FCC Settles 911 Rule Investigation with Charter for $15M

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has entered into a Consent Decree with Charter Communications to resolve the investigation into whether Charter violated the FCC’s rules related to network outages, including those impacting 911 service. The failure to notify affected public safety answering points (PSAPs) of an outage impedes the ability of public safety officials to mediate the effects of an outage by notifying the public of alternate ways to contact emergency services. The failure to provide required outage notifications to the FCC through the Network Outage Reporting System impairs the FCC’s ability to assess the magnitude of major outages, identify trends, and promote network reliability best practices that can prevent or mitigate future disruptions. To settle this matter, Charter admits that it: (1) failed to timely notify more than 1,000 PSAPs of an outage on February 19, 2023; (2) failed to meet reporting deadlines for reports associated with the Outage, and separate outages on March 31 and April 26, 2023; and (3) failed to meet other reporting deadlines associated with hundreds of planned maintenance outages, all in violation of the FCC’s rules. Charter has agreed to implement a robust compliance plan, including cybersecurity provisions related to compliance with the FCC’s 911 rules, and will pay a $15,000,000 civil penalty.