11-07--2013-210
Residents wait outside the San Juan Island Library to get Internet access during the November 2013 outage. (Library photo via San Juan Islander.)

Staff members with the Washington Utilities and Transportation Commission today recommended that CenturyLink pay more than $170,000 in penalties over its handling of a 10-day-long service outage on the San Juan Islands last year.

In November, an underwater cable that provided internet and phone service to residents of the San Juan Islands was severed, leaving many residents without internet or phone service. The lack of service led San Juan County to declare a state of emergency. An investigation conducted by commission staff found that the company violated state laws and rules related to major outages in addition to requirements about communicating outages to the public.

The report recommends that the three-member Commission issue a formal complaint against CenturyLink, “with a penalty of up to $173,210 for 15,935 violations of commission laws and rules.” In addition, it recommends that CenturyLink be required to improve the infrastructure serving the San Juans and provide annual updates to the UTC about the status of the system and results of maintenance and inspections.

Any penalty would come in addition to the $271,000 in credits that CenturyLink has already provided to customers affected by the outage. CenturyLink has already committed to spend $500,000 on system improvements that would provide backup service in the event of another problem.

This news comes two weeks after CenturyLink was fined $31,000 by the UTC for billing errors related to taxes and surcharges.

A representative for CenturyLink did not immediately respond to a request for comment on this report. The report in question is embedded below.

Update: The following statement from CenturyLink spokesperson Meg Andrews was provided to GeekWire via email:

While CenturyLink did not cause the undersea fiber cable outage, our crews worked around the clock and dedicated more than 1,000 hours to repair San Juan Islands’ service. During the outage, we provided the Washington Utilities and Transportation Commission (WUTC) and other affected state agencies with daily reports, and we kept residents informed through town hall meetings, door-to-door visits as well as through social media updates. We also credited customers’ bills above and beyond the required guidelines. We fully cooperated with the state, using our own resources to help determine the cause and to reduce the likelihood of future outages.

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