Telecoms regulator Ofcom has launched an investigation into an outage that stopped businesses being able to make 999 calls last year.
Business customers of Vonage, a subsidiary of Swedish telecoms Ericsson, saw their emergency call services disrupted in October and November 2023, the watchdog said.
“Ofcom has today launched an investigation into cloud communications provider, Vonage,” Ofcom said.
“This follows an incident resulting in disruption for its business customers to emergency call services during October and November 2023.
“Our rules require providers to take all necessary measures to ensure uninterrupted access to emergency organisations as part of any call services offered.
“Providers must also take appropriate and proportionate measures to identify and reduce the risks of the availability, performance or functionality of their network or service being compromised.”
The regulator added that providers need to take “appropriate and proportionate measures” to ensure there are not any “adverse effects” from such a compromise.
“In the event there are negative effects, they should take steps to remedy or mitigate those effects,” it said. And any compromise must be communicated to Ofcom “as soon as reasonably practicable”.
“Our investigation will seek to establish the facts surrounding the incident and examine whether there are reasonable grounds to believe that Vonage has failed to comply with its regulatory obligations,” Ofcom said.
It is not the first time Vonage has been investigated for similar problems. In 2018, it was fined £25,400 by Ofcom for ”failing to provide uninterrupted access to the emergency organisations”.