Cause of North Carolina 911 outage traced to IP address issue
The cause of a North Carolina 911 outage has been revealed. Iredell County in North Carolina was without 911 service for about 90 minutes on April 7 due to an IP address issue.
According to David Martin, Iredell County’s emergency management director, the issue started when Iredell County Emergency Communications, Operations and Management’s telephone vendor tried to add a local police department to its Next Generation 911 service.
The IP addresses lost connection when the service was switched over to redundant servers, which kept calls from being received. Martin said 13 emergency calls were rerouted to an alternate 10-digit line at the Iredell County Emergency Communications Center.
Citizens were notified of the outage via the county’s CTY system, which advised them of the situation and provided the alternate number. Emergency officials also broadcast the change on all available radio channels, as well as Twitter and Facebook.
“We notified the radio stations, TV stations and were in the process of getting the National Weather Service to disseminate the information as well, but had to get prior approval through Raleigh,” Martin wrote in an e-mail to the Stateville Record & Landmark. “The BlackBoard CTY system can have cellphones, e-mails or text messaging added for anyone who does not have the Internet or a landline.”
Martin says the outage started around 10:30 a.m. and steps were taken immediately to divert the calls. Service was fully restored by 12:09 p.m.
Earlier in the month, the FCC handed out a $17.4 million fine against CenturyLink and Intrado Communications for a 911 outage. It was the steepest fine ever handed out by the FCC for a 911 outage.
