Ofcom has handed BT a £17.5 million fine over last year’s UK-wide disruption to 999 call services, which the regulator called a “catastrophic failure.”

Telecoms company BT connects 999 and 112 calls in the UK, and also provides relay services for deaf and speech-impaired people.

On 25 June 2023, the firm experienced a network fault that affected its ability to connect calls to emergency services between 06:24 and 16:56. During the incident, nearly 14,000 call attempts—from just under 12,400 different callers—were unsuccessful.

BT notified the regulator of the issue, as required by law, and then on 28 June an investigation was opened to establish whether the company had failed to comply with its legal duties to take appropriate and proportionate measures to prepare for potential disruption to its network.

Ofcom then found that BT did not have sufficient warning systems in place for when this kind of incident occurs, and that it didn’t have adequate procedures for promptly assessing the severity, impact, and likely cause of any such incident—or for identifying mitigating actions.

The regulator also said that BT’s disaster recovery platform had insufficient capacity and functionality to deal with a level of demand that might reasonably be expected.

The incident also caused disruption to text relay calls, which meant people with hearing and speech difficulties were unable to make any calls, including to friends, family, business, and services.

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Although there have been no confirmed reports by the emergency authorities of serious harm to members of the public as a result of the disruption, the potential degree of harm has led the regulator to fine the company more than £17m, which must be paid within two months.

Speaking on the decision, Suzanne Cater, Ofcom’s director of enforcement, said: “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.

“In this case, 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.

“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.”

How did the incident unfold, technically-speaking?

Ofcom discovered that there were three key stages to this incident:

• Phase 1, from 06:24 to 07:33. During the first hour, BT’s emergency call handling system was disrupted by what was later found to be a configuration error in a file on its server.This resulted in call handling agents’ systems restarting as soon as a call was received; agents being logged out of the system; calls being disconnected or dropped upon transfer to the emergency authorities; and calls being put back in the queue.BT was initially unable to determine the cause of the issue and attempted to switch to its disaster recovery platform.
• Phase 2, from 07:33 to 08:50. The first attempt to switch to the disaster recovery platform was unsuccessful due to human error.This was a result of instructions being poorly documented, and the team being unfamiliar with the process.

  The incident grew from affecting some calls to a total outage of the system.

• Phase 3, from 08:50 to 16:56. The rate of unsuccessful calls decreased once traffic was migrated successfully to the disaster recovery platform.However, usual service was not fully restored initially as the disaster recovery platform struggled with demand.