- BT fined £17.5m for 999 call failure
- 14,000 emergency calls failed during outage
- Ofcom criticizes BT’s inadequate preparedness
BT has been fined £17.5 million for a “catastrophic failure” in its emergency call handling service, which resulted in thousands of 999 calls not being handled.
The network outage, which lasted more than ten hours on June 25, last year, resulted in 14,000 emergency calls failing to connect.
After examining the business that manages the 999 phone system, Ofcom stated that the telecom giant was “ill-prepared” to respond to the crisis and fell “woefully short of its responsibilities.
In response, BT confessed that it had fallen short and expressed “sincere regret”.
According to Suzanne Cater, Ofcom’s director of enforcement, the ability to contact emergency services can be the difference between life and death. Therefore, providers must be prepared to respond promptly and effectively during a network breakdown.
A representative for BT stated, “We take great pride in underpinning the national 999 service and recognise the critical role our infrastructure plays.”
Ofcom stated that the emergency call handling outage was caused by an error in a file on a BT server. As soon as call handlers received a call, systems restarted.
It resulted in staff being left logged out and calls being disconnected or dropped when routed to emergency services.
Ofcom stated that an attempt to recover from the problem failed due to a human error because instructions on tackling such an issue were “poorly documented”.
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BT also provides text relay services for deaf and speech-impaired people. However, the outage meant these users were “unable to make any calls, including to friends, family, businesses, and services”.
According to Ofcom, this increased the risk of damage for individuals who are deaf or have difficulty speaking.
An inquiry revealed that the company’s preparedness for such a catastrophe was “inadequate”.
Ofcom stated that we discovered that BT did not have enough warning mechanisms in place for when this type of issue happens, nor did it have acceptable procedures for immediately assessing the severity, impact, and likely cause of any such occurrence or for identifying mitigating actions.
While there had been no confirmed instances of “serious harm” due to the widespread disruption, the regulator warned that “the potential degree of harm was extremely significant.
In response to the penalties, BT acknowledged Ofcom’s conclusions and implemented measures to “prevent this series of events from recurring”.
While no technology is entirely reliable, according to a spokeswoman, we have designed a highly resilient network with numerous layers of protection to link the public to blue light services when they are most needed.
We take our responsibility to emergency services and the public very seriously, and on this occasion, we fell short of our high expectations for the 999 service.
