Keeping your lights and broadband on: Unison’s response during COVID-19

As an essential infrastructure provider for our customers and communities, Unison is focused on ensuring both the power and fibre networks are kept operational at all times as part of its response to COVID-19.

We are closely monitoring the situation and are focused on ensuring the safety and wellbeing of our customers, and our people who play a critical role in keeping the power on and broadband services running.

What we are doing

Unison’s dedicated Incident Management Team is monitoring the situation to lead our response. The Team is implementing our Pandemic Management Plan, ensuring we are prepared for different scenarios and have measures in place to keep everyone safe, and the network secure.

Our response is closely aligned to the Government and Ministry of Health Traffic Light Protection Framework requirements and centres around our safety-first approach.

We are taking all necessary steps to ensure we continue to provide exceptional service to our customers. But some of our measures change the way we interact with our customers.

• If you need us, call 0800 2 UNISON (0800 2 86476) or 0800 2 FIBRE (0800 2 34273). If your call requires a visit from our crews, you will be asked if anyone at the location is self-isolating or has been to a published MoH location of interest. Please always maintain a two-metre distance from our crews (wear a face mask or move to another part of your home while our crew is there), and don’t be alarmed if our people are dressed in appropriate pandemic protective clothing – which could include face masks, safety glasses and gloves.
• Planned work: Our planned work will continue to be delivered and completed to ensure the reliability of our network and the safety of the community. As always, we look at ways to minimise any impact that this work will have on you.

If you have any questions about planned work and notified outages in your area, please call us on 0800 2 86476 or 0800 2 34273 for UnisonFibre and we will do what we can to support you.

Other steps we are taking:

• Working from home. We have steps in place to support our teams to work from home at the ORANGE setting if they are required to. This includes using technology for meetings.
• For those who have working in the office and for business-critical functions, such as our Network Operation Centre and field staff, we have added additional precautionary measures. These include restricted access into certain buildings, ensuring field-staff keep a two-metre distance from customers and one-metre distance from each other during all site visits, the use of personal protective equipment and additional cleaning and hygiene measures.
• Securing our operations and supply chain requirements by working closely with our service providers and partners to understand their pandemic response and ensure they can continue to service us.

We are watching developments closely and our Incident Management Team will continue to meet regularly to work through emerging scenarios.

Our approach needs to be dynamic, given the uncertainty of COVID-19, to ensure continuity of supply, to keep our people safe and healthy and help prevent the spread of COVID-19 in New Zealand.

Thank you and stay safe

We thank you for your ongoing support and cooperation during this uncertain time. Please take care of yourselves and your whānau and check in with those around you.