FCC to look into Verizon’s 911 outages

The Federal Communications Commission has opened an inquiry into what prevented Verizon’s Northern Virginia customers from getting through to several 911 emergency centers after the brutal June 29 storms.

The review of Verizon’s performance is included in a broad inquiry into service problems at about a dozen carriers from Ohio to Virginia that handle calls for 911 call centers. The review will also look at the loss of customers’ telephone service. Problems in Northern Virginia and West Virginia were “systemic,” the FCC said in its notice, while there were isolated breakdowns in Ohio, Kentucky, Indiana and Pennsylvania. The overall effect was the partial or complete shutdown of a “significant number” of 911 systems and communications services, the FCC said. The FCC said it is seeking to find the cause of the outages, the effect on 911 systems and the impact on residents, along with assessing the reliability and resiliency of emergency systems.