More than 1400 calls to the triple zero emergency call service were unable to be connected during a Telstra network outage caused by damage to a cable pit near Orange.
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After the first serious disruptions to the emergency lines since 1961, the Department of Communications has made 11 recommendations, including seven directly to Telstra, in the government’s formal report into the incident.
The DoC announced a formal investigation into the outage on May 4 this year – the day it occurred – with assistance from the Australian Communications and Media Authority.
The ACMA investigation found a total of 3912 emergency calls were made during the disruption, which was first noticed at 2am by emergency services and went on for several hours.
Triple zero is the lifeline for Australians in life-threatening or emergency situations. Community confidence in the emergency call service must be maintained.
- Australian Communications and Media Authority chair Nerida O’Loughlin
Of those, 1433 weren't connected due to the disruption, while the remainder weren't connected because the caller voluntarily ended the call when it reached a voice announcement or terminated the call while waiting for an operator.
“Triple zero is the lifeline for Australians in life-threatening or emergency situations. Community confidence in the emergency call service must be maintained,” ACMA chair Nerida O’Loughlin said on Monday.
While the fire was initially suspected to be the result of a lightning strike, this was ruled out as a possibility by the NSW Rural Fire Service.
Questions were raised by industry experts about why back-ups, known as "redundancies", were not working as planned.
In the days after the incident, chief executive Andy Penn publicly apologised for the situation.
However, the telco repeatedly refused to confirm how many emergency calls were missed on the morning of the outage.
Typically, 25,000 calls a day are made to the triple zero line across the country, of which 25 per cent are not deemed emergencies.
All telecommunications companies were hit by the network problem on the Friday morning in May, as Telstra is contracted to provide the triple zero connections for all calls, with providers frustrated by the length of time it took Telstra to alert them about the issue.
Some telcos took to the phones themselves, calling back customers whose attempts to contact emergency services had failed.
It's understood rival providers raised their concerns about the response time as part of the investigation.