View Full Version : Centurylink Internet Outage 10/1/21
theGinsue
10-02-2021, 08:13
Somewhere around 6:30PM last night until near 11:30PM my Centurylink Internet was out. I understand it was a HUGE outage from Greeley down to Trinidad.
While I was told it was a Centurylink outage, I was also unable to access the internet with my Verizon phone.
Was anyone else here effected?
From when I looked last night it was a tri state outage- Colorado, Wyoming and Texas. Century, Comcast and XFINITY. Think Century was hit worse. Must be those darn .gov sunspots.
Or the lack of manpower due to dismissing unvaxed employees?
Nah, just aliens.
Probably a fiber cable cut.
Little Dutch
10-02-2021, 10:58
I'm on fiber in the springs. Mine went out about the same time. Must have been a huge outage.
And it is out again. Probably going to be sporadic for a while till it can be resolved.
Sent from my SM-A125U using Tapatalk
I use Centurylink and was online last night during that time. No problems.
ChadAmberg
10-02-2021, 21:25
Yeah, I have fiber through Centurylink and was affected last night. There was a brief blip after lunch time for a couple minutes then it was fine again, until the big outage hit us too.
That sucked, my tenant is working on her masters and was doing school work when it went down.
Xfinity. Zero issues yesterday or today.
APEXgunparts
10-03-2021, 02:39
It was definitely out here in Colorado Springs and the surrounding areas.
I looked at my MODEM status screen and it showed the broadband connection up, data passing both ways and unable to connect to the ISP.
Seems like you never really find out the "why" of these events.
Richard
I was online most of the time without issues - however; I did notice that access to my e-mail server was broken.
Linkless
10-03-2021, 07:27
I had a brief outage at around 6:30, but it lasted less than 5 mintues and has been fine since. I'm on centurylink but not fiber.
My DSL-based friend out in Black Forest was out too. I got the call because I reworked his internet and Wi-Fi setup about a year ago. Because I touched it, I own it. :)
O2
callerys
10-03-2021, 13:32
We have a bunch of connections to facilities in Eastern Colorado. There is always a fiber cut every other month with CLINK/Lumen in this same area.
2021-10-02 07:42:46 GMT - Technicians are working to remove the remaining water from the manhole.
2021-10-02 06:57:36 GMT - Field Operations located the damaged cables, a 216-count and a 24-count cable that were severed when the manhole lid dropped. Field personnel are working to pump the remaining water from the manhole to begin repairs.
2021-10-02 06:04:50 GMT - Field Operations has located the physical damage and advised the fiber was damaged during a mowing operation. The manhole lid was caught by the mover causing the lid to drop to the bottom damaging the fiber. Technicians are pumping 5 feet of water from the manhole before field personnel can begin repair efforts.
2021-10-02 05:52:11 GMT - Field Operations continues in efforts to locate the physical damage to the cable. Technicians are accessing a manhole approximately 2,800 feet from the testing location to perform additional testing to assist in location of the fiber fault.
2021-10-02 05:37:56 GMT - Field Operations continues in testing to locate the physical damage to the fiber cable.
2021-10-02 04:51:56 GMT - Light level measurements indicate a fault in the fiber 2,847 feet from the Stratmoor, CO site. Per Circuit diagrams a 144-count cable has been damaged and technicians are working to verify if additional damage has been done to additional cables.
2021-10-02 04:11:26 GMT - Field Operations has determined a fiber cut is the cause of the interruption to services. The fiber is cut 6.3 miles from the Colorado Springs site toward the Stratmoor site. Technicians are traveling to the secondary site to perform additional testing.
ChickNorris
10-03-2021, 14:58
Bummer, mine is out today too.
FromMyColdDeadHand
10-03-2021, 22:40
Xfinity has been hooorible the last few months. TV, internet, and internet phone down for hours at a time. the last outage fried my cable box and I had to replace it. Pure crap.
babarsac
10-04-2021, 08:55
We have a bunch of connections to facilities in Eastern Colorado. There is always a fiber cut every other month with CLINK/Lumen in this same area.
2021-10-02 07:42:46 GMT - Technicians are working to remove the remaining water from the manhole.
2021-10-02 06:57:36 GMT - Field Operations located the damaged cables, a 216-count and a 24-count cable that were severed when the manhole lid dropped. Field personnel are working to pump the remaining water from the manhole to begin repairs.
2021-10-02 06:04:50 GMT - Field Operations has located the physical damage and advised the fiber was damaged during a mowing operation. The manhole lid was caught by the mover causing the lid to drop to the bottom damaging the fiber. Technicians are pumping 5 feet of water from the manhole before field personnel can begin repair efforts.
2021-10-02 05:52:11 GMT - Field Operations continues in efforts to locate the physical damage to the cable. Technicians are accessing a manhole approximately 2,800 feet from the testing location to perform additional testing to assist in location of the fiber fault.
