Verizon Drops 10,000 911 Calls During Blizzard

mschaffer noted a Bloomberg piece saying "US regulators said Verizon Communications Inc.'s networks may have dropped a 'truly alarming' number of wireless emergency calls during a snow storm last month, and asked the carrier to investigate." The article says 10,000 calls failed to connect during one blizzard. Can't wait to see what all those AT&T migrators think.

Comments

Obligatory

[inKubus]

911, Can you hear me now?

Re:Obligatory

[jeffmeden]

"I hold it true, whate'er befall;
I feel it, when I sorrow most;
'Tis better to have called and dropped...
...Than never to have called at all"

-Alfred Tennyson

Re:Obligatory

[KshGoddess]

911 is a tricksy beast, and when you combine RF issues, like rain fade (snow fade - which is less, but still noticeable) and location services (which tell the carrier WHICH 911 center to route the call to) ... 10k dropped 911 calls out of ... how many total placed calls? How was this data collected? Was there a record of 10,000 dropped calls that actually connected to 911? Is this from a log from their switches covering that area? How did their competitors fare? So much is so vague about this article, that it makes my head spin.

Que the "Can you hear me now" jokes

[raitchison]

Seriously, 10,000 911 calls is a huge number, even if 911 is being abused there were no doubt a lot of calls from people trapped in their homes (for people who have ditched their landlines) or cars. Imagine an elderly person in their home when the heat goes out, in those cold temperatures that can become life threatening very quickly.

Things like this are one of the main reasons we pay ~$25/mo for a land line despite having 5 active cell phones in the house on 2 separate networks (not to mention a few inactive ones that can still call 911) I know that if the excrement hits the air circulator that I will have more options to reach people than finicky mobile networks.

Re:Que the "Can you hear me now" jokes

[h4rr4r]

I lived for two weeks in the buffalo winter without heat when i first moved in. With some blankets and a sleeping bag you can do fine.

Re:Que the "Can you hear me now" jokes

[ElectricTurtle]

If your emergency plan for a SHTF scenario is 'dial 911' I would respectfully submit that your plan is a bit deficient.

Re:Que the "Can you hear me now" jokes

[raitchison]

You might or I might be fine, but I was talking specifically about elderly people without a lot of stamina, especially problematic for a widow who's never had to worry about how to deal with the cold in her entire lifetime.

In general, many people have become soft thanks to modern life.

Re:Que the "Can you hear me now" jokes

[h4rr4r]

You can dial 911 on any land line without service. If your shit hits the fan scenario is to call 911 you are screwed. Lots of other folks will be calling at the same time.

Re:Que the "Can you hear me now" jokes

[raitchison]

Perhaps it's just a small part of my plan, I've got a small generator, stored water + non-perishable food, not to mention camping gear, even if I don't need to call 911 it might be helpful to reach out to loved ones.

Re:Que the "Can you hear me now" jokes

[h4rr4r]

The last time we had a real ice storm in my area Power and phone failed at the same time. When big trees break and take the lines right off the poles that happens. Cell phones were working again before land lines in many areas. Phones are not security in bad weather.

Re:Que the "Can you hear me now" jokes

[h4rr4r]

Because any longer than that and you can pretty much bet modern civilization totally failed. Two weeks is just a little longer than it should take to get power back to pretty much anywhere. You try 5 or 6 days without food in the middle of winter with no heat and let me know how it works out for you.

Re:Que the "Can you hear me now" jokes

[Tr3vin]

Frailer bodies have more difficulty in producing and maintaining the required body heat. It is easier for a younger healthier person to keep their core temp up. Blankets only go so far, and an older person may not be able to keep warm enough.

There is also the awareness to get some extra blankets out. They may go to bed feeling fine, but then have hypothermia set in over night. At that point, you start to shut down and you aren't thinking too well. More than likely, they would remain where they are instead of getting up to find more warmth.

Re:Que the "Can you hear me now" jokes

[Anonymous Coward]

What good is 911 in an emergency? No...I'm totally, utterly serious. For certain definitions of emergency...

In the event, *YOU* have an emergency that isn't impacting everyone else...okay, you're paying $25/month for what amounts to insurance that you have a land line to dial in if the cell network fails. Fine. Valid case.

