The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) said Verizon Communications will pay a $1.05 million fine to resolve an investigation that the company violated government rules by failing to deliver 911 calls during an outage in December 2022 in six states.
The FCC said a December 2022 outage lasted for one hour and forty-four minutes and prevented hundreds of 911 calls from completing through Verizon Wireless’s network in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee.
The network outage in December 2022 was similar to Verizon Wireless experienced in October 2022.
Verizon Wireless agreed to implement a robust compliance plan designed to ensure future compliance with the FCC’s 911 rules and implement best practices, including performing 911 risk assessments and establishing enhanced processes for implementing security policy updates.
“When you call 911 in an emergency, it’s critical that your call goes through,” said FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel. “Today’s action is part of the FCC’s ongoing effort to ensure that the public has reliable communications, including access to 911.”
