Investigation into Auckland emergency 111 problems

An investigation has been launched into the failure of some emergency 111 calls in Auckland this morning by Telecom.


"I spoke to Telecom CEO Paul Reynolds this morning and agreed that officials from both the Ministry of Economic Development and the Police will be involved in this investigation," says Minister for Communications and Information Technology Steven Joyce.


The Ministry of Economic Development will be closely involved in the review and the Ministry are appointing an independent technical expert to ensure that Government is fully confident that all issues are identified.


I am determined to get to the bottom of what happened because public confidence in accessing emergency services must be retained," says Steven Joyce.


A fault occurred at approximately 3:30am this morning at Telecom's Papatoetoe exchange that resulted in some emergency 111 calls not connecting to an emergency services call centre.


The investigation will seek to determine the root causes of this fault as well as why back-up and call diversion systems did not work as intended and were not put in place earlier. This includes whether the Police were informed in a timely manner that such a fault had occurred.


The investigation will also ensure that all failed emergency 111 calls were followed up and received a call-back; and in cases were no answer was received, a Police patrol car dispatched to check whether a genuine emergency was taking place.