HT telecom said on Tuesday afternoon it had removed a technical fault due to which landline and mobile services were unavailable for six hours, adding that emergency services could now again be reached at the number 112 without difficulty.

The breakdown, caused by a software error, was noticed at 10.15 a.m. and lasted until 4.15 p.m., HT said in a press release, adding that due to the complexity of the system and the specificity of the failure, its removal involved experts of HT, Deutsche Telekom, Nokia, F5 and Metaswitch.

Minister: This is no national security threat, but it is a security issue

Sea, Transport and Infrastructure Minister Oleg Butkovic said today’s technical fault did not constitute a national security threat but it was a security issue.

“I contacted HT’s management and they told me that a software error had occurred, that it was being removed and that things were slowly returning to normal,” he told the press.

He said connecting to emergency services should be done via a number of operators, not just one. “That’s what we must work on now so that things like this don’t happen in the future.”