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County reviews emergency communications after AT&T fiber cut knocked out 911 service across parts of Calaveras
Summary
County IT and emergency services reviewed an Oct. 15 AT&T fiber cut that disrupted internet, cellular towers and access to 911 in some areas. Staff outlined failover steps used that day and options including alternate providers, Comcast backup, satellite uplinks and dedicated circuits for the sheriff's office.
Calaveras County officials on Oct. 28 reviewed the county’s response to an Oct. 15 AT&T backbone fiber cut that disrupted internet and cellular service across broad portions of the county and affected residents’ ability to reach 911.
Len DeGroot, the county IT director, said the cut—caused by Caltrans construction—disabled AT&T backbone lines and affected cell towers and other internet service providers that rely on the same path. Within minutes, incoming 911 calls to the sheriff’s office were rerouted; some went through the California Highway Patrol’s Public Safety Answering Point, and others flowed through Amador County under an existing mutual-aid agreement. DeGroot said many calls were dispatched within minutes via those failovers.
But gaps remained: residents in areas that lost both cell and internet service could only call 911 using legacy copper landlines (POTS). "The only people who could call 911 in those areas were people who had landlines," DeGroot said. He and Eric Holt, director of the Office of Emergency Services, emphasized the challenge for residents who rely on Wi‑Fi calling or phones that must have an updated registered address for 911 to locate them.
Options discussed included negotiating a backup path with a different fiber provider, formalizing Comcast as a secondary path for critical county facilities, deploying a dedicated satellite uplink such as Starlink for dispatch, and investing in a dedicated circuit for the sheriff’s office. Supervisors urged staff to return with cost estimates and a communication protocol to notify partners and the public quickly when outages occur.
Board members also suggested low‑cost, resilient options—amateur radio (ham) and GMRS/ERS radio groups and predesignated cell numbers tied to satellite uplinks—to supplement digital systems while the state continues work on Next Generation 911.
What happens next: IT and emergency services will prepare mitigation options with cost estimates and propose a communications protocol to improve timeliness of public notifications during outages.
