Ready for a surreal way to start your day? Salt Lake City's KSL News has a report out this morning detailing the baffling experience of
AT&T subscribers trying to access emergency services in the city. Instead of being routed through to their local dispatcher, the urgent calls somehow found their way to Seattle's 911 response center. Brought to the news team's attention by one Tony Sams, this issue was originally thought to originate in his iPhone's GPS system, as he was being identified as being located in the Seattle area, but then his local police also tried dialing their own number only to find themselves chatting it up with their Emerald City colleagues. Until they figure this out, we'd recommend using your landlines -- if you still have one of those antiques -- or just yelling at passersby for help. Hit the source for the full video report and the 10-digit direct number for Salt Lake City general dispatch.
Update: AT&T has been very nippy in getting this routing problem sorted out, and proper service has been restored. The company is now investigating the cause of this problemo.
[Thanks, Ryan]
posted March 26th 2010 5:23AM
Ha.
@pdotg
ATT & Verizon Fail!
@abedinthehouse
Time for another Verizon commercial?
Verizon really needs to hire Owen Wilson for theirs.
@pdotg
This can not be good for their PR
@leemahi Really? What can possibly go wrong?
@KennyR Its a tough call on the commercial slogan though. Do you want to go with "More 911 calls redirected to more places." or "911 redirection, there's a map for that."
Is there anything left that AT&T is not good at? :)
@TheSeventhSon I left a little while ago, and i'm not looking back
@TheSeventhSon
It's like they're in competition with the US Gov't.
Seriously, they're screwed when they lose iPhone exclusivity. And they know it.
@TheSeventhSon
What can you really expect for $400 and $100/month?
This cracks me up because last time I was in SLC my iPhone's GPS told me I was in Seattle. This was months ago. Way to go Apple/AT&T!!
"we'd recommend using your landlines -- if you still have one of those antiques -- or just yelling at passersby for help."
Yep, it's 21th century allright.
@mikachu
I was wondering if this could have anything to do with AT&T's statement about land lines, actually.
@cobaltage I just cracked up when I read this "yelling at passersby for help"... the most effecient way to get help in 2010 is yelling... :D oh man, laughed my arse off there.
@mikachu
This is ridiculous. There is a two second fix for it...turn off location by GPS. If you do what normal cell phones do, which is locate by tower, then there are no problems. Apple and ATT really are clueless.
BAHAHAHAHAHAAAAA
It was more than just 911 troubles. No one on AT&T could get out a text message on 3G last night, and could barely hold a call. I guess 25K people at the NCAA game downtown were all AT&T customers.
Good old reliable Edge worked fine though.
@macmonger I sent a bunch of texts last night over 3G on my iphone and didnt have one problem sending any.
@macmonger I had calls pretty much nonstop last night. never lost any.
@macmonger HA! Reliable "Edge" you say....
What does Luke Wilson have to say about this?
@TheGM you got 911 in your soup.
@TheGM He'd be throwing around letters from around the country on the map! But this time instead of the postcards they would actually be obituary related locations...
@TheGM
L.W.: "this one time i called up my GF and want to tell her how good last night was, but for some reason my EX picked up and i was like FFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUU!"
Isn't this a public safety issue? They should be pulled up on this one.
@r3loaded This is an FCC reportable offense and If I am not mistaken they supposed to be fined.
Let's hope the passerby you're asking for help doesn't ALSO have an iPhone...
oh man this is going to suck tomorrow when I go into work, hope they fix this issue
hate dealing with AT&T failure calls.
I'm the kind of jerk who would demand a pro-rated adjustment on my 911 service fee.
What a nightmare for the person in peril.
AT&T's fails are getting dangerous.
They charge that BS 911 tax, and can't even get it right...
@killplay At least it isn't $0.75 cents plus provincial fees, got a text from Rogers a few days ago: http://bj0.org/pictures/IMG_2556.JPG
This is absolutely ridiculous. I can sort of expect data issues and dropped calls from a network that big, but a complete loss of emergency support? They better fix their shit, now.
