Minnesota regulators increase CenturyLink’s reporting requirements after 911 outage
Minnesota’s 911 system, which is administered by CenturyLink, went out of service for 65 minutes last August. The outage resulted in 693 dropped calls. A Minnesota Public Utilities Commission (MNPUC) investigation found that no automatic alarms about the outage were sent to the state’s emergency call centers, and they were not notified of the outage until after the system was fixed.
As a result, the MNPUC voted unanimously to increase CenturyLink’s reporting requirements. Regulators ordered CenturyLink to consult with the public-safety department and to submit six monthly reports on improvements to the 911 system, including explanation of failed 911 calls in the previous month.
Other states are also examining CenturyLink’s service quality. Last month, CWA District 7 filed comments in a rulemaking proceeding with the New Mexico Public Regulation Commission documenting how CenturyLink’s lack of investment, understaffing, and unreasonable metrics for workers have contributed to CenturyLink's failure to maintain its copper infrastructure.
Links:
CenturyLink faces more scrutiny from Minnesota regulators after 911 outage (Star Tribune, Jun. 13, 2019)
CWA urges New Mexico regulators to adopt strong service quality standards, consumer protections (Speed Matters, Mar. 24, 2019)
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