Dark Fibre - version 05

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6.1 What is a DSO

From time to time there might be events which lead you to needing our urgent assistance. For this reason, we’ve set up the Directors’ Service Office (DSO). This gives directors and senior management within your organisation direct access to a small team that are empowered to step outside of normal processes when required. The team is closely connected to the office of the Customer Service Director and will take ownership for handling any of your issues.

We’ll accept provision issues only that have been submitted by designated referral officers, who are directors/senior executives within your business.

Please remember, the DSO is not an extension of our escalation process. If an escalation exists please refer to section 5. 

6.2 Why would a customer request a DSO

Customer may have orders which are time critical, and if they are not delivered on or before the business critical date, it’s likely to result in significant damage to your company’s brand or reputation and/or pose a public health and safety risk or significant revenue loss, financial liability or litigation. This differs to the reasons for raising an escalation.

6.3 Who can contact the DSO Team

Customers decide which individuals in their organisations are authorised to raise a DSO request when they establish themselves as Openreach customers. These individuals will then become ‘referral officers’ from your organisation. If you’d like to make any changes to your referral officer, e-mail dso.referral.officer.list@openreach.co.uk

Please remember, referral officers are expected to be directors/executives within the customer organisation.

6.4 What information is needed from customers to support a DSO?

·         Confirmation from a named referral officer that they support the order being raised as a DSO. A business case explaining why this is business critical or brand damaging. Specifically, what possible legal action from your customer, involvement of a regional or national elected representative, significant revenue loss or the clear possibility of negative press coverage is relevant to the order.

·         Please be aware the above requirement must be made very clear when you submit the case, or it will not pass our validation checks.  This includes providing original email chains from customers where appropriate.

The Business Case must include the following and failure to provide the information may result in the case being rejected.

Criteria:

·         Confirmation as to whether this is a blue light order

·         Confirmation as to whether a community is at risk

·         Confirmation as to whether this is brand damaging

·         Confirmation of the financial impact

·         The business critical date that the order must be delivered by to avoid negative impact

·         Confirmation that time related charges (please see pricing list) will be accepted

·         Confirmation that early handover will be accepted

·         Confirmation that the customer’s site is ready for install

·         Confirmation that there are no customer delays on the order

6.5 What is the definition of blue light?

A blue light order must be for direct use by one of the emergency services and critical to the provision of emergency services to the general public:

·         Police

·         Ambulance / Hospital

·         Fire

·         Coast guard

Please note, DSO requests for organisations that support an emergency service are not considered to be blue light.

Customers will need to provide detailed information as to why each of their blue light DSO requests are urgent. Below are some examples of a genuine blue light DSO:

·         Providing data connectivity to the NHS to support their efforts during a pandemic

·         Providing data connectivity to the Police to allow them to remotely manage an event

Below are some examples of what would not be considered a genuine blue light service:

·         Orders where the current network is being expanded as part of BAU growth plans

·         Orders for businesses that supply equipment to emergency services

6.6 What is the definition of CNI

In the UK, there are 13 national infrastructure sectors: Chemicals, Civil Nuclear, Communications, Defence, Emergency Services, Energy, Finance, Food, Government, Health, Space, Transport and Water. Several sectors have defined ‘sub-sectors’; Emergency Services for example can be split into Police, Ambulance, Fire Services and Coast Guard.

Not everything within a national infrastructure sector is judged to be ‘critical’.  The UK government’s official definition of CNI is:

‘Those critical elements of infrastructure (namely assets, facilities, systems, networks or processes and the essential workers that operate and facilitate them), the loss or compromise of which could result in:

a)    Major detrimental impact on the availability, integrity or delivery of essential services – including those services whose integrity, if compromised, could result in significant loss of life or casualties – taking into account significant economic   or social impacts; and/or

b)    Significant impact on national security, national defence, or the functioning of the state.’

CPNI, Centre for the Protection of National Infrastructure, is focussed on providing advice and assistance to those who have responsibility for protecting these most crucial elements of the UK’s national infrastructure from national security threats. Openreach uses this criteria to define CNI orders.

6.7 What can’t the DSO team accept:

Traffic management and civils:

If a minimum lead time for traffic management or civils has been provided by the New Roads and Street Works Act (NRSWA), the DSO team will not be able to influence this lead time. With Cat 3 & 4 orders where there is significant infrastructure to build the DSO team will not be able to influence improvements to timescales.

The customer will be able to request a DSO upon completion of the traffic management / civils (including orders with spine and core cable requirements) providing their order still meets the DSO business rules.

Project orders:

Openreach may agree to accept a DSO request on an individual circuit order that’s being managed as part of a VAS project. The order must meet the standard DSO acceptance criteria and all other orders that are part of the VAS project will continue to be coordinated outside of the scope of the DSO.

Openreach are unable to accept bulk requests for DSOs that are part of a VAS managed project unless there are exceptional circumstances. This is to ensure the continued effectiveness of the DSO process for all our Ethernet customers.

Bulk orders being delivered to the same end customer name or organisation will also be classed as projects, even if they are not being managed by the VAS team. The DSO team will not accept requests for the same end customer name or organisation if there are more than 4 DSO cases already open.

Exceptions:

There may be rare occasions where customers would like an order that doesn’t meet the business criteria to be considered for acceptance as a DSO. All exceptions will be treated on a case by case basis. Customers will need to speak to the manager of the DSO team before submitting the DSO case to see if their request can be accepted.

6.8 What to expect from Openreach:

·         We will provide you with a unique case reference.

·         You will be contacted / updated within 8 working hours of the case being received by the DSO team.

6.9 DSO orders in customer delay:

What to expect from Openreach:

·         If your order goes into customer suspend or delay, the Ethernet DSO Team will notify you, so that you can quickly react to help get the order back on track.

·         On working day 3, we’ll send you a reminder, to let you know that your order will fall back to our BAU teams if you don’t provide us with the information we need to complete your order, and you’ll have until the end of working day 5 to respond. We will remove DSO status on Day 6 if there is no response

• If there is a post PONA amend (this is anything past the point of no amend) raised for the order, efforts to expedite will be suspended until the PONA has been completed. Once the post PONA amend case has been closed, normal efforts will resume

What we need from you:

·         You’ll have 5 working days to make sure your order is ready to progress.

If you resolve the delay issue and let our DSO Team know by close of play on working day 5, we’ll take the order out of delay. Our DSO Team will then continue to manage your order to completion. If you are unable to resolve the delay issue by close of play on working day 5, your job will remain in delay. The DSO team will remove the DSO Status and the order will revert back to the relevant local job control team who will manage it as a normal order.

6.10 DSO Contingency process

We’ve arranged the following contingency process in case you are unable to access our portal system due to an outage. Please follow the instructions below and we will help you resolve your issue.

What we need from you:

·         Please complete the form below and e-mail it to our DSO Team.

·         Don’t forget to include your details and evidence that the request has referral officer sign off.

·         Our DSO Team will review your request. You’ll then receive an email from us to confirm whether your request has been accepted, along with details of your case reference and next steps we’ll be taking.

DSO Contingency Form

 

Table 4: DSO contact information for Dark Fibre

For out of hours DSO requests (all products), please call 0800 432 0582 option 3, after you’ve submitted your request on the Openreach Portal.