BT Fined £17.5 Million Over Failure To Connect 999 Calls
BT Group has been fined £17.5 million by the UK's telecoms regulator Ofcom for a network failure that disrupted 14,000 emergency calls on June 25th last year. The outage, which lasted over 10 hours, prevented thousands of 999 calls from connecting, posing a significant risk to public safety.
Ofcom's investigation revealed that BT's preparedness for such an incident was "inadequate". The telecom giant lacked sufficient warning systems and effective procedures to assess and mitigate the impact of the disruption. Ofcom highlighted that "the potential degree of harm was extremely significant," although there were no confirmed reports by emergency services of serious harm as a result of the issue.
Cause Found To Be "Configuration Error"
The root cause of the outage was found to be a "configuration error" on a BT server, which caused systems to restart as soon as call handlers received calls. This led to call handlers being logged out, resulting in calls being disconnected or dropped. An attempt to switch to BT's disaster recovery platform was hindered by human error and poorly documented instructions, worsening the situation.
Suzanne Cater, Ofcom’s director of enforcement, emphasised the critical nature of emergency services communication. "Being able to contact the emergency services can mean the difference between life and death, so in the event of any disruption to their networks, providers must be ready to respond quickly and effectively," she said.
BT Apologise For Falling Short Of High Standards
BT acknowledged the failure and expressed regret. A spokesperson for the company stated, "We take great pride in underpinning the national 999 service and recognize the critical importance our infrastructure plays. On this occasion, we fell short of our own high standards for the 999 service."
The outage also affected BT's text relay services, leaving deaf and speech-impaired users unable to make calls. This increased their risk of harm, as they couldn't contact friends, family, or emergency services. Ofcom criticised BT's disaster recovery platform for having insufficient capacity and functionality to handle expected demand levels.
In response to the fine, BT accepted Ofcom's findings and reported that measures have been implemented to prevent a recurrence of the incident. "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," a BT spokesperson said.
