CenturyLink, Inc., has agreed to pay $16 million and Intrado, Inc., $1.4 million to settle an FCC Enforcement Bureau probe of a 911 outage in April 2014 that affected more than 11 million people in seven states for more than six hours, the FCC announced today. The fine that CenturyLink will pay is the largest ever imposed by the Commission related to 911.
The outage, which impacted 83 public safety answering points (PSAPs), was caused by a software coding error at an Intrado 911 call-routing facility in Englewood, Colo., according to a report released last October by the FCC’s Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau (TRDaily, Oct. 17, 2014). The FCC followed up on the report by issuing a notice of proposed rulemaking the following month proposing rules to strengthen 911 governance and accountability (TRDailly, Nov. 21, 2014). The FCC noted in a news release today that the outage “resulted in over 6,600 missed 911 calls, including calls reportedly involving domestic violence, assault, motor vehicle accidents, a heart attack, an overdose, and an intruder breaking into a residence.”
“Americans need to be confident that the service they use to reach first responders is reliable and accessible in their time of need,” said Chairman Tom Wheeler. “Providers have a responsibility to ensure that Americans can use 911 to call for help any time. When a company fails to live up to its obligations, it will be held accountable.”
“Delivering 911 calls is one of the most important public safety responsibilities a phone company has,” said Travis LeBlanc, chief of the FCC’s Enforcement Bureau. “We will aggressively enforce the Commission’s 911 rules whenever the public’s trust in 911 is undermined.” CenturyLink served emergency call centers throughout Washington and in Minnesota and North Carolina, where more than 10 million people were not able to make 911 calls during the outage. Intrado served 911 call centers in Florida, South Carolina, and Pennsylvania, where more than one million people couldn’t reach 911.
Last month, the Enforcement Bureau announced a settlement with Verizon Communications, Inc., in which the carrier will pay $3.4 million related to its part in the 911 outage in nine counties in northern California with a population of 748,000 people (TRDaily, March 18). In orders implementing the consent decrees announced today, the Enforcement Bureau said CenturyLink and Intrado each were “required to timely notify all affected Public Safety Answering Points (PSAPs) of the April 2014 outage,” but didn’t do so.
To settle the probe, each company “will implement a far-reaching compliance plan to develop and implement proactive risk management principles designed to reduce the likelihood and impact of 911 failures, ensure reliable 911 call completion, and plan for and provide expeditious notification to PSAPs affected by 911 outages. The compliance plan recognizes the challenges to 911 service as networks transition from traditional architectures to next generation IP-supported networks and is a significant step towards ensuring the reliability of the nation’s 911 systems.”
CenturyLink said in a statement that it “takes 911 reliability very seriously. This outage was caused by a third-party vendor’s equipment failure that had never occurred before and we worked with the vendor to implement measures to ensure that this type of failure will not happen again. CenturyLink values customer safety and makes reliable 911 communications a top priority.” “We will continue to work with the FCC, industry associations, our partners and our customers on our common goal of making the nation’s 9-1-1 system as reliable as possible,” said Rebecca Bessette, an Intrado vice president.
“For over 35 years Intrado has been committed to delivering highly reliable 9-1-1 systems and services in support of the nation’s 9-1-1 infrastructure.” Brian Fontes, chief executive officer of the National Emergency Number Association, said “NENA has no official comment.” But he added, “As in any unfortunate situation, there are always lessons to be learned, and these lessons will need to be incorporated in future 9-1-1 responses.” The Washington Utilities and Transportation Commission staff has recommended the UTC fine CenturyLink $2.9 million related to the 911 outage and make improvements to prevent future outages. The UTC is considering the staff recommendation and is slated to hold a hearing later this month.- Paul Kirby, paul.kirby@wolterskluwer.com
Courtesy TR Daily