Civic News

AT&T customers in Baltimore couldn’t dial 911 for a little while there

A Wednesday night glitch lasted just over an hour. Maryland and eight other states (plus D.C.) were affected.

If only they had this button. (Emergency 911 button by Odua Images via Shutterstock)

AT&T mobile customers in Baltimore were unable to dial 911 in an emergency on Wednesday night.
The outage appears to have lasted for a little more than an hour. In Baltimore, police directed AT&T customers to dial 311 for an emergency. There were more numbers involved in other jurisdictions.


AT&T reported the issue resolved at 10:30 p.m., but hasn’t offered many other details.
It appears the outage was directly tied to AT&T, unlike a couple of years ago when the city’s entire 911 system temporarily crashed. In that case, anyone calling 911 got a busy signal.
According to ABC News, the Federal Communications Commission is planning to investigate to determine the “root cause” of the outage. Along with Maryland, issues were reported in eight other states and D.C.

Companies: Federal Communications Commission (FCC) / AT&T
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