AT&T said it worked quickly to restore service to 911 call centers in several states on Wednesday night. Texas, Florida, Tennessee, Virginia and the District of Columbia were among the areas in which some residents were unable to get a response when calling 911 from a mobile device. Local authorities used social media and radio to share alternative emergency numbers and so far there have been no reports of any lives lost during the 911 outage.
The problem was acknowledged on Twitter by AT&T between 9 m.m. and 10 p.m. EST. The carrier apologized and said it was working to restore service. Less than an hour later, AT&T tweeted that the issue had been resolved.
More than 27,000 calls per hour on average are made to 911, according to the Federal Communications Commission. In recent years, 911 outages on mobile networks have typically impacted a number of call centers.
In 2015, the FCC fined T-Mobile US $17.5 million after the carrier’s mobile network suffered two related 911 outages. T-Mobile US agreed to implement a compliance program designed to enhance its “911 resilience and its 911 risk management process.”
The federal government is preparing to award a contract to deploy a nationwide public safety network under the First Responder Network Authority. The FirstNet wireless network will use 700 MHz spectrum and AT&T is one of the companies bidding to deploy the network.
Congress has charged FirstNet with building, deploying and operating a high-speed, nationwide wireless broadband network dedicated to public safety entities. FirstNet is meant to create a single, interoperable platform for public safety communications, allowing public safety officials in different call centers to share applications and databases.
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