FCC: December 27, 2018 CenturyLink Network Outage Report

Tue Aug 20 06:36:47 UTC 2019

The FCC announced the release of a report detailing the cause and impact 
of a nationwide CenturyLink network outage that occurred last December, 
along with recommendations to help prevent similar outages from occurring 
in the future

https://www.fcc.gov/document/fcc-issues-report-centurylink-network-outage
December 27, 2018 CenturyLink Network Outage Report

In the early morning of December 27, 2018, CenturyLink experienced a 
nationwide outage on its fiber network that lasted for almost 37 hours. 
This outage was caused by an equipment failure catastrophically 
exacerbated by a network configuration error.  It affected communications 
service providers, business customers, and consumers who directly or 
indirectly relied upon CenturyLink’s transport services, which route 
communications traffic from various providers to locations across the 
country, resulting in extensive disruptions to phone service, including 
911 calling.  The effects included dropped calls, disconnected 911 call 
centers (known as “Public Safety Answering Points”), and fast-busy signals 
for people who called 911.  As many as 22 million customers across 39 
states were affected by the outage, including approximately 17 million 
customers across 29 states who lacked reliable access to 911.  Indeed, at 
least 886 calls to 911 were not delivered.1  Fortunately, based on 
discussions with affected service providers and public safety officials 
from affected states, as well as a review of media reports, the Public 
Safety and Homeland Security Bureau (Bureau) is not aware of any harm to 
life or property resulting from the outage.

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