AT&T has agreed to pay $950,000 following a Federal Communications Commission (FCC) investigation that found the telecom giant failed to deliver 911 calls to emergency call centers and did not notify officials during an August 2023 outage.
FCC announced on Monday that the outage, which lasted for 1 hour and 14 minutes, occurred during testing of AT&T’s 911 network and affected emergency call services in parts of Illinois, Kansas, Texas, and Wisconsin. As a result, more than 400 emergency calls failed to connect, leaving many individuals unable to reach critical services during that period.
The FCC investigation revealed that an AT&T contractor technician inadvertently disabled a portion of the network during testing. The company’s systems failed to automatically adjust to the disruption, leading to the outage. The testing was not related to planned maintenance activities and, therefore, did not undergo the rigorous technical review that such activities typically require, according to the FCC.
In addition to the financial settlement, AT&T has agreed to implement a three-year plan to ensure future compliance with the FCC’s 911 and outage notification rules. The plan is designed to prevent similar incidents from occurring and to improve the company’s emergency response protocols.
“Service providers have an obligation to transmit 911 calls and notify 911 call centers of outages in a timely manner,” FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel said. “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.”
“We understand the importance of having critical access to 911. We’ve resolved this matter and are committed to keeping our customers connected in times they need it most,” an AT&T spokesperson said in a statement.
This settlement is the latest in a series of actions taken by the FCC to enforce compliance with 911 service requirements. The agency is also investigating a separate nationwide AT&T wireless outage in February that lasted over 12 hours, during which more than 92 million voice calls were blocked, including over 25,000 attempts to reach 911.
The FCC has been increasingly vigilant in enforcing 911 service reliability. Last month, Charter Communications agreed to pay $15 million to resolve an investigation into its compliance with network and 911 outage notification rules.
In June, Verizon Communications agreed to a $1.05 million fine after an FCC investigation found the company failed to deliver 911 calls during an outage affecting six states in December 2022.
