The Nebraska Public Service Commission has initiated separate investigations into two recent incidents of 911 system failures involving telecommunication carriers Lumen (formerly Century Link) and Windstream.
The outages occurred for several hours on two separate occasions: August 31 to September 1 and September 2 to September 3.
Commission Chair Dan Watermeier expressed dissatisfaction with the disruptions, stating that the Commission expects 911 service providers to maintain reliable connections between 911 centers and their networks. Both investigations will aim to determine the cause of the failures and why the redundancy measures required of the carriers were ineffective. The Commission also seeks a solution to prevent similar incidents in the future.
In the case of Lumen, the investigation will focus on determining the cause of the 911 outage across a wide area of Nebraska. On the other hand, the Windstream investigation will aim to understand why a fire and power loss at a single facility led to the disruption of 911 service in a significant portion of southeast Nebraska.
The Commission emphasizes that 911 service providers are expected to provide the highest level of service without exceptions.
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