NEWSFLASH

Please bear this in mind:

A “technical fault” on Sunday morning is causing 999 calls not to connect, multiple emergency services across the country have said.

Police, fire and ambulance services all put out warnings about the fault – with people urged to call the “non-emergency” 101 police and 111 NHS numbers instead.

A message from London’s Metropolitan Police said: “Due to a technical fault that is impacting a number of police forces, many 999 calls are not connecting.

“Until further notice, please call 101 in an emergency.

“Please ONLY call in an emergency and please wait until later to make any 101 non-emergency calls.”

London Ambulance Service added: “Until further notice, in an emergency please call 111. Please ONLY call 111 for emergencies. NHS 111 online can help for other urgent advice.”

Wiltshire Police said the issue was a BT system failure “in diverting 999 calls”, adding: “We’re assured that they’re working to get this fault resolved as soon as possible.

“We will update you as soon as we can.”

West Yorkshire Fire and Rescue Service said: “Due to a technical fault nationally 999 calls are not connecting to emergency services.”

.

MichaelG.

This may be similar to what has assailed us for the last week..

Neither my PC nor wife's laptop can send or receive E mails, although using different platforms.

Although all the other internet items seem to function; witness this post.

According to someone, in the computer trade locally, this has affected lots of people up and down the country, and more than one ISP.

Howard

Not wishing to speculate with alarmist conspiracy type theories but we are currently engaged in all but a proxy war with Russia and they have a very active and proficient internet hacking ability, there have been recent computer problems at British Airways and other important commercial enterprises. I think we can expect a lot more systems interference in future. Dave W

Dave,

You have voiced my concerns!

Howard

Recent reports that it is back online may have been somewhat exaggerated:

**LINK**

https://www.midweekherald.co.uk/news/national/23612959.issues-999-calls-continue-technical-fault-says-bt/

MichaelG.

It seems that the backup system is OK, but there is a loss of functionality of the location aspect, where the caller's location is displayed on the call handler's screen.
The article suggests using What3Words, which does work well to a precise location, but is also susceptible to misreading or regional accents amongst other errors.
https://what3words.com

Mountain/Cave rescue etc also ask folks to use OS Locate, which give a 6 figure OS grid reference, (as well as Lat/Long, though the latter may only work on some devices or operating systems.)
This can be used in conjunction with W3W such that the two will confirm each other, and help avoid misunderstandings.
It's a free app and will easily sit on your phone's home screen, assuming you have a smartphone.
https://shop.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/apps/os-locate/

Hopefully, none of us will need to use it for emergency reasons.

There is also a Text to 999 service, though you need to pre-register your phone number
https://firstaidtrainingcooperative.co.uk/can-i-text-999/

Apart from being of use to the deaf, it can also work where there is a poor mobile signal, as texts often get through where calls fail.

Bill

Edited By peak4 on 25/06/2023 20:34:36

Thanks for sharing the helpful links, Bill

… Who knows ? … someone here might find them useful tonight !

Your “but” is what I had in mind when I wrote ”may have been somewhat exaggerated”

MichaelG.

When I was still in gainful employment, back in GPO/BT Strowger days, quite a lot of my time was spent installing and modifying the operator's call suites, mainly 100 & 999 boards, though I did play a bit with 151/2 & 192 services.
No geolocation then of course, and even Calling Line Identification only came later on with digital services.

Bill

The nearest to geo-location that I can recall with Strowger were the 999 call traces that I used to do, trying to find the calling number as quickly as possible and then matching it to an address on a card index.

James.

Edited By James Alford on 26/06/2023 07:39:55

But at least it worked, albeit slowly by today's standards, and wasn't susceptible to 'external' interference.

But doesn't this show up a potential problem? Are we now more susceptible to malign external influences by so-called bad actors? And what about system security when large swathes of the country's 999 service have been put out of action like this? What else can be easily switched off?

