The US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) levied a $950,000 civil penalty against AT&T for failing to deliver emergency calls or inform relevant call centres of a network outage in 2023.

The FCC noted the outage on 22 August 2023 affected parts of four states, lasted for just over an hour and resulted in 400 failed calls to the US emergency number 911.

“Service providers have an obligation to transmit 911 calls and notify 911 call centres of outages in a timely manner,” stated FCC chair Jessica Rosenworcel.

Rosenworcel noted the FCC’s rules are designed to protect the public and ensure safety officials can inform consumers of alternative ways to contact emergency services in the event of an outage.

In addition to the fine, AT&T will implement a three-year compliance plan as part of the settlement.

An AT&T representative told Mobile World Live the operator understands “the importance of having critical access to 911”.

“We’ve resolved this matter and are committed to keeping our customers connected in times they need it most.” 

The FCC stated the outage happened during testing of parts of AT&T’s 911 network.

A contractor’s technician inadvertently disabled a portion of the network, but the operator’s system did not automatically adjust to accommodate the disabled portion, 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 FCC stated.