FCC questions Verizon over 911 call failures
From FierceTelecom: Verizon Communications is facing an inquiry from the FCC over dropping approximately 10,000 wireless 911 calls during a Jan. 26 snowstorm in Maryland. In a letter sent to Verizon, the commission said it is concerned that the “problem may be widespread across Verizon’s footprint.”
Although the FCC said the issue effected Verizon’s wireless callers, a report in FierceWireless revealed that the problem was related to Verizon’s 911 routing system, which failed to connect wireless 911 calls from numerous wireless carriers and not just Verizon Wireless.
Jamie Barnett, chief of the FCC’s Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau, believes that the recent outage was not the result of faulty equipment, and that this is not the first time such an outage has taken place in this area.
The FCC has given Verizon until March 10 to detail what lead to the outage. Read the entire article here.