Excerpts from theredstonerocket.com:

Last week, AT&T suffered a nationwide outage that the company believes was caused by “the application and execution of an incorrect process used as we were expanding our network, not a cyber attack,” according to the company’s website. 

AT&T acknowledged the outage on its site at 10:15 a.m. on Thursday and reported that all service was restored just after 2 p.m.  Despite many AT&T customers on post being unable to use their wireless devices, emergency personnel –who rely on AT&T’s FirstNet for some communications – were fully operational.  

Nationwide, there were reports from some civilian police and fire departments of FirstNet being down. 

“This outage has had no impact on the First Responder Broadband Network (FirstNet) on Redstone Arsenal,” Deputy Fire Chief Robert Simmons said. “Our FirstNet devices have continued to function normally. I have talked with network engineers at AT&T, and they tell me this is true of the network across the nation.” 

Simmons also said this incident showed an “excellent proof of concept” referring to the work the installation has done to install a dedicated communications network for first responders on post, which is part of an Armywide partnership with the FirstNet Government Authority and AT&T. 

“It shows how well Band 14, the band dedicated to FirstNet, functions even when there is an outage on the commercial side,” Simmons said. “This event shows why this capability is a critical component in our ability to connect first responders.” 

Redstone Arsenal was the first installation with an approved infrastructure application consisting of three macro towers, 28 small cells and miles of fiber. The system gives emergency personnel’s communications across the network priority over other traffic.  

According to the company’s website, “FirstNet is different from other carriers in that it has a dedicated public safety core that routes FirstNet traffic.  “It also encrypts network traffic within the core, creating the highly secure environment public safety requires.”

Tags: AT&T nationwide outage, chicagoareafire.com, First Responder Broadband Network (FirstNet), FirstNet, Redstone Arsenal