Makes one think, doesn't it, modern is not necessarily better.

Peter G. Shaw

It may be change, but is it progress ? Noel.

Swings and roundabouts! My experience of POTS wasn't good. Crossed-lines, snap-crackle-and-pop, wrong-numbers, long wait to have phones fitted, party lines, no choice, having to pre-book long-distance and international calls. In an emergency, no call-box within miles, and if one was found it had been used as a toilet and/or vandalised. Restrictive practices that had somehow confused national interest with jobs for the boys, old-fashioned, reluctant to change, dreadful support for computer communications. and all of it highly expensive compared with the rest of the world.

All systems have shortcomings. Modern telecomms have fixed most of the above, but new technology isn't always used appropriately. To reduce taxes, emergency services have been extensively centralised, allowing many local police, ambulance, and fire stations to be closed in favour of large modern facilities. Results are mixed, for example don't expect 999 operators to have any local knowledge. Last time I dialled 999 the police didn't recognise any of the placenames: I had to provide a Grid Reference. I hope they have Google now!

I'm afraid seeing the past through rose-tinted specs is an age thing. I often have stop myself and ask "come on Dave, is that really true?" The answer is usually 'no', but I was young, optimistic and in good health, and most of the changes were inflicted by me on the old-folk. Anyone else remember thinking how silly their elders were, wanting needles for their HiFi, and no idea who the Rolling Stones were? Now I'm old-folk myself, and right about everything, I don't want anything to change. Pressing Button B worked perfectly well in the past, I think, so no-one needs a Smart Phone...

Dave

Dave

Dave,

Your recollections of POTS (Plain Old Telephone Service) is surely dependant on your location. Yes, there were things wrong, but in some respects this was because of the underlying pay structure. I lived and worked in the Huddersfield/Bradford/Leeds areas where our pay was relatively good for those areas. Unfortunately, even with Inner & Outer London Weighting Allowance, pay in London was poor with the inevitable result that the better technicians left the GPO to work for any of BBC, IBA, computer fims and got an immediate good pay rise. Of those that didn't leave, they either gained early promotion and thus were lost to exchange maintenance, or transferred away from London, leaving the city to be run by lower class technicians. I remember a colleague who temporarily transferred to London for 2 years, with, I think - as much overtime as he could handle, free lodgings and free travel home. He told me that he made in excess of £30K during his stint. This was in the 1980's I believe.

Another problem was that the GPO was a Civil Service department and was thus financially under the control of the Treasury, and certainly in the 1950's/60's, they used to limit how much money could be spent on capital projects, hence the restrictions leading to, as you correctly said, - party lines, old, aging equipment etc. I believe that one of the reasons for this was lease-lend and the need to pay back the Americans. Possibly another problem may well have been the choice of technology back in the early days of automatic telephony when Strowger was deemed to be better than the other systems then available, and as we all know, this view was eventually proven to be wrong.

Yes there were some dead-eyes, at least one character I knew who should have been sacked, but at the same time there were some very knowledgable technicians about, technicians who looked after the equipment under their control as if it was their own personal equipment.

Yes, I am well aware of the reputation Post Office Telephones had, and it sickens me that those good technicians I knew and respected did not earn the respect they deserved because of that reputation.

Nevertheless, today's systems where control is centralised does mean that whereas 50 years ago, a failure was limited to a small area, today, that area can be very large indeed.

Incidently, don't hold it against the technicians, or even the GPO/BT about the physical state of telephone boxes. Instead, think sympathetically about those poor technicians who had to clean it up, just because some people had no respect - been there, seen some of it, fortunately not too bad, but...

Cheers,

Peter G. Shaw

Good to see that the Noble Lords were suitably concerned about this

[ final item on today’s Politics U.K. ]

MichaelG.

