BT slapped with £17.5 million fine for 999 outage

The UK regulator opened an investigation into the issue in late June 2023, just days after the incident occurred, in a bid to establish whether BT had failed to take the requisite measures to prepare for such a potential disruption to its network operation.

The probe showed that the incumbent was indeed ill-prepared to respond to the incident. Amongst other things, Ofcom said it discovered that BT did not have sufficient warning systems in place, nor did it have adequate procedures for quickly assessing the severity, impact and cause of such an incident, or for identifying actions to mitigate the problem. Further, the operator's disaster recovery platform was adjudged to have had insufficient capacity and functionality to cope with the level of demand it should have expected.

Finally, there was also disruption to text relay calls, which left people with hearing and speech difficulties at increased risk of harm.

BT is responsible for those relay calls, as well as connecting calls to 999 and 112 emergency services. On the date in question – Sunday 25 June 2023 – almost 14,000 call attempts from 12,392 different callers were unsuccessful due to the network fault, Ofcom 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," said Suzanne Cater, Director of Enforcement at Ofcom.

"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," Carter said.

It is the fact that BT put customers at risk that has informed the regulator's thinking on a financial penalty, rather than any actual proven harm to come from the outage. Indeed, there were no confirmed reports of serious harm to members of the public as a result of the incident, but "the potential degree of harm was extremely significant," Ofcom said.

Hence the fairly steep £17.5 million fine.

The regulator implies that the penalty could have been higher were it not for the steps BT has taken to remedy the situation – fixing the initial problem, as well as making improvements to fault monitoring and improving its disaster recovery platform – and the fact that it self-reported the incident and complied with the investigation. The small print in its statement notes that the fine – payable within two months – includes a 30% reduction because BT admitted liability and agreed to settle the case.

The fine feels like a proportionate response from Ofcom. But the regulator also couldn't resist taking the opportunity to flaunt its power.

"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," Carter said.

The UK's telcos are doubtless quaking in their boots.