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Ellen Belcher is the Dayton Daily News opinion pages editor. She writes about state government, education, the environment, higher education and all things Dayton.
Martin Gottlieb is an editorial writer and columnist for the Dayton Daily News opinion pages. He focuses on the political process itself and does such national issues as war, the economy, taxes and Social Security, as well as a hodge-podge of local and state issues.Home > Blogs > A Matter of Opinion > Archives > 2009 > June > 09 > Entry
Editorial: AT&T answers on 911 failure insulting
The overdue report from AT&T about what went wrong on the opening day in March of Montgomery County’s 911 dispatch center was a huge waste of paper.
The 71 pages include just three or so of narrative, in which the company concedes that “human error” in the programming of a switch was the likely reason that bystanders reporting a fire got no answer and that dispatchers had no idea frantic callers to the new center weren’t getting through.
That, though, is information Montgomery County already had.
The rest of the report consists of forms, checklists and printouts that make no sense unless you’re an IT wizard and maybe not even then. They are the sort of documents that AT&T would be obligated to turn over if Montgomery County sues the company.
They alone are an explanation of nothing.
Merely compiling paper is no way to treat a customer who has spent $1.5 million buying a sensitive, public safety product.
Since the very first days after the Harrison Twp. fire — which resulted in an 81-year-old woman being hospitalized and her house burning — the questions AT&T has been asked again and again are:
What specific protocols did you follow to ensure the system was ready to be turned out, and what precisely does your pre-testing include?
What sort of call volume did you test for? How many times did you test the equipment?
Also, why did your pre-testing not pick up the fact that the calls could get lost, and how did you miss the fact that certain lines were not functioning?
The questions are not unreasonable. They couldn’t be more obvious.
AT&T spokesman Michael Marker expressed surprise on Monday that Montgomery County Administrator Deborah Feldman found the report lacking. He suggested that any questions that weren’t answered are “granular.”
This level of response is part of a pattern that began when AT&T took questions at a press conference soon after the debacle. Then the company’s representative said he didn’t have answers to the looming questions because it was too soon after the incident and he didn’t have a technical manual with him.
Now, two months later, what’s the excuse?
People’s lives were in danger. For at least eight hours, emergency dispatchers were not receiving all their calls and they didn’t know it. The community is ever so lucky that there was just one life-threatening emergency in which the response time was delayed and only one person was hurt.
Does AT&T really think Montgomery County will just get tired of asking the same questions? Does it think local officials aren’t smart enough to see through its transparent efforts to avoid being candid?
The county hired a consultant to assist Sheriff Phil Plummer and be a “third set of eyes,” in the words of Ms. Feldman to watch over the repair process (at a cost of $10,000). Starting May 20, the 911 center was gradually brought online, and authorities say there have been no recurrences of the earlier problems.
That result was, of course, the only acceptable outcome after everything went so poorly initially.
Meanwhile, the county is preparing its bill to present AT&T on what it has spent for the consultant, in overtime and for redoing work that wasn’t done properly.
By apparently anticipating that Montgomery County could sue, AT&T is asking for a lawsuit with its insulting behavior. It’s also inviting public distrust and contempt for not coming totally clean about how badly things were bungled before the 911 system was turned on.
Permalink | Comments (4) | Post your comment | Categories: Editorials, Ellen Belcher, Law Enforcement and Public Safety, Montgomery County
Comments
By Joe
June 9, 2009 5:11 PM | Link to this
Regional dispatch……BAD IDEA! Told ya’ so!By Andrew
June 9, 2009 6:40 PM | Link to this
Just think DDN made those of who didn’t support Regional Dispatch out to be idiots. I guess we get to laugh last!By Brian
June 10, 2009 7:29 AM | Link to this
How would a local citizen get their hands on that 71-page report? It would be interesting to review AT&T’s formal and approved test records (if they even exist) to determine whether the scenario that failed was even tested. As someone with over 25 years of software, hardware, systems integration, and QA experience, (and an “IT wizard,” to use the DDN’s words) I’d bet you a penny that AT&T did very little stress-testing on this system – and probably have very little technical documented evidence of any testing they did perform. AT&T blames it on human error (previously said to be during the configuration and testing process) but, I’d bet that it wasn’t even a defined requirement to be tested.By anti-ATT
June 10, 2009 9:05 AM | Link to this
AT&T has no reason to offer good answers. Just like they have no reason to give good service or provide a good product. For all intents and purposes, they are a monopoly in this region. Even if you have Cinci-Bell as your provider, you are at the mercy of AT&T techs for service. Until all communication infrastructure is taken by the gov’t through eminent domain and true competition exists, AT&T will keep giving customers the finger.