In the event there is a local/county/state/national emergency--and you dial 911. Congrats, you're emergency caller number ... let's say 35 in a list of a thousand. The cops will be with you right after they've dealt with the other 34 people coming first. Assuming nobody else in that list is worse prepared than you are and gets triaged up. You're running out of insulin? Sorry, you won't be in a coma for 8 hours--there's elderly living alone and freezing now.

Maybe...if you or someone near you had a heart attack...during a catastrophic blizzard. And emergency services triaged you to the top. Maybe...maybe then you'd have a use case. I'm not convinced.

Of course, all this assumes that local emergency services doesn't pull a Katrina and
    1) flee first
    2) show up and confiscate your supplies
    3) outright rob you and/or shoot you in the back if you resist.

That $25 a month in your landline would probably be better spent on ammunition, candles, blankets, a fire extinguisher, or even a well trained dog.

Just sayin...

I get you're hedging, but I don't think it's a very effective ROI of that $300/year.

Re:Que the "Can you hear me now" jokes

[h4rr4r]

Try it.

Lines without service in the USA by law have tone and will dial 911 or let you order service. If you dial any other number it tells you that you do not have service and asks if you would like to get it.

The wikipedia article covers it:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/9-1-1

The FCC rule can be found
http://www.fcc.gov/Bureaus/Common_Carrier/Reports/FCC-State_Link/IAD/pntris99.pdf

Re:Que the "Can you hear me now" jokes

[Bill_the_Engineer]

I don't think stamina was the right word.

The body's ability to regulate it's core body temperature diminishes with age. This is why the elderly is more prone to hypothermia in the winter and heat strokes in the summer. Blankets may help but the lower metabolism that the elderly may have would make it necessary to have an additional heat source to help warm the blankets initially, recover any heat being lost through the blankets, or when they have to get out from underneath the blankets to relieve themselves.

Loss of heat when the elderly is present is an emergency situation and warrants an effort to find alternative accommodations.

Re:Que the "Can you hear me now" jokes

[GooberToo]

Cell phones were working again before land lines in many areas. Phones are not security in bad weather.

The problem with cell phones is they are far, far more likely to reach capacity limits before land lines. Not to mention they require charging. And when towers go down, the phone goes into maximum TX power to reach a tower, which can drain a battery in hours, leaving you with no phone at all, even after high priority items like towers are brought back on line.

While not always true, as your story illustrates, land lands have a very long, long history of reliability in the worst of conditions. This is not even close to true for cell technology.

Re:Que the "Can you hear me now" jokes

[sabt-pestnu]

> If you don't have...

Some other things whose lack might invoke your "miserable death":

A 2 week supply of water. You don't think public water supplies are going to remain stable, do you? And if you're talking about "death by cold", then you're also talking "pipes freeze". And since you're talking about using sleeping bags and blankets to keep yourself warm, that same water supply needs to be in meltable chunks. You'll be a sad panda when you find your 5 gallon buckets are 5 gallon blocks of ice. ... and sadder when the heat comes back on and you find they split...

Emergency sanitation. Frozen pipes. Two weeks. you do the math. And if you're talking "can't open the door because of the snow", don't tell me "just do it outside in the snow".

Your own home. You honestly think you can store all of that in a studio apartment? If you do, where are you going to put the sleeping bag down at?

I'll point out as well that the "old widow", being "old" may well not be able to generate enough heat on her own to keep from freezing, even with the best of insulation. It takes a lot of calories to do that kind of thing, and you have to be able to USE those calories, which an old person may well not be acclimatized to.

Re:Que the "Can you hear me now" jokes

[ifrag]

Why is 2 weeks the magic number?

2 weeks is of course the length of time a zombie can last without eating brains. Assuming that the zombies did not get a chance to eat any of your neighbors you can now go exploring for food. The remaining difficulty is with migratory zombies, so there is still some chance of "miserable death" occuring.

Re:Que the "Can you hear me now" jokes

[GooberToo]

Some of what you said makes sense. Lots of what you said doesn't. Worse, some of what you said is nothing but ignorance.

Phone lines are used to established contact with the outside world. Sometimes its used to get help. Other times its used to assure loved ones you're okay.

You're also down playing the likelihood of cell going down versus land line. I every major emergency I've been in, either wireless went down or was so beyond capacity it was impossible to place a call. Receiving a call are iffy, but possible. Land lines, on the other hand, worked flawlessly so long as the attached phone didn't require power (this is another gotcha which gets lots of people).

