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.
The national AT&T mobile issue affecting calls to 911 is impacting service in Baltimore. Use 311 for emergencies IF you have AT&T service.
— Baltimore Police (@BaltimorePolice) March 9, 2017
AT&T customers needing any emergency response should call 410-887-2222 until further notice. ^jzp
— Baltimore County Police Department (@BaltCoPolice) March 9, 2017
AT&T cellphone users-AT&T experiencing a nationwide 9-1-1 outage. If you require emergency assistance in Harford County call 410-838-6600.
— HarfordCoDES (@HarfordCoDES) March 9, 2017
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.
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