LINCOLN- The Nebraska Public Service Commission has been led to file a complaint against the telecommunications company that was responsible for the 911 outages that affected eastern Nebraska in late 2023 and early this year. The company, Windstream, has been the subject of an extensive investigation that found they may have violated state regulations. “The complaint provides the commission the ability to hold the carrier accountable through punitive actions,” Chairman Dan Watermeier said.

Since these outages, the commission and lawmakers have been proposing changes, such as legislation aimed at speeding up the process of hearings for 911 outages. The trouble with Windstream began last August when a third-party contractor struck one of the city's sprinkler lines causing a leak and fire explosion in the company's Lincoln facility. What the commission's complaint mainly pertains to is what happened only 13 hours later, when the company's backup generator failed, stranding 911 callers in most of the 20 emergency call centers in southeast Nebraska.

Problems with network stability arose last winter resulting in two separate Lincoln outages, the first of which went unreported within the regulatory requirement. The Nebraska Public Service Commission found that there were not enough precautions taken, including proper testing of backup power systems, network switching, and redundancy. Windstream representatives have voiced that they are committed to making amends, fixing all issues, and continuing to provide 911 services for Nebraskans.

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