As for truly having an emergency, you're just being silly. If I have a dire medical need, getting help is pretty important. Without contact to the outside world, I may not get help at all.

Of course, all this assumes that local emergency services doesn't pull a Katrina and
        1) flee first
        2) show up and confiscate your supplies
        3) outright rob you and/or shoot you in the back if you resist.

This is in fact, the ONLY SMART AND PROPER THING THEY CAN DO. PERIOD. I hate that stupid people have constantly spread so much ignorance about Katrina. Which is smarter? Leaving emergency crews and equipment to be destroyed and killed, effectively ensuring no assistance is available to anyone. Or, move them, as ALL EMERGENCY CREWS ARE TRAINED, to safe areas such that they can return and effectively do their job. The rest did happen but is hyperbole and has no basis in the current discussion. That's what happens when your police force are known to be criminals and the governor spits on the US Constitution.

That $25 a month in your landline would probably be better spent on ammunition, candles, blankets, a fire extinguisher, or even a well trained dog.

Not all. I have ammo, candles, blankets, and fire extinguisher. Using your logic, a dog is not cost effective. Nothing about this need be an either-or. And, candles, blankets, etc., are not going to get you medical care, fire assistance, police, or let your loved ones know you're okay. With your supplies, I'll safely see that I'm warm while I die. Attempting to argue against it is dumb.

And as an aside, my phone line costs $14/mo.

Re:Que the "Can you hear me now" jokes

[WrongSizeGlass]

I've actually had to try to survive a couple of nights in New Orleans in dead of summer with NO air conditioning, man, that was brutal.

You should have tried some blankets. I've recently read that they work wonders.

Re:Que the "Can you hear me now" jokes

[Duradin]

"Things like this are one of the main reasons we pay ~$25/mo for a land line despite having 5 active cell phones in the house on 2 separate networks (not to mention a few inactive ones that can still call 911) I know that if the excrement hits the air circulator that I will have more options to reach people than finicky mobile networks."

Landlines have very stringent QoS and uptime requirements. With the move to cell phones I'm surprised the ebil gov't hasn't put these job killing requirements on this no-longer-just-a-convenience industry.

Re:Que the "Can you hear me now" jokes

[GooberToo]

I'm sorry to hear that. That's not typical across the US. If the base service simply isn't reliable where you're at, that's certainly understandable. Having said that, for most people, land lands are rock solid and rarely, if ever, go down.

For what its worth, there are literally cities in the US which have worse power service than Iraq during its constant black and brown outs. No exaguration either.

Re:Que the "Can you hear me now" jokes

[ElectricTurtle]

"In preparing for battle, I have always found that plans are useless but planning is indispensable."

~Dwight D. Eisenhower

Re:Que the "Can you hear me now" jokes

[HiThere]

Blankets wouldn't suffice, but with proper insulation heat isn't really a problem. Of course then you need to worry about suffocation. And I don't mean because of pressure. With really good insulation a single candle can warm an entire house...but that means restricting air flow. At some point there's no workable tradeoff that doesn't involve outside sources of power.

That said, you aren't going to get this kind of insulation with blankets and sleeping bags. This involves structural modifications to the dwelling. Which is neither cheap nor possible in a rented living space. And emergency generators seem to run through a lot of fuel in a short period of time...and for the ones I've looked at, the emergency fuel has to be gasoline. So now you need to store barrels of gasoline in your apartment. Whee! And they're noisy, so you can't test it without waking the neighbors. (Sorry, you could test it during the day, and someone would just wonder why you're running a weed whacker in your apartment.)

More seriously, it's possible, it's just totally impractical. And the more you need it, the less practical it is.

Re:Que the "Can you hear me now" jokes

[rtaylor]

Emergency sanitation. Frozen pipes. Two weeks. you do the math. And if you're talking "can't open the door because of the snow", don't tell me "just do it outside in the snow".

Can't speak for the rest, but bathtub is a pretty good option for holding lots of waste. When the pipes thaw and water returns, bucket it into the toilet and flush, then wash/clean out the tub. There will not be any insect issues that temperature.

Re:Que the "Can you hear me now" jokes

[Lumpy]

From what I have experienced with the complete losers my 19 year old daughter is bringing home as boyfriends. I'll take a 80 year old frail person over a useless 20-23 yr old toothpick pothead wearing skinny jeans and a hoodie.

at least the 80 year old can hold intelligent conversation.

