Telstra has received a $3 million fine following a failure to comply with emergency call rules during a 90-minute triple-0 network disruption in March this year.
The telco was whacked with the fine for 473 breaches of its obligations after an investigation by the Australian Communications and Media Authority.
Contingency plans were initiated when the outage struck in the early hours of March 1, and Telstra transferred triple-zero calls to a list of backup phone numbers.
However, 127 calls were not transferred to emergency services as several numbers were incorrect.
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ACMA has said that as a result of the disruption, Telstra was unable to provide the caller’s digital location information to emergency service organisations.
Among those affected by the telco disruption was a Melbourne patient experiencing cardiac arrest, who’s triple-0 call was delayed and died by the time their call was returned.
ACMA’s consumer lead Samantha Yorke said “it was concerning that breaches occurred because Telstra neglected to update its backup phone data.”
She stated it was essential the telco has “fail-safe systems and processes in place at all times.”
Ms Yorke noted Telstra’s strong, historical record of compliance with its role as the national Triple Zero operator.
“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,” Ms Yorke said.
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