Ofcom fines BT with record penalty due to emergency call outage

The British communications regulator Ofcom has imposed a £17.5 million fine on the telecommunications company BT. The reason: last year, the company was 'insufficiently prepared' to respond to a catastrophic failure of its emergency call service. Ofcom announced the penalty on Monday following a network disruption at BT that affected the ability to connect emergency calls between 6:24 AM and 4:56 PM on June 25 of last year. During this period, nearly 14,000 emergency call attempts were unsuccessful. BT, which provides 999 and 112 emergency calls as well as relay services for deaf and speech-impaired people in the UK, received the highest fine Ofcom has ever imposed in connection with an emergency call incident. Suzanne Cater, Director of Enforcement at Ofcom, commented that the FTSE-100 company 'fell short of its obligations.' She also stressed that contact with emergency services can mean the difference between life and death, and thus, providers must respond swiftly and effectively during network disruptions. Ofcom stated that there were no confirmed reports from emergency services of serious harm to the public as a result of the incident. BT expressed concern over the extent of the service interruption and sincerely apologized for the distress caused. The telecommunications company accepted Ofcom’s findings and stated that measures have been taken to prevent such incidents from recurring and to improve network security. Despite the assertion that no technology is 100 percent reliable, BT emphasized that it has built a very robust network with multiple layers of protection to connect the public with emergency services when needed. According to Ofcom, BT had not established sufficient warning systems for such incidents, and there were no adequate procedures in place to quickly assess the severity, impact, and possible causes of such incidents. Notifications to mitigate effects were also not appropriately identified. Additionally, the regulator found that BT's disaster recovery platform did not have enough capacity and functionality to handle expected demand. Text relay calls were also affected by the disruption, increasing the risks for people with hearing and speech impairments. BT reported the incident to Ofcom on June 28 of last year, after which the regulator launched an investigation. This investigation highlighted that BT fully cooperated and took steps to resolve the issues. In 2017, Ofcom had fined KCom, the local operator in Hull, £900,000 due to a network failure that prevented customers from reaching emergency services for four hours. That same year, Three was fined £1.9 million after some customers were unable to reach emergency services due to a network failure.