An investigation by the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) revealed that the telecommunications giant unintentionally made its 106 emergency call service number unreachable for 12 hours and 46 minutes between July 5 and July 6 of the previous year.

According to ACMA consumer representative Samantha Yorke, although no one attempted to use the 106 number during the outage, she acknowledged that any disruptions to the emergency call service could have resulted in severe consequences.

“This oversight could have led to severe harm if someone dependent on this service required emergency help but was unable to connect,” Yorke explained.

Under emergency call service rules, carriers must maintain proper and effective functioning of their networks and facilities that are used to carry emergency calls.

As a result of the outage, Telstra has paid a penalty of $18,780 and will engage an independent reviewer to oversee the range of operational arrangements that support the delivery of the 106 call service.

Telstra will implement any recommendations from the review as well as develop and provide staff training and report regulatory to ACMA on its progress of these undertakings.

ACMA found in March last year, Telstra made 473 breaches of emergency call rules relating to the 90-minute incident.