WASHINGTON, D.C. — AT&T has agreed to fork over nearly $1 million to the U.S. Treasury to resolve a FCC Enforcement Bureau investigation into whether rules were violated by failing to deliver 911 calls and to notify 911 call centers in a four-state 2023 service outage.
The Consent Decree sees AT&T make a $950,000 payment to the Treasury. That’s not a fine, and the agreement amounts a settlement between the service provider and the government.
On August 22, 2023, AT&T customers in parts of Illinois, Kansas, Texas, and Wisconsin experienced a loss of service that also prevented 911 calls from being routed.
The 911 outage occurred during testing of portions of AT&T’s 911 network. During the testing, an AT&T contractor’s technician inadvertently disabled a portion of the network, and AT&T’s system did not automatically adjust to accommodate the disabled portion of the network, resulting in the outage. The testing was not associated with any planned maintenance activities and, thus, did not undergo the stringent technical review that would have otherwise been conducted. The 911 outage lasted for 1 hour and 14 minutes, resulting in over 400 failed 911 calls.
The settlement calls for AT&T to implement a three-year compliance plan designed to ensure future compliance with the FCC’s 911 and outage notification rules.
“Service providers have an obligation to transmit 911 calls and notify 911 call centers of outages in a timely manner,” said Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel. “Our rules are designed to protect the public and ensure that public safety officials can inform consumers of alternate ways to reach emergency services in the event of an outage.”
Enforcement Bureau Chief Loyaan Egal commented, “The FCC’s 911 call delivery and notification requirements are critical to public safety. The Enforcement Bureau will continue working to ensure that communications providers abide by these rules.”
The Consent Decree can be viewed by clicking here.