2021-10-02 05:37:56 GMT - Field Operations continues in testing to locate the physical damage to the fiber cable.
2021-10-02 04:51:56 GMT - Light level measurements indicate a fault in the fiber 2,847 feet from the Stratmoor, CO site. Per Circuit diagrams a 144-count cable has been damaged and technicians are working to verify if additional damage has been done to additional cables.
2021-10-02 04:11:26 GMT - Field Operations has determined a fiber cut is the cause of the interruption to services. The fiber is cut 6.3 miles from the Colorado Springs site toward the Stratmoor site. Technicians are traveling to the secondary site to perform additional testing.
Starting on Saturday we lost connectivity to our hosting facility in the Springs. Finally came back online last night just in time.
ChickNorris
10-04-2021, 10:49
Looks like my outage is coincidence. Ont laser failure probably, since I can recieve & not send. I'll know more later today as a tech is coming by with a new ont box. Frustrating that I had to argue with India that it wasn't my router for about an hour though & was even more annoyed to find out CL doesn't have local storefronts anymore for replacement routers had I needed one. Once I had a new tech put on my case, the additional hour long call went well. Fingers crossed.
Grant H.
10-04-2021, 11:14
CenturyStink, Lumen, whatever the hell they call themselves this week, is an unmitigated disaster.
There was some hope when they bought Level3 that things could be better, but of course not.
They own a LOT of fiber in this region (really a lot of the US) and they provide to a LOT of the ISP's that most people are familiar with. When they have issues, lots of folks have issues. And they have issues frequently.
Dealing with them from a Big-Data-Business customer standpoint is infuriating...
DenverGP
10-04-2021, 12:27
Xfinity customer in littleton area here, no internet issues at all.
I'm going to be moving from colorado down to texas, and the area I'm looking at doesn't seem to be served by xfinity/comcast. I'm actually very sad, because although the price is high, my internet service has been almost perfect for the past 4 years with xfinity. Before that I had centurylink DSL and it had constant outages with very little help from support.
ChickNorris
10-04-2021, 14:05
Looks like my outage is coincidence. Ont laser failure probably, since I can recieve & not send. I'll know more later today as a tech is coming by with a new ont box. Frustrating that I had to argue with India that it wasn't my router for about an hour though & was even more annoyed to find out CL doesn't have local storefronts anymore for replacement routers had I needed one. Once I had a new tech put on my case, the additional hour long call went well. Fingers crossed.
Now they said everything inside is gtg but they believe squirrels damaged the outside line. As if I didn't already dislike squirrels, I have a new reason. Blame the squirrels.
That crew will be here in an hour. Im actually pretty happy with how quickly they're handling the service calls.
Xfinity customer in littleton area here, no internet issues at all.
I'm going to be moving from colorado down to texas, and the area I'm looking at doesn't seem to be served by xfinity/comcast. I'm actually very sad, because although the price is high, my internet service has been almost perfect for the past 4 years with xfinity. Before that I had centurylink DSL and it had constant outages with very little help from support.
Where you looking?
Comcast only does Houston metro down to Galveston-ish
DenverGP
10-04-2021, 14:42
Where you looking?
Comcast only does Houston metro down to Galveston-ish
i'll be in the dallas metro area (near McKinney)
Now they said everything inside is gtg but they believe squirrels damaged the outside line. As if I didn't already dislike squirrels, I have a new reason.
That crew will be here in an hour. Im actually pretty happy with how quickly they're handling the service calls.
Somewhat off topic, but the joy of wiring made after 2010. Insulation often includes soy and is edible.
So for those people with squirrel problems, remember... buy used vehicles, 2009 or earlier. Replacement wiring, also soy.
https://www.dictionary.com/e/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/the-more-you-know-300x300.jpg
Grant H.
10-04-2021, 14:53
Somewhat off topic, but the joy of wiring made after 2010. Insulation often includes soy and is edible.
So for those people with squirrel problems, remember... buy used vehicles, 2009 or earlier. Replacement wiring, also soy.
https://www.dictionary.com/e/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/the-more-you-know-300x300.jpg
Or just wire it yourself with known good silicone/non-soy wire.
i'll be in the dallas metro area (near McKinney)
Drove through there today. Discovered a Scheels right down the road.
I'm currently hanging out in Sherman. The area around McKinney is blowing up.
Drove through there today. Discovered a Scheels right down the road.
I'm currently hanging out in Sherman. The area around McKinney is blowing up.
What are your thoughts on the Sherman area? We have researched a few properties around there, but haven't made a physical visit yet.
What are your thoughts on the Sherman area? We have researched a few properties around there, but haven't made a physical visit yet.
