Openreach is trialing "panic alarms" amid a rise in attacks against its telecom engineers.

As reported by The Guardian, BT subsidiary Openreach has seen a sharp rise in incidents involving its employees.

Last year, the company reported 450 incidents of abuse and assault of its workers in the year up to the end of March, up eight percent year-on-year, and 40 percent up from 2022-23.

Even then, the number is seven times the volume reported almost a decade ago. Such is the issue for Openreach, the company said that abuse and assault have, for the first time, become the single largest cause of injury to office staff and its 22,000 field engineers.

At present, UK broadband provider Openreach is building out its fiber network and has so far passed more than 19 million premises. BT is aiming to reach 25 million premises by the end of next year.

However, an increase in violence against its staff has been noted by BT.

“I used to be worried about people falling off ladders, road traffic accidents, or tripping over potholes,” said Adam Elsworth, health and safety director at Openreach, to The Guardian. “But actually, we have seen a steady increase in violence and abuse."

Elsworth told the paper that a quarter of the accidents logged by the company are now of its workers being attacked or abused.

Some of these incidents have included engineers being shouted at, sworn at, or even spat at, while vehicles have been blocked, stepladders have been shaken, and some have even been pushed down stairs while working at someone’s home.

Racial abuse and inappropriate and threatening behavior towards female engineers have also been an issue for some engineers, added Elsworth.

In an effort to combat these attacks against engineers, Elsworth said that Openreach has trialed a “panic alarm” on engineers’ mobile phones, which is able to connect them in seconds with a monitoring center. The center has the ability to directly dispatch emergency services if needed.

DCD has contacted Openreach for more information.

In comparison, last year, Virgin Media O2, the second-biggest fiber provider in the UK, reported 26 incidents.

Sky reported 99 incidents last year, though said it's back to pre-Covid levels following an increase during the pandemic, with a peak of 392 reported incidents in 2021.

During the height of the pandemic, several telecom engineers in the UK were targeted by conspiracy theorists, amid misinformation online that linked 5G with the spread of Covid-19.

It led engineers to turn to anti-5G Facebook groups to plead with the members not to attack them.