FCC Investigating Link Between 911 Lines Going Down Nationwide and CenturyLink's Internet Outages

Some 911 emergency services in various parts of the country were inaccessible Dec 28 amid an internet outage from Louisiana-based CenturyLink, prompting a federal inquiry and rebuke. Calling the outages “completely unacceptable,” Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai said his agency has launched an investigation into the CenturyLink 911 outage in parts of Washington state, Missouri, Idaho, and Arizona. The outage started the morning of Dec 28 and quickly spread beyond people’s ability to watch online videos. Beyond the possible link to 911 services, the outage affected some ATM machines in Idaho and Montana. Additionally, as a result of the CenturyLink troubles, Verizon said it had service interruptions in Albuquerque (NM), and parts of Montana.