For me, it's too close to family. (I have a 3hr drive rule)
Many of the roads out here have been under construction for a while, so it's a bit of a shitshow, but no more than other areas. A lot of the population out here seems to be older, so there are some slow cars on the road.
Geographically, it's pretty cool. Proximity to Lake Texoma and the DFW metro is a plus. They have these big plants called trees everywhere, kinda nice.
As with many smaller cities in Texas, religion is everywhere.
BPS Outfitters between Sherman and Denison is pretty legit. Silencershop kiosk, good people, and they make custom holsters in store.
Well, I work for CenturyLink/Lumen, in the Network Operations Center (NOC), and we deal with fiber cuts daily, worldwide. Yes, squirrels love to chew up aerial cables. Rednecks like to shoot them, and the splice cans, too. Drunks also seem to have an affinity for crashing into poles. Then there's storms......Just some of the aerial cable woes.
The biggest underground cable enemy is the underground horizontal boring machines installing new ducts & cables. Then there's highway and RR construction - digging holes, boring holes for light pole footings, driving steel pilings, bridge repairs/rebuilds, flooding, landslides, wildfires, it goes on and on. Oh, farmers and their backhoes too.
What most people don't know is that there's MANY companies that have fiber in the ground and in the air, and there's a huge amount of fiber leasing amongst the various carriers. We have cable between A and Z, and you don't? Lease fibers from us, and run your traffic over them as you wish. It's VERY common.
So, your woes with Lumen, or any other carrier, might be on their cable, with their responsibility to fix it - or it might not. The telecom world is very complex. I can't WAIT to retire.....
Drove through there today. Discovered a Scheels right down the road.
I'm currently hanging out in Sherman. The area around McKinney is blowing up.
How long will you be there? Coming back home through Houston maybe as soon as the end of this week.
ChickNorris
10-04-2021, 17:38
Resolved. Had I listened to the first phone guy... it would've taken days if not a week. Glad that wasn't the way of it & appreciate the folks who work more than the basic script.
How long will you be there? Coming back home through Houston maybe as soon as the end of this week.
Heading back Thursday. Probably 287 through Amarillo to Limon
We'll just miss each other.
Vic Tory
12-08-2021, 16:34
I know I'm bumping this thread. If the Mods think this should be a separate topic ... you know what to do.
______________
I don't understand all the behind-the-scenes stuff, but due to some kinds of grants made available some of our more rural areas are gaining broadband options. Force Broadband, Rise, Stratus IQ, MVEA each has some grant areas and are actively laying fiber.
CenturyLink states we get "High Speed." The Speed Check shows (a whopping) 6.91mps download. That's not high speed.
Force Broadband just trenched through our easement last week. The trenching contractors are nice guys who work quickly and neatly.
I spoke with Force. We should have 300mps service before Christmas 2021(!). WA-HOO!!!
Force offers three speeds. 100, 300 and 1,000mps. (The salesman said people who get 1,000 just do it for bragging rights; we don't need anything faster than 300mps.) We intend to give DirecTV and CL the boot. We should be able to use a streaming service for TV at 300mps. Faster and more economical seems good for me. I could not stream with CenturyLink's crummy service....
I'll be 350 ft from the box -- even though the line runs 40 ft from my house. "No. You cannot just connect at the 40 ft part!"
I keep hearing Carly Simon singing "Anticipation" in my head....
They'll put terminations into a vault ot pedestal, then run the line to your house.
My fiber originates on the other side of a state highway. To get the drop to my house, they had to bore under the highway, then trench through a portion of my pasture.
With fiber, drop length isn't as crucial as it is with copper
Vic Tory
12-08-2021, 18:02
00tec, that's encouraging. Thanks!
"Vault" is the word Force kept using. I keep forgetting that term.
Can't wait...!
whitewalrus
12-08-2021, 18:41
I know I'm bumping this thread. If the Mods think this should be a separate topic ... you know what to do.
______________
I don't understand all the behind-the-scenes stuff, but due to some kinds of grants made available some of our more rural areas are gaining broadband options. Force Broadband, Rise, Stratus IQ, MVEA each has some grant areas and are actively laying fiber.
CenturyLink states we get "High Speed." The Speed Check shows (a whopping) 6.91mps download. That's not high speed.
Force Broadband just trenched through our easement last week. The trenching contractors are nice guys who work quickly and neatly.
I spoke with Force. We should have 300mps service before Christmas 2021(!). WA-HOO!!!
Force offers three speeds. 100, 300 and 1,000mps. (The salesman said people who get 1,000 just do it for bragging rights; we don't need anything faster than 300mps.) We intend to give DirecTV and CL the boot. We should be able to use a streaming service for TV at 300mps. Faster and more economical seems good for me. I could not stream with CenturyLink's crummy service....
