FCC Reaches $3.4 Million Settlement With Verizon on 911 Outage
The FCC Enforcement Bureau said it reached a $3.4 million settlement with Verizon, ending the commission’s investigation into the telco’s role in an April 2014 multi-state 911 outage. Verizon is the 911 service provider in 11 counties in northern California, nine of which were affected by that April outage. The bureau separately issued an order Wednesday fining Oklahoma telco Hinton Telephone $100,000 following an Enforcement Bureau investigation that showed the telco failed to direct 911 calls to local public safety answering points (PSAPs).
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Verizon’s portion of the 2014 911 outage affected more than 748,000 California residents who didn’t have access to operators at 13 PSAPs, the FCC said in a consent decree. An October FCC report said the April outage was ultimately caused by a software error at an Intrado 911 call processing center in Englewood, Colorado (see 1410170057), but Verizon failed to notify PSAPs in the affected counties. Verizon has agreed to implement a “far-reaching” compliance plan to implement practices that will reduce the likelihood and impact of 911 failures, ensure 911 call completion and plan for swift notification of PSAPs, said the consent decree. The 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,” the FCC said.
The consent decree also requires Verizon to improve its oversight of its next-generation 911 subcontractors, maintain updated contact information for PSAPs and coordinate with the PSAPs periodically. “We take the safety of our customers and the service we provide to 911 centers and first responders very seriously,” a Verizon spokesman said. “We will continue to work with our partners to meet the standards our customers expect from Verizon.”
The investigation into a May 2013 complaint against Hinton found the telco routed 911 calls to an automated message that directed callers to “hang up and dial 911” to report an emergency and presented an option to reach an operator only at the end of a long message. The Enforcement Bureau proposed the $100,000 fine in August after an investigation into the complaint that Hinton wasn’t providing basic 911 service to customers in Caddo County, Oklahoma (see report in the Aug. 5, 2014, issue). Hinton was aware of the problem and began routing 911 calls to PSAPs only after the FCC demanded the company do so, the bureau said.
Hinton said the $100,000 fine would negatively affect its ability to deploy broadband to rural customers in its service area and “suggests that it is unable to pay,” but the bureau said it “has a clear interest in regulatory compliance” on 911 reliability. “Hinton has made no showing of a public benefit from cancelling the forfeiture, and provides scant evidence that the penalty would affect its plans to develop rural broadband services,” the bureau said. Hinton General Manager Jason Doughty told us the telco hadn’t received official word from the FCC that it had levied the fine, saying “we responded back with all of the information” the commission requested.