There's a (very) basic explanation of what happened HERE
https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2023/06/bt-reveal-cause-of-999-emergency-uk-calling-handling-outage.html

Updates will no doubt be available from HERE
https://www.ofcom.org.uk/about-ofcom/bulletins/enforcement-bulletin/open-cases/bt-999-outage-june-23 

Bill

Edited By peak4 on 30/06/2023 21:01:09

Thanks, Bill … I will read that at bedtime, with a sip or two of Malt

MichaelG.

.

Edit: __ I might also look at Hansard, because their Lordships’ opinion seemed to be that this was a foretaste of things to come with the wholesale switch to VoIP telephony [coming soon]

https://hansard.parliament.uk/Lords/2023-06-26/debates/9B6E3FFC-EA2C-481A-8DE3-55C4F3DF668B/EmergencyCommunications

Edited By Michael Gilligan on 30/06/2023 21:15:51

Peter -

The GPO was originally within the Civil Service, yes, but at some point (I think in the 1960s) it was disestablished, and divided into Royal Mail and Post Office Telephones.

I don't know the reason for that, but it now meant the whole was still State-owned, and not as preparation for selling off (that "Next Steps" wheeze was still a decade or so ahead); but it was at slightly longer arms-length from undue control not by ministries but ministers.

In the early 1970s it was working hard on replacing Strowger exchanges with electronic ones; shared lines with individual services, and old-pattern telephones with new ones.

The House of Lords discussion seems to show a very worrying aspect going beyond Government and Parliament, and that is excessive faith in the idea that the more sophisticated a system is, the "better" it is.

It may or may not be "better" for the user solely in what it offers, but that greater level on complexity does not necessarily bring greater robustness. Whilst is impossible to foresee everything that might go wrong, the headlong rush to develop the system seems to ignore the fact that sometimes, any system can and damn' well will go wrong.

Not only go wrong, but the more extensive and centrally-controlled it is, the worse the effects.

Whilst the blind reliance on using an internationally-interconnected operating system relying on its near-total monopoly, makes wilful state or criminal attack almost inevitable. When are all the public services and major companies going to go to individual intranets not linked to the Internet, for all crucial work? Parts will still need by on the open system for public access, but can this be placed outside of fire-walls etc.?

Hi, as far as shared lines are concerned, they were still being issued in 1974 as that is when my parents first had a telephone installed, and it was not upgraded to a single line until about some time in1977, and yes, occasionally you could go to make a call, only to hear that the other party was using their phone so you would have to try later. But you still got crossed lines sometimes, I don't mean with the other party, but you maybe already on the phone to someone, and then suddenly you would hear two other people talking in the background which sounded like they were a long distance away, if it was the other party, you could hear them as clear as a normal phone call. I doubt that anyone would tolerate a shared line now, but back then you either accepted it, or you didn't get a phone, and of course you got a bog standard phone as well. I think when Trim phones first came out, you had to pay a little extra on your line rental if you wanted one.

Regards Nick.

You raise an excellent point, Nigel … which I will illustrate with non-political, non-confidential example:

I have a rather clever 3-wire pacemaker, which was checked at 6-monthly intervals at Wythenshawe Hospital … until Covid came along … at that point, they sent me a ‘Merlin at Home’ monitor, which logs the behaviour of my device and periodically ‘phones the hospital to upload its readings.

This all worked fine when I had a copper landline … Wythenshawe could monitor the device from a safe distance.

When I moved to North Wales, I had full-fibre Broadband installed, and the copper line was severed.

… If things go according to plan, this will be happening across the U.K. circa 2025

My analogue ‘phone and the DECT ‘phones work fine using VoIP, thanks to the FRITZ! Box router supplied by Zen Internet … All seemed well in the digital domain.

BUT the Merlin at Home box cannot communicate with Wythenshawe because the CODECS are incompatible

… It’s no big deal, I have simply reverted to six-monthly visits, but come 2025 [or whenever] will this ‘feature’ cause an unexpected increase in hospital appointments ??

MichaelG.