British telecommunications giant BT has been slapped with a hefty £17.5 million fine by Ofcom for its failure to adequately handle a catastrophic 999 service outage last summer. During the outage, which lasted over ten hours, more than 12,000 emergency calls failed to connect, leaving thousands of callers unable to reach emergency services.
On June 25, 2023, a significant network fault incapacitated BT’s ability to connect 999 and 112 calls from 06:24 to 16:56. This interruption resulted in approximately 14,000 call attempts from 12,392 different callers going unanswered.
Suzanne Cater, Ofcom’s Director of Enforcement, criticized BT for its lack of preparedness and inadequate response mechanisms. BT fell woefully short of its responsibilities and was ill-prepared to deal with such a large-scale outage, putting its customers at unacceptable risk,” she stated.
The investigation by Ofcom, which lasted a year, concluded that BT did not have the necessary warning systems in place to alert when such failures occur. Furthermore, it lacked efficient procedures to assess the severity and impact of the outage swiftly or to initiate mitigating actions effectively.
Issues were also noted with BT’s disaster recovery platform, which lacked the capacity and functionality to handle the high demand during the outage. Attempts to switch to this backup system were hindered by human error, poor documentation, and general unfamiliarity with the process, leading to delays in restoring full service.
Additionally, the outage disrupted text relay calls, significantly impacting people with hearing and speech difficulties, who were left unable to make calls, including emergency calls.
Ofcom emphasised the severity of the potential harm caused by the outage, even though no direct harm was reported. “The potential degree of harm was extremely significant,” Ofcom noted in its statement.
The fine includes a 30% discount due to BT’s early admission of liability and its willingness to settle the matter promptly. BT is required to pay the fine within two months.
Carter concluded, “Today’s fine sends a broader warning to all firms—if you’re not properly prepared to deal with disruption to your networks, we’ll hold you to strict account on behalf of consumers.
