CenturyLink: Outage Caused by Faulty Card

That CenturyLink outage that knocked out internet service and 911 telephone capabilities nationwide just after Christmas was apparently caused by a single faulty network management card. And the telecommunications giant finds itself in hot water again over what appears to be a single point of failure.

This outage map shows areas affected by the CenturyLink outage on December 27, 2018.

The outage, which affected service for more than 12 hours in some regions of the CenturyLink footprint, had its origin in with a bad networking card in Denver. It's spurred a strong rebuke from FCC Chairman Ajit Pai and an FCC investigation, as well as investigations in several states.

In 2014, CenturyLink had another major outage that also was traced back to a problem in Denver. That time the culprit was a subcontractor's software coding error. It led to a $16 million fine from the FCC as well as financial penalties in some of the affected states.