BT getting fined millions for not connecting 999 calls

Due to a "catastrophic failure" of its emergency call processing service, which resulted in thousands of 999 calls being dropped, BT was fined £17.5 million.

On June 25, 2023, a network outage that lasted for almost ten hours caused 14,000 calls to emergency services to go unanswered.

After looking into the organisation that runs the 999 phone system, the regulator Ofcom declared that the telecom behemoth was "woefully short of its responsibilities" and "ill-prepared" to handle the situation.

According to Ofcom, a BT server's file error—which resulted in systems restarting as soon as call handlers received a call—caused the emergency call handling outage.

As a result, calls to the emergency services were lost or terminated, and staff members were left logged out.

Due to "poorly documented" instructions on how to fix such an issue, a human error caused an attempt to recover from the problem to fail, according to Ofcom

Deaf and speech-impaired individuals can also utilise BT's text relay services, however due to the outage, these users were "unable to make any calls, including to friends, family, businesses, and services."

The company's readiness for this sort of crisis was found to be "inadequate" after an inquiry.

Despite the broad interruption, the regulator stated that "the potential degree of harm was extremely significant" and that there had been no verified complaints of "serious harm" as a result of emergency services.

BT responded to the punishment by stating that it has implemented steps to "prevent this series of events reoccurring" and that it acknowledged Ofcom's conclusions.

(Sources: bbc.co.uk)