Arizona, Iowa Join Other States Probing CenturyLink Outage
Arizona and Iowa commissions said they're looking into the multistate CenturyLink outage that disrupted 911, joining other states making inquiries (see 1901020022) and the FCC (see 1812280033). The Arizona Corporation Commission Utilities Division opened a docket (T-01051B-19-0001) Wednesday. "Staff believes…
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this is a public health and safety issue that should be taken seriously and addressed in a expeditious manner," said Utilities Division Director Elijah Abinah in a Wednesday letter to the company. State law requires telecom companies to notify the commission about outages, but staff isn't aware of any notification from CenturyLink -- the agency found out from a news report, he said. Abinah asked the company to detail the cause and extent of the outage and what actions CenturyLink plans to prevent future outages. The Iowa Utilities Board “is aware of the outage and is looking into the impact to Iowa customers,” its spokesperson said. The telco said it's in touch with policymakers and will cooperate with any investigation; it didn't comment further Thursday.