Feds Fine Verizon $3.4 Million Over 911 Service Outage Issues

itwbennett writes The U.S. Federal Communications Commission has fined Verizon $3.4 million over its failure to notify police and fire departments during a 911 service outage last year. Under the commission's rules, Verizon and other carriers were required to notify emergency call centers of a six-hour outage that occurred in April. The outage involved multiple carriers and affected over 11 million people in seven states.

Comments

Re:3.4 mill?

[ShaunC]

In fact it might have. Reporting the issue immediately would have given the affected emergency services a chance to get the message out via television, radio, Facebook/Twitter/etc. and use the opportunity to remind the public of the non-emergency numbers. A few days ago my local PD's domestic violence hotline had some kind of outage, and a temporary backup number was all over the news right away. A 911 outage would affect a lot more people, and the sooner they know to put out the info, the better.

Re:Not to do the Maths for you, but

[mjwx]

How does telling the PSAP (public safety answering point) that cellular 911 service is out save lives? How does the PSAP tell people who can't call in that they can't call in?

It tells the local police to send out more officers on patrol, patrolling officers can be instructed to keep an eye out. Calls direct to the station will be taken more seriously.

I'm sure the local emergency services have a contingency plan for then PSAP goes down.