Telstra fined for network failure
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Telstra has been fined over $3 million for its Triple Zero network failure.
The fine from the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) follows a significant outage in its Triple Zero emergency call service in March 2024.
ACMA’s investigation revealed 473 breaches of emergency call rules during the 90-minute disruption.
On March 1, 2024, Telstra's Triple Zero call centre faced significant hurdles, managing to transfer only 346 out of 494 calls to emergency services.
The breakdown occurred when the company attempted to use a contingency plan involving a list of backup phone numbers, many of which were outdated or incorrect, leading to 127 calls not being connected to emergency services.
Instead, Telstra resorted to manually sending caller details via email and phone calls to the respective emergency services.
ACMA's investigation found that Telstra critically failed to update its backup phone data.
“Telstra, as the emergency call provider, is at the centre of this critical public safety service. As such, it must have fail-safe systems and processes in place at all times. In this circumstance, its systems and contingency plans failed people in real need,” stated Samantha Yorke, ACMA member and consumer lead.
The outage not only prevented calls from being transferred but also meant that digital location information of callers was not available to emergency services, potentially complicating response times and effectiveness.
But Ms Yorke also recognized Telstra's generally strong compliance record and its proactive response to the incident.
“Telstra has been open and apologetic about the outage, communicated effectively to the public and took a variety of immediate actions when problems were identified. These actions go a long way to restoring the community’s trust in this critical service,” she said.
In response to the crisis, Telstra says it has taken steps to rectify the situation, including updating their backup phone number list and hiring an independent consultant to review the incident.
Telstra’s follows another major network failure last year that saw Optus fined $12 million for similar issues with emergency call services.
Telstra, as Australia’s national operator of the Triple Zero service, is bound by the Telecommunications (Emergency Call Service) Determination 2019, which mandates specific protocols for handling and transferring emergency calls.
