Back on February 22 this yr , AT&T suffered a monolithic outageafter a botched connection update . Now , month subsequently , the full scale of the outage has been divulge — and it ’s much big than we retrieve at the clip .
“ All voice and 5 one thousand datum service for AT&T wireless customers were unavailable , strike more than 125 million gadget , blocking more than 92 million voice calls , and preventing more than 25,000 calls to 911 call centers , ” the Federal Communications Commission ( FCC)said in its report card .
However , the FCC also criticized AT&T forseveral failureson top of failing to examine the implementation of the web modification . The FCC pointed to a deficiency of supervising and controls to ensure test that processes were follow or that the processes themselves were insufficient . AT&T was also unprepared for the over-crowding triggered by drug user devices attempting to reconnect to the web at the same meter . AT&T ’s web was insufficiently robust to extenuate the congestion .
The outage involve all 50 land and territories , including Washington , D.C. , Puerto Rico , and the U.S. Virgin Islands . The FCC pick apart AT&T in the news report for not espouse best praxis , which require all internet changes to be thoroughly tested , retrospect , and O.K. before implementation . The outage submit over 12 60 minutes for AT&T to settle and fully furbish up armed service .
If this sounds a little familiar , it ’s because it ’s very similar to theCrowdstrike outage , which took out Microsoft devices globally last workweek and also involve the rolling out of an untested update with defective code that break everything . It ’s also rather familiar because Verizon suffered a similar outage with a flawed update single file in December 2022 , something that earned it a penalty from the FCC and subjected it to a consent decree .
To AT&T ’s credit , the carrier at least acknowledged responsibility for the outage andprovided bear upon customers with a $ 5 quotation , which in all likelihood did n’t even cover a fraction of most people ’s phone greenback . On the positive side , the consequences from the FCC are potential to be more severe , with the Public Safety and Homeland Security chest of drawers consult the affair to theFCC Enforcement Bureauto investigate a potential violation of FCC rules .
If found responsible for , AT&T could be made to give a more substantial fine and be open to implementing a compliance plan , just like Verizon did last month when it had topay a $ 1.05 million finefor its outage in December 2022 . In terms of fixes , within two daylight of the outage , AT&T implemented new expert controls .
“ This included scanning the internet for any internet elements lacking the controls that would have preclude the outage , and promptly set those restraint in place . AT&T has engaged in ongoing forensic work and implemented additional enhancement to promote web robustness and resilience , ” the FCC said . The company also “ implement additional steps for match review and follow procedures to secure that criminal maintenance study can not take office without confirmation that required peer reviews have been complete . ”
This should assist prevent succeeding outage , at least for AT&T. However , it seems that the loser that lead to untried updates being pushed out are widespread across the industry , so hopefully , this will serve as a wake - up call for companies .
