MISSOULA – CenturyLink reports that a “major path issue” is what has caused outages across Montana and several other states on Thursday.
The company posted on their Twitter page early Friday that they expect to restore service sometime Friday morning.
The outages impacted banks, stores, local city government offices, some police stations in Montana and satellite TV operators DirecTV and Dish Network.
CenturyLink said that they were seeing “positive progress” in resolving the problem as of 2:45 a.m. on Friday.
CenturyLink said their engineers and technicians identified a network element that was impacting customer service and apologized for the inconvenience to its customers.
Specifics on what actually happened was not released.
The company further stated that as of 8:45 a.m. they were “seeing good progress” but that “restoration work is not complete.”
Some Verizon customers have also been suffering from internet outages because they use CenturyLink to distribute their data.
Missoula Federal Credit Union reported on Twitter that service had mostly been restored and they were working to get their ATMs back up and running.
- Reported by Mark Thorsell
CNN reports that Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai called the outage “completely unacceptable” in a statement. He said he spoke to CenturyLink about his concerns and has ordered an investigation. “When an emergency strikes, it’s critical that Americans are able to use 911 to reach those who can help,” Pai said.
In Boston, Massachusetts State Police tweeted that the issue was resolved about 8 a.m. Friday. The outage affected only wireless 911 calls, not landline calls, CNN affiliate WBZ reported.
Service was also interrupted in Seattle and Salt Lake City, among other locations.
“#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,” Salt Lake City Mayor Jackie Biskupski tweeted Thursday afternoon.
CNN has tried to reach CenturyLink for comment.
The outage also cut off internet service for CenturyLink customers in some cities, including Denver, Los Angeles, Dallas and Chicago, CNN affiliate KOMO in Seattle reported.
