<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?> <docID>335064</docID> <postdate>2024-12-11 10:07:22</postdate> <headline>Telstra fined over triple-zero failings during outage</headline> <body><p><img class="size-full wp-image-335070" src="https://citynews.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/r0_0_800_600_w1200_h678_fmax.webp" alt="" width="800" height="600" /></p> <caption>Telstra has apologised over its bungling of some emergency calls during an outage. (Joel Carrett/AAP PHOTOS)</caption> <p><span style="color: #800000; font-family: sans-serif; font-style: italic; font-size: 20px;">By </span><b style="color: #800000; font-family: sans-serif; font-style: italic; font-size: 20px;">Jack Gramenz</b><span style="color: #800000; font-family: sans-serif; font-style: italic; font-size: 20px;">Â in Sydney</span><strong>Telstra has been fined millions of dollars after failing to transfer people to police, firefighters and paramedics during a 90-minute outage at its emergency call centre.</strong></p> <p>Among the calls for help was for a person suffering a cardiac arrest, who died by the time their triple-zero call was returned.</p> <p>The telco was fined $3 million on Wednesday for 473 breaches of its obligations as the national operator of the emergency service after an investigation by the Australian Communications and Media Authority.</p> <p>Contingency plans were initiated when the outage struck in the early hours of March 1, with Telstra transferring triple-zero calls to a list of backup phone numbers.</p> <p>But 127 calls were not transferred to emergency services because several numbers on the list were wrong.</p> <p>Caller details were instead provided to the relevant service using emails and other phone calls.</p> <p>Another 346 calls were successfully transferred, but lacked key location information.</p> <p>The communications authority's consumer lead Samantha Yorke said it was concerning the issue was a result of Telstra neglecting to update its backup phone data for a critical public-safety service.</p> <p>"It must have fail-safe systems and processes in place at all times," she said.</p> <p>"In this circumstance its systems and contingency plans failed people in real need."</p> <p>The telco apologised and had a strong record of compliance.</p> <p>It also took immediate steps once the problem was identified and made considerable efforts to keep the public informed during the outage.</p> <p>"These actions go a long way to restoring the community's trust in this critical service," Ms Yorke said.</p> <p>Telstra appointed an independent consultant to conduct a review of the incident and updated its list of backup numbers.</p> <p>A Telstra spokesman said the company let people down and acknowledged there had been unacceptable failures.</p> <p>"We apologise wholeheartedly to everyone who was impacted when calling triple zero during the disruption," he said.</p> <p>"We worked quickly to understand what occurred and made appropriate improvements so that everyone can be confident that triple zero will be there to support them when they need it."</p> </body>