(qlmbusinessnews.com Tues. 23rd July, 2024) London, UK —
“Ofcom Fines BT £17.5m for Emergency Call Outage”
BT has been fined £17.5 million following a significant failure in its emergency call handling service, which resulted in thousands of 999 calls not being connected. The network fault, occurring on 25 June last year, lasted over ten hours and affected 14,000 calls to emergency services.
Ofcom, the telecoms regulator, conducted an investigation and concluded that BT was “ill-prepared” to handle the issue, falling “woefully short of its responsibilities.” BT has admitted its shortcomings and expressed sincere apologies.
Suzanne Cater, Ofcom’s Director of Enforcement, emphasised the critical nature of the issue: “Being able to contact the emergency services can mean the difference between life and death. Providers must be ready to respond quickly and effectively in the event of any disruption.”
A BT spokesperson acknowledged the importance of their role in supporting the national 999 service, stating, “We take great pride in underpinning the national 999 service and recognise the critical importance our infrastructure plays.”
Ofcom reported that the outage was caused by an error in a file on a BT server, leading to system restarts whenever call handlers received a call. This resulted in staff being logged out and calls being disconnected or dropped during transfers to emergency services. An attempted recovery failed due to human error, with poorly documented instructions and staff unfamiliar with the recovery process.
The outage also impacted BT’s text relay services for deaf and speech-impaired users, preventing them from making any calls, including to friends, family, businesses, and services. Ofcom highlighted that this increased the risk of harm for these users.
The investigation found that BT's preparedness for such incidents was “inadequate,” lacking sufficient warning systems and adequate procedures for assessing the severity, impact, and cause of the incident or for identifying mitigating actions. While no confirmed reports of “serious harm” were made by emergency services, the potential degree of harm was deemed extremely significant by the regulator.
In response to the fine, BT accepted Ofcom's findings and implemented measures to prevent a recurrence of such events. A spokesperson added, “While no technology is 100% resilient, we have built a highly robust network with multiple layers of protection to connect the public to blue light services in their time of need. We take our responsibility to the emergency services and the public seriously, and on this occasion, we fell short of our own high standards for the 999 service.”
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