FCC has launched investigation into the CenturyLink outage; some service in Boise restored
Federal Communications Chairman Ajit Pai announced Friday that the agency is investigating the CenturyLink outage that has affected 911 emergency service across the country, according to a press release.
“When an emergency strikes, it’s critical tha Americans are able to use 911 to reach those who can help,” the release says. “The CenturyLink service outage is therefore completely unacceptable, and its breadth and duration are particularly troubling.”
CenturyLink put out a hopeful message to its exasperated customers Thursday night: Engineers had identified a “network element” that was impacting its services.
“We estimate services will be fully restored within 4 hours,” they said in the Twitter message.
Several Boise customers told the Statesman Friday morning that their service has been restored, including an employee of the Idaho Department of Labor.
Nationwide outages impacted 911 emergency call centers across the country, including all of Washington state, The Oregonian reported. The shutdown affected some state agencies in Idaho, including the Department of Education’s office phones and the Department of Correction’s inmate phone system. The Idaho Lottery was unable to sell draw game tickets or validate and pay claims on winning tickets.
CenturyLink’s optimism at resolving the problem overnight hit a snag, and they posted another message on their progress:
“We discovered some additional technical problems as our service restoration efforts were underway. We continue to make good progress with our recovery efforts and we are working tirelessly until restoration is complete. We apologize for the disruption.”
Thousands of customers around the country, including Louisiana and Wyoming, are still experiencing outages Friday morning, according to Newsweek.
CenturyLink customers on social media voiced their frustration with the lack of communication about what was going on when the outage struck early Thursday morning.
This story was originally published December 28, 2018 at 7:06 AM with the headline "FCC has launched investigation into the CenturyLink outage; some service in Boise restored."