BOISE, Idaho — U.S. officials and at least one state said Friday that they have started investigations into a nationwide CenturyLink internet outage that affected Utah customers and disrupted 911 service in several other states.
Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai called the outage that began Thursday "completely unacceptable" because people who need help couldn't use the emergency number.
"Its breadth and duration are particularly troubling," he said.
Salt Lake City Mayor Jackie Biskupski noted on Twitter Friday that the city was "still experiencing intermittent service on phone and internet. Our engineers are in contact with CenturyLink & awaiting updates."
Outages impacted businesses, households and other government buildings along the Wasatch Front Thursday.
Among them, workers at the Utah State Courts had difficulty making and receiving calls, as well as accessing online systems.
Emergency dispatch centers across northern Utah were also affected by the outage as some of their phone lines had static.
Downdetector.com, a website that tracks internet outages, listed Salt Lake City as one of several cities across the country still experiencing the outages at a high rate into Friday.
According to the website, there were hundreds of reports made about the outage in northern Utah within a 24 hour period.
The FCC's Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau will investigate the cause and effect of the outage, Paj said.
The Monroe, Louisiana-based telecommunications giant is one of the largest in the United States. It offers communications and information technology services in dozens of states. Customers from New York to California reported outages.
CenturyLink spokeswoman Debra Peterson said the outage "is not related to hacking," but she declined further comment.
The company said on Twitter that it's working to restore service and appears to be making progress. It hasn't provided a cause for the problems.
"Where CenturyLink is the 911 service provider 911 calls are completing," the company said in a tweet.
Regulators in Washington state also said they were opening an investigation into an outage of its statewide 911 service.
The state Utilities and Transportation Commission said interruptions began about 8:30 p.m. Thursday. The commission's regulatory services division director, Mark Vasconi, said the system appeared stable Friday but the agency was monitoring it.
In Idaho, Emergency Office Management Director Brad Richy said he didn't receive any reports of 911 service failures, but some state agencies, including the state Department of Correction, lost service on internet-based phones.
Some businesses in Idaho also lost the ability to make credit card sales, and some ATM machines weren't working in Idaho and Montana.
Due to sporadic 911 outages in Massachusetts, public safety officials recommended individuals looking for emergency help use the 10-digit telephone number of the fire or police departments they wanted to contact.
In Greeley, Colorado, the Weld County Regional Communication Center on Friday said 911 calls were being dropped, but callers should keep trying and emergency dispatchers would try to call back.
The 911 dispatch center and emergency management in western Missouri's Johnson County were hit by the outage, county Emergency Management Director Troy Armstrong said Friday. He said the 911 lines were not affected, but the internet was down at the dispatch center and phone services also were spotty.
Contributing: Sean Moody