what obligations Openreach and BT have under contracts with the Government to provide prior warning to residents of planned maintenance or improvement work to junction boxes and other infrastructure that involves the temporary disconnection of services.

Mr Edward Vaizey

The same regulatory and communication code conditions apply to Openreach in BDUK contracted areas as would apply to their commercial deployment areas.

The contracts between BT and government relating to broadband are for the provision of the design and build of infrastructure. Once this infrastructure is in place, it forms part of BT’s network and maintenance and improvement works will be carried out by Openreach in the same way as on the rest of the network. Although there is no obligation to inform residents of any planned upgrades or essential maintenance, these activities are scheduled to be carried out when usage is at its lowest, in order to minimise disruption.