Hundreds of hang-up calls hitting Dallas’ 911 center are causing backlogs, reports the Wall Street Journal, and T-Mobile handsets are to blame.
The issue began last fall and occurs when a T-Mobile customer places a legitimate call to 911. After the call concludes, the T-Mobile handset repeatedly calls the 911 center back and then hangs up. Workers at 911 centers are required to call back hang ups to ensure there’s no emergency.
The Journal says on March 11, the 911 center was hit with so many hang up calls the 911 workers were forced to place more than 400 incoming calls on hold. The same thing happened March 6, with 360 calls placed on hold.
The result led to some Dallas-area 911 callers waiting up to 30 minutes before they were able to speak with emergency dispatch services. T-Mobile and city officials have not been able to resolve the problem, but T-Mobile has sent engineers to Dallas to fix it.
“We have all eyes on this,” said T-Mobile CTO Neville Ray.
Neither the City of Dallas nor T-Mobile believes any sort of internet-based attack to blame.
