The FCC Public Safety Bureau is starting an investigation into...

The FCC Public Safety Bureau is starting an investigation into 911 outage on April 9 and 10 that prevented more than 4,500 911 calls from reaching public safety answering points (PSAP) in Washington state, the bureau said in a public notice Monday. “Given the large area impacted by this outage, the interdependent communications infrastructure spread across multiple states and providers, and the critical importance of dependable and resilient 911 service throughout” the U.S., the bureau “is examining the causes, effects, and implications of this outage,” said the PN (http://bit.ly/1p71NOY). The six-hour outage also affected large areas of Oregon and portions of California, Florida, Minnesota, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and South Carolina, the bureau said. The Washington Utilities and Transportation Commission (WUTC) has also opened a state investigation. CenturyLink said in a April 24 major outage report (http://1.usa.gov/1hVzai5) (CD May 1 p12) filed with the WUTC that a PSAP trunk member (PTM) threshold counter, which routes calls to the appropriate PSAPs, ran out of capacity. The PTM is run by CenturyLink contractor Intrado, in the Englewood, Colo., Emergency Call Management Complex. Neither CenturyLink nor Intrado immediately had a reaction to the FCC investigation.