T-Mobile one of the major U.S. carriers is getting fined by Federal Regulators for no access to 911 on Aug 2th, 2014. Estimated, 27,400 calls are placed nationwide to 911 call centers every hour in the country.
In addition to fine, they are taking responsibility and incorporating a compliance program to strengthen their 911 network communications.
The FCC charged that the incidents could have been prevented if T-Mobile had installed proper safeguards to its 911 system. In numbers around 50 million users were affected from calling 911 with their mobile phones during that time.
“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,” FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler said in a statement. “Communications providers that do not take necessary steps to make sure that Americans can call 911 will be held to account.”
FCC further notifies that “the Commission has adopted a number of rules intended to ensure seamless, ubiquitous, and reliable 911 service nationwide. These rules include the obligation for wireless carriers to implement 911 routing and delivery systems to ensure that 911 calls are transmitted to the appropriate 911 emergency call centers and to notify those call centers of 911 service outages lasting longer than 30 minutes.”