LINCOLN - Nebraskans dealt with 74 phone service outages last year, affecting thousands of people, and, in a few cases, limiting their access to 911.Those affected were unable to place or receive phone calls, and in some cases both cellular and landline services were affected.

At least four of the outages resulted in 911 services being limited or down for several hours at a time, according to outage reports from the Nebraska Public Service Commission. Whatever the cause, the Public Service Commission is not required to investigate the service providers that experience outages. “That’s a problem,” according to Public Service Commissioner Crystal Rhoades.

The Public Service Commission is an elected body that, among other things, regulates telephone companies. Rhoades has urged the commission to open an investigation into “preventable outages” caused by CenturyLink contractors. The company reported 41 of the 74 phone outages in 2019.

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