Re:Que the "Can you hear me now" jokes

[Pollardito]

It looks like you're overstating that quite a bit, from that Wikipedia link you posted:

Inactive telephones

In the U.S., FCC rules require every telephone that can access the network to be able to dial 9-1-1, regardless of any reason that normal service may have been disconnected (including non-payment) (This only applies to states with a Do Not Disconnect policy in place. Those states must provide a "soft" dial tone service, details can be found at http://www.fcc.gov/Bureaus/Common_Carrier/Reports/FCC-State_Link/IAD/pntris99.pdf)

if you read the PDF you see that the states without Do Not Disconnect policies outnumber the ones with them 32 to 18.

Re:Que the "Can you hear me now" jokes

[Anonymous Coward]

They're old, they should have figured shit out by now, if not then oh well.

You, sir, are an asshole.

Re:Que the "Can you hear me now" jokes

[Anonymous Coward]

Posting anonymously as I actually work in the E911 industry and have some insight on 911 calls in general..

Most people don't realize this but most 911 call centers (PSAPs or Public Safety Answering Point) only have at MOST 15 wireless trunks and 30 landline trunks. Those are the HUGE regional response centers that handle calls from multiple counties/cities and there are only a few PSAPs that are this large in the country. Most PSAPs have fewer than 15 trunks in total and of those maybe 5 are wireless trunks. In the case of a widespread natural disaster, it doesn't matter if you have a landline or wireless, there simply aren't enough lines going into that location to handle all of the calls. If you get through to emergency responders then you are lucky.

Think of it like this, it is a DDOS perpetrated by significant weather events. This investigation is well and good, but all they are going to discover is that you can't build enough infrastructure affordably to handle the traffic in an event like this. on-demand availability won't solve it either because you are still personnel limited at the other end.

Bottom line, if you are relying on the government for your safety you are deluded into thinking they can really do anything in the immediate timeframe following a natural disaster. Your best bet is to be prepared to fend for yourself for at least 48 hours, preferably 7 days.

Re:Que the "Can you hear me now" jokes

[treeves]

"... I'd sleep with no shirt on with blankets around my waist and be perfectly warm.
My grandma did it till the day she died at 90."

Thanks, but I don't want to try to picture that.

Re:Que the "Can you hear me now" jokes

[rubycodez]

You'll find that most "preppers" tend to be *heavily* armed against punks who think as you do.

Re:Que the "Can you hear me now" jokes

[ortholattice]

Yes, but they're old and no longer useful. The overall impact is purely aesthetic....it's not really a huge emergency when lots and lots of old people die in the middle of a snowstorm..

I, on the other hand, think the world would be better off without those who are congenitally devoid of empathy (please look up the word, although it may be hard for someone without it to grasp its meaning).

Re:/. News Network

[ByOhTek]

nuclear detonation facilitated morse code?

I'm sure that would visible at a huge distance, regardless of weather. Sure it'd be a bit harmful to the sender, but nothing is perfect, eh?

Give us more facts...

[buzzsawddog]

Not all dropped calls are created equally... Some areas are just not designed to get cell coverage. It almost makes me wonder if some one is needing to use 911 if they are often in that area. Also what is the ratio of dropped calls to calls made? 10,000 out of 10,000 would be an alarming rate but what about 10,000 out of 1,000,000. How many dropped calls are customer induced? This article tells us nothing...

AT&T Migrators thoughts irrelevant.

[aburnstine]

It wasn't Verizon Wireless that dropped the calls, it was Verizon Landline that lost 14 CAMA trunks used by ALL wireless carriers. Also, the calls weren't dropped, they got busy signals. Bad, but different and comparing Verizon Wireless to AT&T Wireless are irrelevant to this story.

Disconnect v Drop

[UninformedCoward]

TFA explains first that 10000 calls were dropped but the investigation showed that it was 10000 calls failing to connect. Isn't this two completely different situations? The first being the customer connecting then being disconnected and the second never actually connecting. I could see someone failing to connect at all then attempt to dial multiple times in quick succession...

Re:/. News Network

[Amouth]

always keep a piece of fiber in your pocket, that way if you get lost or stranded you can just bury it. then when the backhoe comes to dig it up ask the driver for directions/help.

