ACCESSIBILITY

Using Broadband and the Web

We want to improve the way your experience of the web works with assistive technologies like screen magnifiers and voice activation software. With these technologies we hope to make your experience of the web more enjoyable.

Accessibility issues on our site

We working to make our site better, Sometimes we've had to include features on our site that may cause accessibility issues, like video content from other people or organisations.

 

If you only use a keyboard or screen reader, there are visible skip links so you can skip a section. They appear when you tab onto them.

 

We're working hard to stop these problems or provide accessible alternatives.

Changing the setting on your computer

The Web has many sites that you may use to help make better use of you computer's access features. For instance, the British Sign Language's website provides user accessibility guides on topics such as changing fonts and colours, making your keyboard easier to use, and, finding content.  And, the BBC also has its own useful accessibility website, which is called 'My Web My Way'.

 

Go to the BBC My Web My Way site (link opens in a new window)

Using this accessibility website

Here are some of the accessibility features of this website:

Keyboard navigation

  • Easy navigation for keyboard users.
  • Links that work with screen readers.
  • Links that are highlighted with keyboard focus.
  • Skip navigation links let you skip content. For sighted customers, the 'skip to' links are revealed by pressing the tab key after the page loads. Sometimes you can skip to different areas of the page.

Screen reader navigation

If you're using a screen reader, you can browse this page by using these keyboard commands:

  • H to move forwards through the page headings.
  • Shift + H to move backwards through the page headings.
  • 1 to navigate to the next level 1 heading (or 2 for the next level 2 heading, and so on until heading 6).
  • Shift + 1 to navigate to the previous level 1 heading (same applies for headings 2-6).
  • Insert + F5 to get a list of all form controls on the page.
  • Insert + F6 to get a list of all headings on the page.
  • Insert + F7 to get a list of all links on the page.

Changing the colour and font of the display

You can also use the controls in your browser to change the size of the text or the colour of the display.

For example, to change a website font and colour settings in Internet Explorer:

  • Open Internet Explorer.
  • Click the Tools button, and then click Internet Options.
  • Click the General tab, and then click Accessibility.
  • Select the 'Ignore colours specified on web pages', 'Ignore font styles specified on web pages,' and 'Ignore font sizes specified on web pages' boxes', and then click OK twice.

Links, new windows and layers

Links to pages and other websites will open in the same window unless we say so. Some links can also open in a pop-up window on top of the page you're viewing.

A text link is like this: Follow Richard's challenge (opens in a new window) The text (opens in a new window) is hidden for screen reader customers.

Accessibility guidelines

We've made this section of our site conform with the AA standard of the World Wide Web Consortium's (W3C) Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0 (WCAG 2.0). These guidelines are recognised all over the world as a benchmark for building accessible, customer friendly websites.

Assistive technologies

The following assistive technologies are compatible with this section. They won't work on areas with accessibility limitations.

  • JAWS version 12.0, 13 and 14 Screen Reader.
  • Dragon Naturally Speaking 11 and 11.5.
  • ZoomText 9.1 and 10 Screen Magnifier.

If you have any problems with older versions of these applications or other assistive technologies, please tell us.

Browser compatibility

This section works with modern browsers including Microsoft Internet Explorer 8+, Mozilla Firefox, Apple Safari, Google Chrome 10+ and Opera 10+.

If you have any problems with older versions of these browsers, please let us know.

Web standards and technologies

This website was made to meet World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) standards for HTML 5 (HyperText Mark-up Language) and CSS (Cascading Style Sheets).

This website uses HTML and CSS. It also uses JavaScript in places.

Priority Fault

We understand how important it is to be contactable and have the ability to contact others. When it comes to faults with phone or broadband, we’ll provide repair as swiftly as practicable to our customers who have an impairment or disability.

Please note: we’ll prioritise repair over standard care levels but there may be circumstances beyond our control that mean we cannot provide an immediate response. For example, weather conditions like floods or storms can stop our engineers carrying out repairs to overhead cables or working down manholes or an network outage in your area.

Priority fault repair service is available where a customer has no dial tone or cannot receive or make calls on the landline phone, or when experiencing a total loss of broadband connection with no access to the
internet. This service is not available on mobile faults.

 
 

Still need help?

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