U.S. probes outage of CenturyLink 911 emergency call service

[Eugene]

Source: Reuters

U.S. DECEMBER 28, 2018 / 10:54 AM / UPDATED 25 MINUTES AGO

U.S. probes outage of CenturyLink 911 emergency call service

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Federal Communications Commission is investigating a nationwide CenturyLink Inc outage that has affected service on 911 emergency phone calls across the country, agency chairman Ajit Pai said on Friday.

“The CenturyLink service outage is ... completely unacceptable, and its breadth and duration are particularly troubling,” Pai said in a statement. “I’ve directed the Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau to immediately launch an investigation into the cause and impact of this outage.”

Early on Friday afternoon, nearly 24 hours after CenturyLink first tweeted about the outage, the company said on Twitter: “We are seeing good progress, but our service restoration work is not complete.”

CNBC said customers from New York to California reported outages. It said 911 outages were reported in parts of Washington state, Missouri, Idaho and Arizona.

-snip-

Read more: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-centurylink-fcc/u-s-probes-outage-of-centurylink-911-emergency-call-service-idUSKCN1OR177

[Just a Weirdo]

1. Centurylink needs to go out of business

and taken over by another reliable Bell service.

[PSPS]

2. Century Link was never part of the Bell System

[Just a Weirdo]

3. I disagree.

Mountain Bell->US West->Qwest->Centurylink.

That's how far back I remember.

When I was 8 years old "Ma Bell" was around.

[PSPS]

5. Century Link acquired Qwest but neither was ever part of the Bell System.

US West was the last incarnation of what was left of the Bell System in its 14-state service area. The degradation began when the notorious Philip Anschutz founded Qwest and acquired US West in a hostile takeover.

[BBG]

4. But part of the Bell System is Century Link

Century Link owns what used to be US West before it became Qwest. Telecom is an inbred industry with many twists and turns to ownership and control.

[PSPS]

6. Century Link and Qwest were never part of the Bell System.

US West was the last incarnation of what was left of the Bell System in its 14-state service area. The degradation began when the notorious Philip Anschutz founded Qwest and acquired US West in a hostile takeover.

[BBG]

7. Century Link acquired Qwest

Qwest had acquired USWest. USWest was part of the Ma Bell AT&T that was broken up in ‘84.
To this day Century Link operates part of the network that was known as Ma Bell. Some manholes still have Bell Systems labeling in Seattle which is now Century Link property.
Not trying to disagree so much as point out the convoluted path of telco ownership.

BBG agrees with PSPS.

[yonder]

8. I'm bugged by Century Link's apparent lack of transparency with regard to this.

Yesterday, they were never upfront about what was happening other than a "major path" problem announcement some 12 hours after it began. Instead, they continued with their corpo-speak "customers interests....blah, blah, blah", dropped/blocked service inquiries, etc. and even had the nads to air some pre-scheduled adverts declaring how secure their system and customers were - right in the middle of the mess.

Today, with what looks like a fix, we still don't know. Maybe it's still too early for them to determine exactly what happened, or come up with a plausible alternative explanation. Was it a hack? Was it a state coordinated communication attack or dry run for one? Is the DoD requesting to keep this under wraps? Is this a hint of what a major infrastructure attack or military coup might look like? What if other companies like Comcast, etc. were sucked into this at the same time? Why is this not getting more traction from the media?

I'm not running around with a tin-foil hat, waving my arms at a pink sky just yet but I do have the thought that this is perhaps bigger than we're allowing for.