It's still unclear what part of the statewide 911 dispatch system prevented calls from reaching emergency services on Tuesday.
The Peninsula Fiber Network (PFN), the company that owns and operates the statewide 911 system, known as the Emergency Service Internet Protocol Network, told WCMU it was neither a cyber-attack nor human error that caused dispatch errors for nearly two hours in some locations.
But there are still more questions than answers.
“It could have very well been something physically happened somewhere in the network that triggered this event. It could have been something that happened in terms of the network. That's all part of the due diligence that we're conducting right now,” said PFN General Manager Scott Randall.
According to Randall, early indications point to a network issue that failed to reroute calls properly. He compared the situation to an interstate highway receiving an influx of traffic and prohibiting other vehicles from arriving at their destination.
“The network tried to fix itself. And it generated a large amount of network traffic that wasn't 911 traffic,” said Randall during a phone interview with WCMU. “And while we know what happened, the cause of what happened is still eluding us.”
The issues at each of the dispatch centers varied. In Gladwin County, the dispatch center reported that they were receiving some calls, but were having a hard time understanding people on the other end of the phone. And in Grand Traverse County, service was down entirely for nearly two hours. The Traverse City Fire Department told WCMU that no emergencies were missed during that two-hour window Tuesday afternoon.
All counties in Michigan but Macomb are a part of PFN’s emergency network. Tuesday’s outage was sporadic and not a total blackout of all counties. WCMU confirmed over a dozen counties were impacted, including, Bay, Midland, Newaygo, Mecosta, Osceola, Lapeer, Charlevoix, Alpena, Emmet and Cheboygan, among others.
Soon after the initial outages, PFN technicians jumped on a conference call with nearly all of Michigan’s 911 dispatch centers to trouble shoot the issue and provide real-time updates on the system.
Jeff Satkowski, Executive Director of 911 Dispatch Services and Emergency Manager in Lapeer County, said he trusts Peninsula Fiber Network and that their communication on the issue in real time was good. He told WCMU that nothing is perfect, and issues will come up in a complex system like a statewide dispatch system from time to time but said it can’t be a frequent issue.
PFN said its final diagnostic report detailing what happened will be filed with the State of Michigan. The agency overseeing the report is the State 911 Committee, a collection of 21 members representing local public safety, the private sector and state services. It’s up to that committee to make the report public.
PFN is planning a $6 million upgrade to its network. Randall said that money will not come from state funds.
