AT&T has agreed to a $950,000 settlement to resolve an FCC investigation into an August 2023 outage that disrupted 911 emergency services in Illinois, Kansas, Texas, and Wisconsin. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) announced the settlement Monday, saying it resulted from an enforcement action tied to AT&T’s failure to ensure the timely delivery of emergency calls.
The outage, which took place on August 22, 2023, was traced back to routine testing of AT&T’s 911 network, during which a contractor’s technician inadvertently disabled part of the system. As a result, the network failed to automatically compensate for the disabled portion, causing a 1-hour and 14-minute disruption, and more than 400 emergency calls were unable to connect.
FCC rules require service providers to notify affected 911 call centers of outages and deliver calls without delay. FCC Chair Jessica Rosenworcel emphasized the importance of these rules, stating, “Service providers have an obligation to transmit 911 calls and notify 911 call centers of outages in a timely manner.”
