WASHINGTON — The Federal Communications Commission says two telecommunication companies will be paying over $500,000 following a multi-state 911 outage that took place in August 2018.
Under terms of the settlement, CenturyLink will pay $400,000 while West Safety Communications will pay $175,000 after the hour-long outage that affected several states. The outage violated FCC rules concerning 911 services, according to a release from the government commission.
FCC officials say that on August 1, 2018, a West Safety Services technician mistakenly made a configuration change to the West Safety Service 911 routing network, resulting in the failure of the two companies to route 911 calls to dozens of 911 call centers in multiple states. The service was restored after the West Safety reversed the configuration about 65 minutes later.
The settlement does not address another CenturyLink 911 outage that affected several states, including Missouri, in December 2018. The FCC is investigating that incident and no fees have been handed down as of yet.
