Phone company fined

February 22, Washington state regulators fined Qwest Corporation, dba CenturyLink QC, $2,854,750 for the April 2014 statewide 911 outage.

The Washington Utilities and Transportation Commission approved a settlement between the company and commission staff following an investigation into the 911 outage that severely disrupted emergency services for six hours. All 911 calls placed from landline, wireless, and Internet-based phones were affected.

In the order, the commission stated:

“We agree with staff and the company that the $2,854,750 penalty appropriately reflects the nature and extent of the violations, as well as CenturyLink’s actions in the wake of the 911 outage that gave rise to those violations. We conclude that the settlement reasonably resolves the issues raised in the complaint...and the result is consistent with the public interest.”

The company must also regularly report to the commission on 911 circuit reliability and the transition to the more advanced, Next Generation 911.

The company admitted to violations for failing to automatically re-route 911 calls and failing to maintain and manage the 911 system as required by law. The company was also cited for failing to promptly notify 911 call-centers and the UTC of the outage.

The agreement was signed by commission staff and CenturyLink representatives. The Washington State Office of the Attorney General, Public Counsel Unit, participated in the negotiations but did not sign the agreement.

CenturyLink provides 911 services in Washington under a contract managed by the Washington Military Department’s Emergency Management Division. CenturyLink outsources certain critical functions of the 911 network to Colorado-based Intrado Communications, Inc.

Commission staff’s investigation report determined that the statewide 911 system outage was caused by errors originating in a data center owned and managed by CenturyLink’s 911 vendor, causing 911 calls from Washington state to fail to reach emergency services during the outage.

The outage affected six other states – California, Florida, Minnesota, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and South Carolina – prompting the Federal Communications Commission to conduct its own investigation into the outage. Its report on the outage was released in October 2014, and CenturyLink and Intrado were fined $17.4 million for the multi-state 911 outage.

CenturyLink is the provider of 911 services for the state’s 7 million residents and is the largest local telephone company in Washington, serving approximately one million residential and business lines.

The commission is the state agency that regulates the landline services of telephone companies operating in Washington.