Human Error Caused Phone System Crash

AT&T Corp. said Thursday it would compensate customers whose toll-free service was disrupted by a 90-minute network outage that greeted thousands of callers with busy signals.

The nation’s largest phone company blamed human error for the crash, which disrupted portions of AT&T’s nationwide 800 service between about 12:30 p.m. and 2 p.m. Wednesday.

The error was made by an employee updating instructions in software that helps route calls through the company’s network, AT&T spokesman Dave Johnson said. The crash affected a substantial number of AT&T customers, though Johnson declined to say how many toll-free customers are handled by the company.

A significant number of AT&T’s toll-free customers have contracts that entitle them to compensation in the event service fails, and AT&T intends to honor those contracts, Johnson said.

The network crash of toll-free numbers was AT&T’s first and the company’s worst overall outage since Jan. 15, 1990, when a significant portion of AT&T’s nationwide phone network failed.

“This was a first-time event and we’ll do our best to make sure it’s the first and last,” Johnson said.