Access to 999 during a power cut :OFCOM investigation

All

Many people have been worrying on different threads about access to emergency service during power outages with the move to VOIP. OFCOM have now started their own look at this.

OFCOM have opened a compliance programme to look into this 11/07/2022 and also a fact sheet on moving landlines to digital technology (VOIP).

Thanks kitcat

A good move by Ofcom. Albeit it took several catastrophic winter storms, and a lot of public opprobrium to spurn them into action.

Let's see where this leads. Hopefully a more resilient infrastructure!

Can I add, from a purely selfish point of view, that I hope that Ofcom’s findings and rulings based on this are applied to ALL service providers equally.

In reply to a post by Zarjaz:

Can I add, from a purely selfish point of view, that I hope that Ofcom’s findings and rulings based on this are applied to ALL service providers equally.

Pigs might fly before that happens! Give me one example of a "level playing field" in the telecomms field.

Has anything been said about the ability of mobile masts to retain power in the event of power cuts? We live in a rural area and multiple hour power cuts are not unusual. It has been reported that the batery back up at masts is very limited.

It needs including.

With each mast the mobile operators will look at usage, potential length of outages, frequency of outages and then decide on how much reserve power is needed - and even then there will be the cases where an outage exceeds the back-up.

I know of one location where there are now two masts with mutiple operators, multi-frequency transmitters. They have a generator there alongside short term battery supply - but then how much fuel is stored? Do they put in enough for 6 hours, 1 day, 1 week ? All with the risk, being an isolated location, of regular theft.

Pigs might fly before that happens! Give me one example of a "level playing field" in the telecomms field.

Surely that ought to be a primary goal of Ofcom ? 🤷‍♂️

But since you mention pigs …… “All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others”

It was ever so.

Zarjaz

The documents says ALL providers so it should cover all networks including Mobile ( especially as mobile is where the vast majority of emergency calls come from)

Some fixed may be more affected than others, so ones only operating in cities with good mobile coverage and few power cuts may be less affected than ones operating in rural areas with poor mobile coverage. ( Thinking BARN, Jurassic etc type deployments as well as OR).. Not clear whether it will cover retail providers as well as infrastructure but it needs to as not just the ONT but router/ATA need to have backup.

This is where the level playing field is usually tilted as BTR will be forced to provide for vulnerable customers whereas others have been allowed to opt out restricting customer choice and loading all the cost on BT.

Text says;

In the first stage of this compliance monitoring programme, Ofcom will gather information from a range of alternative network providers and VoIP providers in order to understand what they are doing to ensure that they comply with their obligations.

To me suggests Ofcom are gathering evidence primarily from fixed AltNet service providers and VoIP providers in the first instance.

BT I understand already have an compliance initiative in play since the kerfuffle of the winter storms as do some of the mobile network providers following attention from certain MPs in affected constituencies.

I believe when people order digital voice through Sky they have to declare they have other means of contacting the emergency services, I am not sure what happens if people say they don't.