AT&T has agreed to pay a $950,000 civil penalty to settle a Federal Communications Commission (FCC) investigation into a 911 outage that occurred on August 22, 2023.
The outage, which lasted just over an hour, resulted in more than 400 failed 911 calls across Illinois, Kansas, Texas, and Wisconsin.
The FCC’s investigation revealed that the outage was preventable and resulted from a failure in AT&T’s network, leading to significant concerns about the reliability of emergency services. This settlement includes a three-year compliance plan aimed at preventing future incidents, though the penalty does not cover more recent outages, such as those in April 2024 or the February 2024 nationwide wireless outage that blocked over 25,000 emergency call attempts.
While AT&T has made efforts to address these issues, the recurrence of such outages raises ongoing concerns about the reliability of 911 services. Despite the penalties and plans, the underlying issues seem to persist, leaving the public and regulators wary of future failures.
AT&T Pays $950k to Close an FCC 911 Outage Investigation
AT&T has agreed to pay a $950,000 civil penalty to settle a Federal Communications Commission (FCC) investigation into a 911 outage that occurred on August 22, 2023. The outage, which lasted just over an hour, resulted in more than 400 failed 911 calls across Illinois, Kansas, Texas, and Wisconsin.
The FCC’s investigation revealed that the outage was preventable and resulted from a failure in AT&T’s network, leading to significant concerns about the reliability of emergency services. This settlement includes a three-year compliance plan aimed at preventing future incidents, though the penalty does not cover more recent outages, such as those in April 2024 or the February 2024 nationwide wireless outage that blocked over 25,000 emergency call attempts.
While AT&T has made efforts to address these issues, the recurrence of such outages raises ongoing concerns about the reliability of 911 services. Despite the penalties and plans, the underlying issues seem to persist, leaving the public and regulators wary of future failures.
