Nebraska Public Service Commission opens investigations into 911 outages

OMAHA, Neb. (WOWT) - The Nebraska Public Service Commission announced Tuesday it has opened separate investigations into the two recent 911 outages impacting much of the state.

The two outages involved telecommunication companies Lumen and Windstream. The focus of the former is to determine why the loss of 911 service occurred over a wide area of the state; the latter is to determine why a fire and power cut at Windstream’s Lincoln data center knocked 911 service out in several counties.

The commission says both investigations are aimed at preventing a situation like this from occurring again.

“The disruptions in 911 service that occurred in these two separate incidents is unacceptable,” Commission Chair Dan Watermeier said. “The Commission expects 911 service providers to maintain diverse and redundant connections between 911 centers and their networks.”

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