Telstra Penalized for Disruption of Emergency Services Network in Australia
Click to start listening
Sydney, Dec 11 (NationPress) The largest telecommunications provider in Australia has been penalized following a disruption of the emergency services network.
The Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) announced on Wednesday a fine of three million Australian dollars (approximately $1.9 million) against Telstra for failing to adhere to emergency call regulations during an outage of the triple zero network that occurred in March.
As the national operator for the triple zero service, Telstra is obligated to manage and transfer calls made to this emergency service number, as reported by Xinhua news agency.
The ACMA identified 473 violations of these rules during an incident on March 1, where Telstra's Triple Zero call center experienced difficulty in transferring calls to emergency services for a duration of 90 minutes.
During this time, an investigation revealed that 127 calls were not successfully transferred to emergency services due to Telstra's failure to update its backup phone data.
Although the remaining 346 calls were transferred, Telstra did not provide the digital location information of the callers to emergency service organizations.
ACMA member Samantha Yorke stated, "Telstra, as the emergency call provider, plays a vital role in this critical public safety service. Therefore, it is essential for them to maintain fail-safe systems and processes at all times. In this instance, their systems and contingency plans let down individuals in urgent need."
She added that Telstra has been forthcoming and apologetic regarding the outage and has taken measures to prevent future occurrences.
In a related incident, Optus, the second-largest telecommunications provider in Australia, was fined 12 million AUD (around $7.6 million) in November by ACMA after thousands of customers were unable to access the triple zero service during an unprecedented outage in November 2023.
