I usually look for, and often find, problems in 911 services around the country. I missed this one in February, but it is worth noting. AT&T cellphone outage leaves 1.7 million users without service for hours
More than 1.7 million AT&T customers across the country reported problems with their cellphone service Thursday morning and early afternoon, according to a network monitoring company. Many saw only an “SOS” on the top right corners of their phones, indicating they had no cell reception — not even to call 911. A large number of AT&T customers lacked service for most of the morning, and some, like Joshua Walton of Charlotte, still couldn’t use the cellular network at noon.
This is doubly odd, because you are supposed to be able to call 911 from any cellphone, even if you don't have service currently tied to that phone. 911 is supposed to always go thru.
The ability to call emergency services was disrupted for some people across several states — such as California, North Carolina, Virginia and Texas — prompting some 911 centers to urge AT&T customers to use a landline for any calls, or find a cellphone that uses a different carrier.
Now how you are supposed to hunt up a phone when confronted with a bad guy, they don't say. The WaPo article does link to a discussion of, "should you have a backup phone?" They talk about land lines, which are great when you are at home, and less great when you are not at home.
By around 3 p.m., AT&T said it had restored service to all customers. “We sincerely apologize to them,” Jim Greer, a company spokesman, said in a statement. “Keeping our customers connected remains our top priority, and we are taking steps to ensure our customers do not experience this again in the future.”
The hat tip for this goes to Liberty Doll and her video 911 Services Lost in Four States. It is an 11 minute video, in which she covers the outage I mentioned on Monday, this outage, and a few more. "Just call 911" sounds great, except what do you do, when you can't call 911?
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