Time: 2024-08-28
AT&T has agree to wage a 50,000 fine for an outage in August 2023 that affect user in Illinois , Kansas , Texas , and Wisconsin . The outage last 1 hour and 14 minutes , result in over 400 fail 911 call . The Federal Communications Commission ( FCC ) state that AT&T fail to deliver 911 call and did not brand timely presentment to eight 911 call center during the outage.
The FCC report that the outage happen during testing of AT&T 's 911 network when a technician disabled a part of the network by mistake . Although AT&T sent initial presentment to most of the affect call center , there be eight call center that were not advise in a timely manner . This incident foreground the importance of advise each call center during an outage so that the populace can be inform of option ways to seek emergency assistance.
AT&T may face extra fine for a more severe outage that happen in February 2024 , where over 92 million telephone call , include 25,000 911 call , were barricade due to a network issue cause by a defective update . The FCC knock AT&T for not following best practice in implement network change and mention the matter to the agency 's Enforcement Bureau for foster investigation.
In response to the February 2024 outage , AT&T has make several change to its network management procedure to prevent similar incident in the future . These change include scanning the network for vulnerability , implement extra peer reappraisal stairs , and guarantee that care work is only conduct after necessity reappraisal are completed.
The conformity plan result from the August 2023 outage include update to PSAP presentment procedure , enhance monitoring after network change , better testing protocol , hazard appraisal , and conformity training for employee . The FCC 's report in July 2024 foreground the importance of AT&T 's attempt to prevent future network failure and guarantee that emergency services are not disrupted.
Overall , the fine and conformity measure enforce on AT&T serve as a reminder of the critical function that telecommunication company play in guarantee the dependability of emergency services like 911 . It is necessity for company like AT&T to adhere to FCC regulation and implement robust network management practice to prevent downtime and protect populace safety.