AT&T Redirects Salt Lake City 911 Calls to Seattle
AT&T was this morning redirecting 911 calls in Salt Lake City to Seattle.
AT&T customers needing the assistance of the emergency services were last night connected to operators thousands of miles away. KSL reports that Salt Lake City residents on AT&T's wireless network were connected to emergency services in Seattle by accident.
One Salt Lake resident, Tony Sams, was alarmed when he tried to call 911 and was told he had reached Seattle.
"We were coming down from Farmington to drop my son off at school," Sams told KSL. "We witnessed a hit-and-run incident. We dialed 911."
When Sams was told where he was calling by the operator, he tried calling again to see if the mix up would be repeated and it was. Eventually, he called Salt Lake City police dispatch and they told him his caller ID was showing that he was in Seattle.
"It doesn't make any sense that him being in Salt Lake City, dialing 911, that it would go to Seattle," says Salt Lake City police Sgt. Robin Snyder. "We're not quite sure what happened there."
At first it seems as though it was just an issue with the GPS on Sams' phone. However, officers soon discovered that almost every AT&T phone they tried dialing 911 on was directed to the Seattle.
An AT&T spokesperson told the station that the problem had been fixed by about 11:30 p.m. MDT, but said they still didn't know what had caused the extremely worrying problem.
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Let's see Luke Wilson talk his way out of this.
Knowing AT&T they probably charged for long distance too.
I'm impressed he knew the number for the local police dispatch off hand.
Either way, it's a good thing nobody died because of this, can you imagine how many lawsuits would be going around??
I'm impressed he knew the number for the local police dispatch off hand.Either way, it's a good thing nobody died because of this, can you imagine how many lawsuits would be going around??
The next commercial will be Luke Wilson finding the local dispatch number with the on phone yellow pages while on the phone with 911 hundreds of miles away.
"AT&T customers needing the assistance of the emergency services were last night connected to operators thousands of miles away."
Which way were you going???
thats what 411 is for!!
AT&T doesn't know what caused it, but they fixed it...good enough for me!
Typical AT&T we fixed it but don't know what the problem was...I get that every time they fix one of my T1s...WTF...What ever you did to fix it was the problem!
AT&T doesn't know what caused it, but they fixed it...good enough for me!
That should hardly be good enough for anyone. If they don't know what caused it then they cannot prevent it from happening again. AT&T needs to get their sh*t together here. This is no, "Whoops, tried to call Gramma down the block and was connected halfway across the country" situation.
AT&T doesn't know what caused it, but they fixed it = they banged on the equipment with a hammer.
l33t_boi:
Knowing AT&T they probably charged for long distance too.
um no. you can contact the emergency services with an out of service phone. there is no charge leet boy
Did Yoda write that title?
They knew what the problem was when they fixed it.
Saying what the actual problem was would make them look more stupid than giving the answer that they did.
I think this violates their agreement with the FCC as a phone service provider. There will probably be an investigation by the authorities on this matter. Of course, nothing will come of it, but that's just life for you.
Typical AT&T we fixed it but don't know what the problem was...I get that every time they fix one of my T1s...WTF...What ever you did to fix it was the problem!
They treated the effect and are still trying to figure out (or don't care) what caused it. It's pretty easy to correct a problem but not so easy to figure out why it happened.
That should hardly be good enough for anyone. If they don't know what caused it then they cannot prevent it from happening again. AT&T needs to get their sh*t together here. This is no, "Whoops, tried to call Gramma down the block and was connected halfway across the country" situation.
Sorry, I forgot my /sarcasm tag.
FAIL
"AT&T customers needing the assistance of the emergency services were last night connected to operators thousands of miles away."
Thousands of miles? It's only ~842 miles from Seattle to Salt Lake City . . .
C'mon. No one has a snappy 'There's a map for that' comment?
victim ; im having a hear attack!!
operator ; we are sending a ambulance right now...it should be there in twelve hours
C'mon. No one has a snappy 'There's a map for that' comment?
yeah, there is...a very big one!
"AT&T customers needing the assistance of the emergency services were last night connected to operators thousands of miles away."Thousands of miles? It's only ~842 miles from Seattle to Salt Lake City . . .
see scrappy77 comment above...
Sorry, I forgot my /sarcasm tag.
I got it...
What makes it worse is AT&T was going to point the finger but the police (which I am sure have as many I phones among them as the general population)told them that all the AT&T phones they tried had the same problem. Imagine one person, not knowing, trying to blame them.
This is one of those unacceptable and not even funny FAILs...
Good to hear nobody died or seriously injured (i hope that is the case)
C'mon. No one has a snappy 'There's a map for that' comment?
Well, I was gonna write "I don't think there's a map for that", but you kind of ruined it...
No hard feelings though
From the story headline, I was going to say so what? I had my land line routed to another state when they were doing a trunk "upgrade", and AT&T tried charging me $40 for a local call since their routing made it long distance and I had to have operator assistance to even get that.
911 service though, makes it a different sort of thing when it's more than just one house that's SOL.
maybe they were upgrading/fixing their systems, redirected and forgot about the really important stuff, lol
So I guess the new commercials should include something like this:
Verizon- If you want to live
AT&T- If you like to gamble with your life
Luke Wilson is a bit of a jerk, by the way or seems jerky anyway.
AT&T 911 service is just like their 3G service = LACKING