Ofcom investigating BT over UK-wide outage to 999 emergency number
The communications industry regulator will look at whether all necessary measures were in place to prevent the disruption and if BT did enough to remedy it.
Wednesday 28 June 2023 12:17, UK
An investigation has been launched into BT after 999 stopped working for dozens of emergency services on Sunday morning.
Watchdog Ofcom said it was looking into the UK-wide issue that meant many callers couldn't get through on the usual number.
Police, fire and ambulance services had to tell people to call 101 - normally used for non-emergencies - and local numbers instead.
More than 50 regions and counties reported problems.
BT "sincerely" apologised after it was forced to use a back-up system to get things going again. It said all the issues were fixed by Monday.
Ofcom will look into whether the firm failed to comply with its obligations and took appropriate measures to reduce the impact.
"Our rules require BT and other providers to take all necessary measures to ensure uninterrupted access to emergency organisations as part of any call services offered," said Ofcom.
The company is also doing its own investigation into the incident.
A spokesman said: "We're nearing the end of a full, internal investigation and expect to share the findings with government, the emergency services and Ofcom (with whom we are in regular contact) by Thursday.
"This will examine the technical aspects of what triggered Sunday's incident, the process of moving over to the back-up system, and the timings of communications to the emergency services, Ofcom and government.
"In the interests of transparency, we will share the key findings publicly at the same time, subject to the removal of any information that remains confidential for critical national infrastructure."
Hours after things got back to normal on Sunday, the Met Police said it was struggling to deal with record numbers of emergency calls.
The London force warned it could mean "we don't get to someone in danger in time" and suggested it was partly down to people dialling 999 accidentally.
It urged people with Android phones to prevent "pocket dials" by disabling the SOS option in their settings.
An update to many devices - meaning 999 is called when the power button is pressed five times - has been blamed for an increase in accidental calls.