T-Mobile to Pay $19.5 Million to Settle 911 Probe

 By Leslie Stimson, Inside Towers Washington Bureau Chief The FCC’s Enforcement Bureau and T-Mobile reached a settlement to end an investigation into whether the carrier violated the agency’s 911 rules. Wireless carriers must reasonably design and operate their networks to ensure reliable transmission of all 911 calls, including providing 911 call back information and 911 location information, to public safety answering points (PSAPs), and to timely notify potentially affected PSAPs of reportable 911 outages. 

Under the terms of the Consent Decree, T-Mobile will pay a $19.5 million settlement payment and implement a compliance plan. T-Mobile made new commitments to improve the 911 outage notices given to PSAPs, including providing them with more information about outages and providing follow-up notices within two hours of the initial outage notifications, according to the bureau.  

The investigation stemmed from a June 15, 2020 outage that lasted more than 12 hours. It led to congestion of T-Mobile’s 4G, 3G and 2G networks, and caused the failure of more than 23,000 911 calls without location information and more than 20,000 calls to 911 call centers without call back information. Continue Reading