A recent CenturyLink outage left customers all over America without internet and vital services such as 911 emergency call services, according to Gizmodo. Shortly after, Federal Communications Commision chairman Ajit Pai announced via Twitter that he has prompted the FCC’s Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau to launch an investigation into the outage.
“When an emergency strikes, it’s critical that Americans are able to use 911 to reach those who can help,” Pai said in a statement. “The CenturyLink service outage is therefore completely unacceptable, and its breadth and duration are particularly troubling.”
CenturyLink, a telecommunications company based out of Louisiana, identified a “network element” that they deemed responsible for the shutdown.
“We discovered some additional technical problems as our service restoration efforts were underway,” the company announced on Twitter. “We continue to make good progress with our recovery efforts and we are working tirelessly until restoration is complete. We apologize for the disruption.”
People all across the country were affected, with citizens in Washington state, Missouri, Massachusetts, Idaho, and Arizona unable to make 911 calls and people in Boston experiencing disruptions in their cell service. Denver, Los Angeles, Dallas and Chicago were also affected. The interruptions began on Thursday, December 27th, but customers in various locations were left without services for several days following the initial outage.
Salt Lake City also experienced issues with CenturyLink services. “#SLC government is currently experiencing issues with our phone and internet services related to a nationwide problem. We apologize for any inconvenience this is causing residents trying to reach departments,” tweeted Mayor Jackie Biskupski in response.
Phone services at the Department of Correction and the Department of Education in Idaho were disrupted while doctors and nurses at a hospital in Greeley, Colorado, were unable to access digital patient records.
CenturyLink has not provided Gizmodo or CNN with a comment.
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