FCC promises investigation into 911 outage for AT&T customers

by Harper Neidig - 03/09/17 8:59 AM ET

Federal Communications Chairman Chairman Ajit Pai on Wednesday said his agency is investigating an issue that left some AT&T customers unable to call 911.

Both Pai and AT&T tweeted that the problem has since been resolved.

“We’re receiving reports of widespread AT&T 911 call outages,” Pai wrote on Twitter just before 10 p.m. Wednesday. “@FCC public safety staff are investigating. I’ll post more info once available.”

Shortly before that, AT&T tweeted that they were working on the issue.

.@FCC AT&T has reported to me that 911 service is now restored. The @FCC will investigate the root cause of the outage and its impact.

— Ajit Pai (@AjitPaiFCC) March 9, 2017

Aware of issue affecting some calls to 911 for wireless customers. Working to resolve ASAP. We apologize to those affected.

— AT&T (@ATT) March 9, 2017

{mosads}An AT&T spokesman had no additional information to share but reiterated that the problem had been fixed.

“We take our 911 obligations to our customers very seriously and will be sharing additional information with the FCC,” AT&T said in a statement.

AT&T did not reveal how widespread the outage was, but local officials around the country took to Twitter to warn their constituents of the of the issue.

“Every call to 911 must go through,” Pai said in a statement Thursday morning. “So when I first learned of yesterday’s outage, I immediately directed FCC staff to contact AT&T about it and the company’s efforts to restore access to emergency services to the American public.”

“The FCC’s public safety professionals are on the case,” added Lisa Fowlkes, the acting head of the agency’s Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau. “Access to 911 emergency services is essential for all Americans, especially the most vulnerable. We will fully investigate this outage and determine the root cause and its impact.”

Updated at 2:59 p.m.