The FCC proposed a $867,000 fine against Lumen Technologies, Inc. (NYSE: LUMN) for apparently failing to design and operate its network to transmit all 911 calls and to notify, as soon as possible, public safety call centers of two 911 outages. The outages occurred in February 2022. The Commission says the 911 call transmission apparent violations occurred in the second outage.
The first outage affecting 911 calls in South Dakota outages lasted nearly five hours. The FCC said its investigation found that because of “flaws” in the system, Lumen didn’t notify the two 911 call centers until “days” after the outage ended.
Lumen told the FCC during the first outage, a switch card failed at a signaling transfer point link in Lumen’s Pierre, SD switch. Such switch cards provide an interface to the STP links on the Signaling System 7 (SS7) portion of Lumen’s network. SS7 is an integral part of Lumen’s wireline communications network and is necessary for call set-up, routing, and completion, as well as for network management between interconnected SS7 networks.
A second outage occurred 24 hours later. Lumen told the Enforcement Bureau the switch card failed at the second STP link for the Pierre Switch, Path B – Minneapolis. Lumen received an alarm indicating that STP Path B was down. Because both STP paths were down, SS7 was no longer functioning at the Pierre Switch. “Consequently, calls designated for destinations outside of the Pierre Switch’s local calling area could not be completed. This, in turn, caused 911 service in that area to fail because 911 calls there had to travel outside the switch’s local calling area to NG911 facilities to be processed,” according to the FCC.
Five days later, Lumen experienced a 911 outage in North Dakota that impacted all calls that relied on SS7 including all 911 calls in the area. An STP path relied on two diverse fiber transport circuits operated by a third-party contractor, one through Fargo, ND and one through Chicago. A fiber cut occurred on the Chicago Transport Path near Henderson, CO. The next morning, the Fargo Transport Path began to experience HVAC problems. Equipment was overheating and shutting down, affecting traffic flow over the path.
The latest outage lasted more than seven hours. Lumen said it didn’t learn about the fiber cut until nearly two hours after the outage ended.
Again because of what the FCC calls “flaws” in its system, Lumen only notified two out of 11 affected 911 call centers “in a timely manner.” The outage resulted in “hundreds” of calls not reaching 911, according to the FCC.
“Such failures are not acceptable,” said the Commission in its Notice of Apparent Liability for Forfeiture. That’s why it proposed the fine for failure to notify the call centers of 911 outages in a timely manner and by “deploying a system that was insufficient” to transmit all the 911 calls reliably.
“Lumen apparently willfully and repeatedly violated our rules and created a significant threat to the life and property of tens of thousands of people,” the Commission said in the decision.
Since 2015, Lumen has entered into four consent decrees with the Enforcement Bureau to settle investigations into Lumen’s potential violations-the same 911-related rules it has apparently violated again, notes the agency. Lumen admitted in 2015 it did not timely notify 911 call centers, and collectively paid over $20 million to settle four investigations.
Lumen will be given an opportunity to respond to the latest proposed fine. The Commission will consider its submission of evidence and legal arguments before acting further to resolve the matter.
By Leslie Stimson, Inside Towers Washington Bureau Chief
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