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911 outages have become a fact of life — are we even fixing this?

911

In 2014, after what we described as “frequent failures,” a previous administration’s FCC attempted to change how the United States’ emergency 911 system works, including making it clear who’s responsible when multiple states inexplicably lose the ability to dial 911 at once.

Some of that accountability might have come in handy this week — because we still don’t know what caused yesterday’s 911 outage. And it’s not clear anything would change even if we knew.

Yesterday, 911 services reportedly disappeared in at least 14 states nationwide, some for as long as an hour and a half. Police departments and public safety agencies across the country had to hand out alternative numbers to call — and in some cases, warn residents not to dial 911...

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