RALEIGH -- 9-1-1, what’s your emergency? *silence* Hello? Hello? Bueller? Anyone there? *continued silence*
If you were a Verizon customer, and you were trying to make this call in a REAL emergency, the Raleigh-Wake County Emergency Communications Center (RWECC) would have heard nothing but silence.
According to a City of Raleigh press release, VerizonWireless calls were being delivered Friday without voice audio, leading RWECC telecommunicators to treat these as hang-up calls. When dialing, Verizon customers may have had no idea that they have actually connected to the ECC and that telecommunicators heard only silence.
That’s the good thing about 9-1-1 centers. If they get hang-up calls, they always call back to verify whether it was a real emergency or a prank hang-up call. According to the press release, calls from all other customers were coming in normally.
Verizon spokeswoman Karen Schulz apologized for any inconvenience, telling WRAL-TV that the problem was an isolated incident involving a scheduled software upgrade, and that it won't happen again. All service was restored by Friday afternoon, she said.
This wasn't limited to just Verizon, either. WRAL also reported that AT&T, Earthlink Business, TW Telecom and Sprint were also interrupted for a short time.
"It's been aggravating, more than anything," said Tripp Edwards, a crane operator in Raleigh who had trouble making calls with his Sprint cellphone.
Comments