Update 9:45 p.m. CenturyLink said on Twitter its engineers have identified a network element causing the problem and expect to have service restored within four hours.
CenturyLink engineers and technicians identified a network element that was impacting customer services and are addressing the issue in order to restore services. We estimate services will be restored within four hours. We apologize for any inconvenience this caused customers.
— CenturyLink (@CenturyLink) December 28, 2018
MISSOULA – Montana is among the areas being impacted by a nationwide internet outage.
CenturyLink says a “major path issue” is what has caused outages across Montana and several other states Thursday, and it could be 24 to 48 hours before service is restored.
In addition, Verizon users across Billings and Laurel have reported outages Thursday afternoon, according to Downdetector, which tracks Internet outages.
Officials at Verizon say they route their services like calls and texts through fiberlines owned by CenturyLink.
The Billings Police Department said it recently switched telephone providers and hasn’t had any disturbances.
Missoula Federal Credit Union states on their website that “We are currently experiencing technical issues with our ATMs and Mobile App. This is caused by a regional outage with our internet provider.”
Some pharmacies in Missoula were also reporting a lack of internet service as of mid-day on Thursday.
Meanwhile, the Helena Police Department issued a statement on their Facebook page that there have had some 911 issues related to the outage.
Elsewhere across the West, the downdetector.com website was showing major internet outages in the Denver, Boise, Seattle, Salt Lake City and Portland areas.
According to CenturyLink, the issue has caused outages in Montana, Idaho, Washington, Oregon, Utah, New Mexico, Nebraska, Wyoming, Colorado, and Arizona.
Verizon was also suffering from internet outages on Thursday including in the Missoula, Helena and Billings areas, according to downdetector.com.
Denver, Portland. Salt Lake City and Seattle were also seeing internet outages in the Western US.
Story by Mark Thorsell and Melissa Rafferty, MTN News
