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County IT and emergency staff outline fixes after AT&T fiber cut disrupted 9‑1‑1 calls
Summary
County IT and Office of Emergency Services briefed the board on an Oct. 15 AT&T fiber cut that knocked out service across a large corridor, forcing 9‑1‑1 reroutes to CHP and Amador County and leaving some residents unable to call emergency services. Staff outlined short‑ and long‑term mitigation options and will return with cost estimates.
Len DeGroot, Calaveras County’s information technology director, and Eric Holt of the Office of Emergency Services described an Oct. 15 cut to an AT&T fiber backbone that disabled AT&T‑based services and affected multiple cell towers from Burson through San Andreas into Tuolumne County.
"It was a pretty large [outage]," DeGroot said. "9‑1‑1 calls to the sheriff's office were rerouted; many of them went through the CHP... and then were forwarded to working cell phones within the sheriff's office and dispatched." He said some calls were forwarded to Amador County under an interjurisdictional agreement and that the county's campus retained a Comcast backup connection.
Staff explained two main public impacts: county internal/external VoIP phone lines (which route through AT&T) were disabled, forcing staff to use cell phones and Wi‑Fi calling where available; and residents in areas that lost cellular and Internet service could not reach 9‑1‑1 unless they had legacy copper landlines (POTS). DeGroot warned that Wi‑Fi calling requires residents to enter a 9‑1‑1 address when enabled, and that address accuracy is critical.
County staff presented mitigation options ranging from low‑cost interim measures (dedicated Starlink/satellite uplinks and a reserve set of phones for dispatch, deployment of GMRS/ham radio links and collaboration with city partners) to longer‑term solutions that require state coordination (middle‑mile broadband projects and migration to Next Generation 9‑1‑1 infrastructure). Supervisor discussion emphasized the importance of a dedicated, redundant circuit for the sheriff’s dispatch center and better public notification protocols during outages.
The board requested staff return with cost estimates and an IT communications protocol, and directed staff to pursue options for a dedicated backup circuit or satellite uplink for critical public‑safety facilities. No formal appropriation was made at this meeting.
Provenance: Board presentation and discussion, Item 25 (topic intro SEG 1954; topic finish SEG 2554).
