State regulators fined CenturyLink $2.85 million for the April 2014 statewide 911 outage.

The Washington Utilities and Transportation Commission approved a settlement between the company and commission staff following an investigation into the 911 outage that severely disrupted emergency services for six hours, according to a state media release on Monday. All 911 calls placed from landline, wireless, and Internet-based telephones were affected.

In the order, the commission stated:

“We agree with staff and the company that the $2,854,750 penalty appropriately reflects the nature and extent of the violations, as well as CenturyLink’s actions in the wake of the 911 outage that gave rise to those violations. We conclude that the settlement reasonably resolves the issues raised in the complaint…and the result is consistent with the public interest.”

State Attorney General Bob Ferguson had urged the commission to reject a proposed settlement and impose the maximum fine of $11.5 million for the six-hour outage.

“I’m deeply disappointed the UTC has accepted this inadequate settlement,” Ferguson said in a statement. “CenturyLink’s error denied 911 service to millions of Washingtonians.

“I strongly disagree with the UTC that this resolution is in the public interest.If this failure does not warrant a maximum penalty, I find it hard to imagine what circumstances would.

“Bottom line – CenturyLink is getting off with a slap on the wrist.”

The 911 outage, which occurred April 9-10, 2014, was caused by a preventable coding error that caused 911 calls to fail once a total of 40 million calls had been logged by third-party software used to provide 911 service. Compounding the error, the software’s back-up measures to reroute calls failed and it had insufficient warnings to alert technicians to the severity and extent of the problem.

As a result, CenturyLink was slow to recognize and respond to the critical outage. When 911 operators, concerned by an unusually low number of incoming calls, reported suspected problems to CenturyLink, they were initially told the company was not aware of any problem.