EE Investigated for Outage that May Have Left Customers Unable to Call Emergency Services

Telecoms regulator Ofcom has launched a probe into the UK’s largest mobile network, after a May outage possibly breached the Communications Act 2003.

The investigation focuses on a service failure on mobile provider EE’s 4G network that occurred on 21 May 2019, beginning around 8:30 am and lasting for several hours. During that time, an unknown number of EE customers experienced intermittent problems making calls. Just voice calling was affected, with mobile data services and texting messages still functioning.

However, the outage may have put EE—and owner BT—in breach of the requirement, established in the Communications Act, that mobile operators ensure uninterrupted access for customers to emergency services.

As part of that requirement, operators must make available to emergency organisations “accurate and reliable” Caller Location Information of anyone phoning 112 or 999.

Networks must ensure that emergency calls can be connected, and this location information relayed even when the network is experiencing technical faults, as EE’s was in May. Ofcom will be investigating whether EE remained compliant with these requirements during the outage. The regulator expects to complete the evidence gathering portion of the probe by December, with a decision expected next year.

In June 2017 Ofcom fined mobile operator Three nearly £1.9 million after finding that a service outage on 6 October 2016 meant customers in Kent, Hampshire and parts of London were unable to contact emergency services.

Ofcom’s investigation found that Three’s emergency call system was vulnerable to a single point of failure, with all emergency calls routed through one data centre. Three’s network should have been set up to automatically divert emergency calls via back-up routes in the event of a local outage, Ofcom said.

To rectify the issue, Three added an additional backup route to carry emergency call traffic.

At the time of the Three decision, Gaucho Rasmussen, Ofcom’s Enforcement and Investigations Director, said: “Telephone access to the emergency services is extremely important, because failures can have serious consequences for people’s safety and wellbeing.”

“Today’s fine serves as a clear warning to the wider telecoms industry. Providers must take all necessary steps to ensure uninterrupted access to emergency services.”