AT&T better get this fixed before location-based advertising gets introduced... I mean the last think we need is an ad for Starbucks in downtown Salt Lake appearing in a user's phone in Seattle. Imagine the horror!
... oh yeah, and that whole emergency issue thing is kind of important too, I guess.
"Help! Oh god someone without AT&T please help me!"
I think the general consensus is this is incredibly dangerous.
ATT should get a HUGE fine for this.
@glamajamma
they wouldn't care , really.
the gvt would get the fine money.
ATT will pay
then ATT will include that into it's cost, and raise it's prices accordingly.
and if it is their insurance that will pay, then the cost of insurance for that will raise for all operators, same result
so at the end, the customers will end-up paying for the fine.
@glamajamma Yes stuff like this is insanely dangerous...I actually know someone who died in a house fire because when they called 911 their call got routed to the wrong town's 911 call center and the emergency response centers took a while to get in contact with each other...and along the way the information that it was a fire got lost. So her town sent a police car instead of a fire truck. By the time they finally got a fire truck out there most of the family had died of smoke inhalation. Pretty sad since 2 of them were just about to graduate, one from college and one from medical school =(
@meking87 : From the article:
"But then the officers started trying to call from their phones, and they discovered nearly every AT&T phone they tried dialing 911 on was directed to the Seattle dispatch center."
...seems unlikely that nearly every AT&T phone they could find was an iPhone.
Besides, why would the iPhone have a *chance* to have a bug like this? It takes the number you give it, and passes it to the network; the network decides what to do with it.
@John Stracke
You are correct sir.
*I think Engadget censored my earlier comment. Haha, I guess links to info regarding dropped calls from iPhones being Apple's fault aren't allowed. Here's the summary:
"Apparently, in an effort to lower power consumption, Apple
designed the iPhone to stay in touch with the network through heavy
bursts of signaling traffic rather than keep a radio channel open
constantly (keeping the channel open drains the battery). The iPhone
effectively caused signaling congestion problems like dropped calls and poor connection quality."
STL and SLT transposed in a config file.
@jstraw What does Saint Louis have to do with this?
@Samurai Jack
Hey, I didn't screw it up...don't ask ME to make sense of it.
They can't get a fine because in there TOS it explicitly states that they do not guarantee access to emergency services, and you should not rely on there service for emergency. Makes sense its a consumer network, not emergency channel.
@Standingfast That's like the police station saying, "we will provide 24/7 emergency services, we can't guarantee we'll answer your call though.". You can be fined for implying something and not having the means to carry it out. That's one of the many wonderful things you learn in that civics class you never paid attention in. Not everything needs to be stated in a contract.
@scots79
I agree with you there, I was just trying to argue why they would not be held liable for a fine. These things happen, I hope they use this opportunity to fix the problem, and learn from their mistakes. If not, then people will just switch to another carrier that provides more reliable 911 service ^_^.
this is actually deadly serious and i hope AT&t gets its ass sued
I hated AT&T from a previous experience with their crappy service. I only went back because I had to get an iPhone. The first two years back they were pretty much problem free in SoCal. Then it hit like a hurricane. Lousy signal - no service. From my house even. In the last two months especially. I finally called after two days of no service and got ahold of one of their callous techs who informed me that the three towers were out in my area and it would most likely be another 24 hours before they working properly. I just ignored his " Your f**ked" attitude. It was obvious he really was oblivious to anyone else's problem.
Anyway I am so sick of AT&T stepping over quarters to pick up dimes. They won't spend and fix they just patch and re-patch. Hey guess what ? Just yesterday the towers went out again. I am using a TracPhone. Yes a TracPhone. A pay as you go service does better than AT&T.
Well today I am leaning towards canceling my two iPhone's unlimited contracts - sending a nasty letter to the boneheads at Apple for choosing them and looking at a Droid. Heck I may even just use something that works - a TracPhone. Sayanorra AT&T - you bite - you really do.