T-Mobile sends additional resources to deal with ghost calls

City of Dallas sent this bulletin at 03/14/2017 05:43 PM CDT

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE                     For more information contact:
March 14, 2017                                         Sana Syed – Public Information Office
                                                                   (214) 846-0519
                                                                   sana.syed@dallascityhall.com    

T-Mobile sends additional resources to deal with ghost calls

Dallas - Saturday evening, the Dallas 911 Call Center experienced a spike in calls due to the ongoing T-Mobile ghost call issue. A six-month old child died at some time that evening. The Dallas Police Department says an individual who we now believe was the child’s caregiver, called 911 multiple times but hung up before speaking to a call taker. Call takers returned each call, but were unable to reach the individual. The child was taken to two area hospitals. DPD is investigating the death and no additional information can be released, as this case is under investigation.

There is no evidence at this time connecting the child’s death to the T-Mobile ghost call issue. We can only confirm that the caller was using a T-Mobile device and tried reaching 911 Saturday evening, during the spike in calls.

Since November 2016, T-Mobile has been working with multiple city departments to try several solutions unsuccessfully. This afternoon, Dallas City Manager T.C. Broadnax spoke directly with T-Mobile CEO John Legere. Legere committed to sending his top engineers to Dallas tomorrow morning. Legere stressed that they will stay on the ground until the issue is resolved. During that time, DPD will also continue to provide increased staffing in the 911 call center.

“This is an unacceptable situation and the citizens of Dallas deserve better,” said Broadnax. “With Mr. Legere’s commitment today, I’m hopeful T-Mobile can continue to work with the City of Dallas to finally resolve this situation so that we have a reliable 911 system that can properly serve the emergency needs of our citizens.”

Media, please help us spread this message:
If you call 911 in Dallas and are put on hold, please DO NOT hang up. It puts you back at the bottom of the queue and causes further delays in reaching a 911 call taker.