Service
Vulnerability, alarms, and power cuts
A broadband line is sometimes also the thing a person depends on: a care alarm, a phone that relatives use to check in, a connection that has to survive more than a marketing definition of “up”. The duties sit with the provider. This page is the list of questions. It is not a register, and it is not medical advice.
Reviewed 5 November 2026 · 6 min read · Independent · Not a price list
Who to tell, and who not to
Tell the provider, at the start of the order and again at the start of any fault. Ask how their priority services or vulnerable-customer register works, what evidence they want, and what they will do differently because of it. Ask them to note it on the order. A verbal aside to a sales agent is weaker than a note you have seen written back to you.
Tell the care-alarm monitoring company yourself, before the switch date. Ask whether the alarm uses the broadband connection, the landline, a mobile network, or its own radio. A switch that looks simple for a laptop can be a failed alarm if nobody reprogrammed the device. Broadband support is not the monitoring desk.
Do not send medical records, photographs, or benefit letters to OneTouchSwitch. We cannot flag an account we cannot see. We do not want that information, and sending it does not make the engineer come sooner.
Power cuts and the end of copper
A traditional landline could sometimes power a simple phone from the exchange during a local power cut. Full fibre equipment in the home generally cannot. If the mains fails, the hub fails, unless there is a battery backup that someone has actually supplied and tested. Ask, before you replace a copper line, what happens to voice calls and to the alarm during a cut.
A battery unit has a finite life, in hours and in years. Ask how long it is specified to run, whether it is included or sold, and who replaces it. A sentence in a brochure that says “backup available” is not the same as a battery on this order.
Mobile signal inside the house is the practical fallback for many families. Check it in the rooms that matter, not on the doorstep. A mobile backup feature on a broadband package exists only if the order includes it, and it uses a mobile network with its own fair-use limits. Read those limits.
Switching without a gap
Where One Touch Switch applies, the new provider coordinates the dates so the old service should not stop before the new one starts. That design matters more, not less, when a person depends on the line. Do not cancel the old service first in an attempt to be helpful. A gap you created is not their delayed start.
Ask for the activation date in writing. Stay in, or have someone else stay in, if an engineer has to enter. If the date moves, ask whether the old service stays up until the new one works. Write the answer down. If they miss a promised start, the delayed-start compensation rule may apply where the provider is in the scheme. The figures are dated on our compensation page. They are not a substitute for a working alarm.
If you are also moving house, the alarm company needs the new address and the new connection type, not just the broadband provider. The move is not a switch. Book the alarm change as its own task.
Money, separately from the duty of care
A social tariff, where the provider offers one, is an affordability product with an eligibility test. It is not the same as being on a priority register. You can need either, or both, or neither. Ask about each by name. We do not print social-tariff prices. Confirm the current product and price with the provider.
An exit fee is not waived because someone in the house is vulnerable, unless the provider agrees or the contract says so. Ask. Get a waiver in writing. Unknown is not zero, even when the reason for leaving is need rather than preference.
Energy priority services and the broadband register are different lists, run by different companies under different regulators. Being on one does not place you on the other. If a power cut is the fear, talk to the electricity network operator about their priority services as well as to the broadband provider. This site cannot join those lists for you.
Questions
- Can you register me as vulnerable?
- No. Ask the provider. Do not send medical information to this website.
- Will full fibre work in a power cut?
- Not unless there is a battery backup that is actually supplied and charged. Ask before you give up a line that still worked in a cut.
- Who reprograms a care alarm?
- The monitoring company. Tell them before the switch. The broadband provider will not do that job because an order exists.
- Does compensation arrive faster if we are vulnerable?
- The scheme amounts are the scheme amounts. Telling the provider changes the urgency they should apply. It does not change the published rate by itself.
- Is a social tariff automatic if we are on the register?
- No. Eligibility for a social tariff is its own test. Ask the provider whether they sell one at the premises.
- Should I cancel the old line to speed the new one up?
- No. Let the new provider run the switch. Cancelling first is how gaps happen.