AT&T to pay $950,000 FCC fine for 911 outage in August 2023

The Federal Communications Commission today announced a $950,000 settlement with AT&T to resolve an Enforcement Bureau investigation into whether the company violated FCC rules by failing to deliver 911 calls to, and failing to timely notify, 911 call centers in connection with an outage AT&T experienced on August 22, 2023, in parts of Illinois, Kansas, Texas, and Wisconsin. As part of the settlement, AT&T will implement a three-year compliance plan designed to ensure future compliance with the FCC's 911 and outage notification rules.

Congress has made emergency communication services a national priority, and the Commission has repeatedly emphasized that robust and reliable 911 service must be available nationwide. It is therefore incumbent upon the Commission to ensure that communications providers always provide reliable 911 service and timely notify 911 call centers of relevant 911 outages.

The FCC's rules require all 911 calls be delivered to public safety call centers. When those public safety call centers are impacted by an outage, providers must notify the call centers of the outage. A call center may then notify the public of the outage and provide information on alternative ways to obtain emergency assistance, such as by calling the center on a 10-digit number or texting 911. 

The 911 outage occurred during testing of portions of AT&T’s 911 network. During the testing, an AT&T contractor’s technician inadvertently disabled a portion of the network, and AT&T’s system did not automatically adjust to accommodate the disabled portion of the network, resulting in the outage. The testing was not associated with any planned maintenance activities and, thus, did not undergo the stringent technical review that would have otherwise been conducted.  The 911 outage lasted for 1 hour and 14 minutes, resulting in over 400 failed 911 calls.

The settlement, formally called a Consent Decree, is available at: https://www.fcc.gov/document/fcc-eb-settles-att-2023-911-outage-violations-950000

Read the full press release here.

Federal Communications Commission (FCC)