Re:Overloaded?

[v1]

And of course, the system was never tested under such a high load.

I'm sure that's what this investigation is going to be focusing on. Because yes the are supposed to test it under high load. Obviously this can't be done with actual calls, but they're required to run simulations on very high call volume to see how the system will handle it. You don't just build a critical system that "in theory can meet the design specs" and then not test it.

And if they didn't do that, did it incompetently, or lied about the results, someone's in a lot of trouble.

Re:/. News Network

[cayenne8]

"Dig the cables down, like in developed countries?"

Well, depends on how shallow your water table is.

We can't even bury our dead below ground here in New Orleans.

:)

Here's the FCC letter to Verizon

[mschaffer]

http://www.fcc.gov/Daily_Releases/Daily_Business/2011/db0218/DA-11-328A1.pdf

Kathleen M. Grub
Senior Vice President
Public Affairs, Policy & Communications
Verizon Communications
1300 I St. NW, Room 400W
Washington, DC USA 20005

Re: Failed 9-1-1 Calls During January 26, 2011 Snowstorm

Dear Ms. Grub,
The FCC has received reports that during the snowstorm that hit the Washington D.C. region on January 26, 2011, approximately 8,300 wireless
9-1-1 calls to the Montgomery County Public Safety Answering Point (PSAP), routed over the Verizon network, were not connected, and an additional 1,700
wireless calls to the Prince George's County PSAP were not connected. I know that you will agree that any 9-1-1 call which is not connected can have serious
consequences, but the large number of missed 9-1-1 calls on January 26 is truly alarming. I therefore request that Verizon provide an explanation of the causes
of this and similar failures, provide Verizon's assessment of the possibility of occurrence in other locations and describe what actions Verizon is taking to
prevent recurrence of these problems.

Here is a synopsis of what we understand so far. Through our initial discussions with various parties, including representatives of Verizon, we have
learned that the Montgomery County PSAP has fourteen trunks that handle wireless calls, seven each from the Rockville and Hyattsville Selective Routers.
The trunks from these Selective Routers to the PSAPs are maintained by Verizon (not Verizon Wireless), and there are separate trunks for wireline, wireless and
VoIP calls. At approximately 5:15 p.m. on January 26, Verizon's system automatically took one of the wireless 9-1-1 trunks out of service. It is our
understanding that this was not an overload. We understand that it is normal in large-scale emergencies for the call volume to exceed the trunk capacity, in
which case calls will be blocked until another trunk opens up. In this instance, however, the Verizon system took each of the fourteen trunks handling wireless
calls out of service sequentially so that they could not receive any more calls. By 8:45 p.m., the problem had cascaded to the other thirteen 9-1-1 trunks handling
wireless calls, so that all of the trunks handling wireless 9-1-1 traffic in Montgomery County were taken out of service by the system.

These trunks have working alarms, but Verizon did not notify the PSAPs of the failure after the alarms went off. The Montgomery County PSAP
recognized the problem just prior to 11:00 p.m. and notified Verizon. By 11:15 p.m., Verizon had placed all the trunks back into service.

Similarly, eight of the ten trunks that serve wireless calls for the Prince George's County PSAP were taken out of service automatically by Verizon on
January 26 by approximately 8:30 p.m. A ninth trunk was taken out shortly thereafter. Four were restored by 10:30 p.m.; all trunks were finally restored by
approximately 11:00 p.m.

It is not clear what caused these individual trunks to be taken out of service. Your experts have postulated that the increased call volume resulting
from the snowstorm created a timing problem on the trunks which caused them to be automatically taken out of service. However, the Private Branch Exchange
(PBX) in the Montgomery County PSAP is a relatively new CS1000E, which has the speed and capacity to handle the number of calls that were being routed.
The Prince George's County PSAP's PBX is older, but since the PBX has fewer trunks connected to it, the PBX should be able handle the call volume. The slow
response of the PBX's does not appear to be the cause of the failures.

I would note that the events of January 26 are not unique and that other similar 9-1-1 outages have occurred recently in the region. On December 17th,
2010, the Prince George's County PSAP and on July 25, 2010, the Montgomery County PSAP exper

We think....

[roc97007]

that it's still better than AT&T. If I drop a call, I can retry. If I got no bars, I can't try at all.