Last August, T-Mobile customers were unable to reach 911 emergency personnel on two occasions for a total of three hours. And now the company will pay the price: $17.5 million.
An FCC investigation into the 911 outages concluded that they affected T-Mobile customers nationwide, preventing some 50 million people from calling 911 with their mobile phones during that period.
Moreover, T-Mobile failed to follow FCC guidelines requiring carriers to notify customers about such failures.
The company has vowed to overhaul its procedures to avoid any repeat incidents in the future as part of the settlement.
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FCC chairman Tom Wheeler stated, “The Commission has no higher priority than ensuring the reliability and resilience of our nation’s communications networks so that consumers can reach public safety in their time of need. Communications providers that do not take necessary steps to ensure that Americans can call 911 will be held to account.”
➤ T-Mobile to pay $17.5 million over last year’s 911 outage [Engadget]
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