FCC Expected to Probe Broader Implications for Communications After Nashville Bombing
The FCC is monitoring telecom and 911 outages caused by the Christmas Day bombing in Nashville, a spokesperson said Monday. The bomb was in an RV parked next to a major AT&T central office, which was badly damaged in the blast and a subsequent fire. Industry officials said FCC staff will likely look more closely at the broader implications and how to better protect operations centers from similar attacks. AT&T said Monday most services have been restored. The effects were widespread, with Nashville International Airport halting flights after its internet connections went down and more than a hundred 911 call centers in Tennessee, Kentucky and Alabama losing data from some callers.
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“The bombing that occurred in Nashville on Christmas morning was tragic,” an FCC spokesperson emailed Monday. “Many communications services that were disrupted by the blast, including 911, now appear to have come back online. We continue to closely monitor the situation and remain in close contact with AT&T, government, and industry partners.”
“It was a catastrophic event,” said Brian Fontes, CEO of the National Emergency Number Association, in an interview Monday. “Service is slowly but surely being restored, to the extent that it can, as technology and equipment is moved in,” he said. Some AT&T customers couldn’t call 911, he said. The explosion also disrupted a separate network carrying location information for wireless 911 callers in the region, which are routed through the office, he said. Some 911 centers “have been experiencing other types of failure” in the Nashville area: “Public safety, hospitals, etc., were all affected.”
“The majority of services have been restored in Nashville following Friday’s explosion,” AT&T said Monday. “Our mobility network is now operating normally, nearly all home internet and video customers have been restored and our business customers are back online.” The carrier has 11 portable cellsites running in the region but has “begun to turn down portable sites that are no longer needed given the recovery of service,” it said.
The FBI declined to speculate on what motivated the attack and whether it was related to unfounded fears and fearmongering about 5G. “The investigation into this incident, including the motive, is continuing,” an FBI regional spokesperson emailed: “We are also still requesting assistance from the public.” Anthony Warner, the alleged suicide bomber, was a local computer expert who reportedly was concerned about 5G, but experts said we may never know why he decided to act.
The RV was parked adjacent to a large, historic AT&T facility, “which happens to be in downtown Nashville,” Nashville Mayor John Cooper said on Face the Nation Sunday. “To all of us locally, it feels like there has to be some connection with the AT&T facility and the site of the bombing.”
The building “was a major central office,” which “carried a lot of traffic in and around Nashville and throughout other parts of the region,” Fontes said. While public safety answering points are installing redundant connections to prevent outages, in the case of the Nashville blast, they would still lose traffic and information carried on the AT&T network, Fontes said.
Staffers for the Tennessee Emergency Communications Board, which oversees 911 in the state, “have been in regular contact with regional public safety answering points to assess outages and offer any assistance we can provide,” a spokesperson said: “We continue to share alternative contact information for 911 centers and are in regular contact with AT&T about restoration of services.” The state Public Utility Commission isn't investigating.