AT&T Gets Light FCC Wrist Slap For Largest 911 Outage Ever Last March, AT&T suffered a massive 911 outage that prevented customers across fourteen states from being able to call 911. While it was buried under today's vote to begin killing net neutrality, Ajit Pai's FCC released a report (pdf) on the agency's investigation into what caused the outage. In essence, the FCC found the outage to have clearly been AT&T's fault, and notes that it could have been avoided by the telco. It also confirmed that the outage was among the biggest 911 disruptions ever recorded.

"The outage was caused by an error that likely could have been avoided had AT&T implemented additional checks (followed certain network reliability best practices) with respect to their critical 911 network assets," said the FCC. More specifically, the FCC's investigation found that the outage began when an AT&T network update resulted in a mismatch between the trusted set of IP addresses within AT&T’s network -- and the IP addresses used by the company's subcontractor to send 911 call routing data to the carrier. The FCC notes that approximately 12,600 unique users attempted to call 911, but were unable to reach emergency services through the traditional 911 network. "This outage could have been prevented. It was the result of mistakes made by AT&T," FCC boss Ajit Pai observed in a statement. So what is the FCC doing about it? While FCC boss Ajit Pai called AT&T's failures "unacceptable," AT&T will see no fine. Pai did, however, urge other operators to "address similar vulnerabilities in their networks" and called on the industry to submit their own ideas to help prevent similar outages from occurring in the future. So what is the FCC doing about it? While FCC boss Ajit Pai called AT&T's failures "unacceptable," AT&T will see no fine. Pai did, however, urge other operators to "address similar vulnerabilities in their networks" and called on the industry to submit their own ideas to help prevent similar outages from occurring in the future.







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Most recommended from 21 comments

moulder3

join:2007-05-21

Boston, MA 26 recommendations moulder3 Member Go get 'em You show em, Pai!!!



A strongly worded letter will ABSOLUTELY make AT&T think twice about carelessly updating their connections to 911 without testing. I mean it's not like people were hurt or possibly even died because they couldn't call 911. epigram

join:2016-06-12

Minneapolis, MN 16 recommendations epigram Member The New Normal



On the other hand, reporters asking questions will be dealt with severely: » This is what Pai meant by "light touch" regulation. IOW, corporations should not be inconvenienced in any way.On the other hand, reporters asking questions will be dealt with severely: » www.press.org/news-multi ··· question grabacon9

join:2013-08-21

Spencer, IN 4 recommendations grabacon9 Member Outages? This is a normal thing for AT&T.

Anonbbdb2

@comcast.net 4 recommendations Anonbbdb2 Anon Incentive to prevent outages... Isn't that what fines are for?