I'll be 350 ft from the box -- even though the line runs 40 ft from my house. "No. You cannot just connect at the 40 ft part!"
I keep hearing Carly Simon singing "Anticipation" in my head....
On Centurylink and soon MVEA will have their own fiber to my house. Cannot wait. Centurylink hasn?t bothered to upgrade any equipment on my block, yet the new developments just behind me and Peterson AFB getting all the good stuff. Glad to see they don?t care about me.
I think almost all the electric coops are running fiber now due to the grants that they had for it.
Even the 100 will be a huge upgrade for you.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
00tec, that's encouraging. Thanks!
"Vault" is the word Force kept using. I keep forgetting that term.
Can't wait...!
A vault is just a concrete box with a cover. Less likely to get run over than a pedestal (above ground box).
They'll come through as they're laying the fiber and drop in the vaults. Then once you sign up for service, they will run your drop (vault to home), then they will send the splice dude to light your drop, then you get final install (modem, etc)
I was an existing customer with our ISP, so they did mine pretty quick.
Coax has a max drop of 300ft or so, DSL lines run longer, but get slow over distance. Fiber don't care. I pay for 200 and get like 193 on my super shitty network equipment.
Take note of where they run your drop, if you hit that thing with a shovel, it will be several days before they get it working again. It won't kill you though, which is nice.
I would take this opportunity to run network cables throughout the house and centralize the network as well. I ran cat5 to all my rooms (multiple outlets), installed switches, etc. All is in a flush mount box under my basement stairs
Vic Tory
12-08-2021, 21:11
I would take this opportunity to run network cables throughout the house and centralize the network as well. I ran cats to all my rooms (multiple outlets), installed switches, etc. All is in a flush mount box under my basement stairsUmm....
Would you rephrase that? I don't understand what you posted, but I THINK it seems like a good tip. (I'm terrible at technical stuff.)
Umm....
Would you rephrase that? I don't understand what you posted, but I THINK it seems like a good tip. (I'm terrible at technical stuff.)
Run wired network connections to where you can in your house. If your modem is just behind your TV in the living room, it could be a nice time to make a change.
I dislike wifi connections, so I run hardwired connections whenever possible. Wifi blows these days with so many neighbors having their wifi, it causes interference and speed degradation.
I ran ethernet to every room in the house and put my modem in the basement. If I need additional wifi coverage in the house, I can just plug an access point (wifi radio) into any ethernet outlet in the house and expand the coverage.
A hardline cable runs from every outlet in every room to a box in the basement where the modem is.
If wifi works for you, then leave it as-is, but wired connections are more stable and not hurt by your neighbor's wifi like your wifi probably is now.
Edited to add: depending on how your home is finished/wired, fishing new wires into walls could be problematic. I'm a DIY guy, so I ran all my own, but it was easy for me because my basement is unfinished.
In other words,
Wifi bad
Hard network wiring is good
I like good
Vic Tory
12-09-2021, 01:26
Thanks. That was helpful.
My area is all 10, 15 and 20 acre lots. We don't have the WiFi problems city people have.
Thanks. That was helpful.
My area is all 10, 15 and 20 acre lots. We don't have the WiFi problems city people have.
I'm on 38.5 and can still (at times) see the neighbors wifi
My nearest house is about a 1/4 mile away.
If your wifi stuff gets about the same speed you pay for, stick with it. Something happens here where it doesn't work for me. Maybe a HAM guy in the area, air traffic, who knows.
I just have a general dislike for wireless (when possible). We only have 5 or so devices (out of 20+ that are wired here)
Vic Tory
12-14-2021, 15:15
If wifi works for you, then leave it as-is, but wired connections are more stable and not hurt by your neighbor's wifi like your wifi probably is now.
Edited to add: depending on how your home is finished/wired, fishing new wires into walls could be problematic. I'm a DIY guy, so I ran all my own, but it was easy for me because my basement is unfinished.I am definitely NOT a DIY guy.
Is there something different about a "broadband router?" Since we'll have fiber soon, I am trying to be sure our system will handle streaming TV ... as well as the normal phone / pad / laptop access to the WWW.
I am definitely NOT a DIY guy.
Is there something different about a "broadband router?" Since we'll have fiber soon, I am trying to be sure our system will handle streaming TV ... as well as the normal phone / pad / laptop access to the WWW.
Your ISP will give you a new router (one that has a fiber connection). If you want to run a better router off of that, there are many options
Aloha_Shooter
12-14-2021, 15:56
One thing you want to make sure of is that the router can handle the number of different devices that may be hooked off of it. When my family came to visit a couple Christmases ago, I upgraded my home router from one that was (barely) sufficient for my own needs (multiple devices but only 2 or maybe 3 at a time) to one that could handle 7 adults, each with their own device(s) plus my own home devices.
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