Damage to broadband cabinets, telephone poles and overhead wires across the South East can now be reported to Openreach using precise locations from what3words.
What3words grids the whole Earth into 3 metre squares, with each square given unique words to make it easier to pinpoint an exact location. For example, in the South East, the Royal Pavilion in Brighton is recorded as ‘turned.family.cuts’, Thorpe Park in Surrey is ‘late.gear.quench’ and Canterbury Cathedral is ‘faster.policy.about’.
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 engineers and 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).
Dave Kelly, Openreach’s Director of Operations for London and the South East 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.
“We’ve seen what3words used successfully by emergency services, where the ability for people to report the precise location of an incident has literally saved lives. And whilst a damaged pole or cabinet might not seem like a case of life or death, safety of the public and our people is hugely important to us, and our network is a key part of South East infrastructure, keeping homes, businesses and health/emergency services connected.
Article continues below this advertisement “To use what3words, you simply need to visit the app or website and make a note of the three words (e.g. darling.lion.race) that pinpoint your chosen location. When you speak with Openreach, just let us know these three words, and we’ll take care of the rest.”
Across the UK, Openreach looks after 192 million kilometres of network cable, 110,000 green cabinets, and 4.9 million telephone poles and junction boxes.
In a typical year, more than 9.9 million engineering jobs are carried out by the company’s 25,000 engineers, many of them in extremely remote and rural locations.
I wonder what county hall would be?
I won’t put what i would like to put as i would probably get banned.
And there i thought all poles had identifications on them, and most cabinets are in a street, so i can’t understand why things need changing.
It sounds like they are doing us a favour, no we pay you X amount of money for a service, all this technology is great if you’re stuck on a mountain,but in real life answer the f’n phone instead of diverting us to a call centre in India or Glasgow! Get up off your bottoms and look for the faults your selves, you guys will be the first people to moan when 50% of you get the chop because the British public are encroaching on your so called skills! What happened to your union,(cwu,)Up the workers,f the managers and there cost cutting bonuses, wake up UK and smell the coffee!!!! X
The what3words app in my own opinion should only be used for emergency’s, and not dumd down for some old git without a life to start reporting the odd dog turd!