CenturyLink subscribers report widespread internet outages

By Aaron Mamiit Published August 30, 2020

CenturyLink subscribers were affected by a widespread internet outage across the U.S. on Sunday morning.

Over 10,000 CenturyLink subscribers reported problems, according to DownDetector.com. Out of the reports, 96% were related to internet services, with the most reported locations including Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Orlando, Portland, and Miami.

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Amazon Web Services’ Giorgio Bonfiglio pointed out the CenturyLink service outage, which is apparently also affecting parts of Europe.

What's interesting is that according to evidence (see also https://t.co/MUTowvaQaj) traffic crosses their border (so they are probably advertising the internet to peers/customers), but then doesn't get out of the metro where it entered. Observed in Milan, London, Paris.

— Giorgio Bonfiglio (@g_bonfiglio) August 30, 2020

CenturyLink was able to correct the issue within a few hours, apologizing for the incident on Twitter:

We are able to confirm that all services impacted by today’s IP outage have been restored. We understand how important these services are to our customers, and we sincerely apologize for the impact this outage caused.

— CenturyLink (@CenturyLink) August 30, 2020

The outage also affected other internet services, including web infrastructure company Cloudflare which had a series of issues early on Sunday morning. The company said on Twitter that the issues were “caused by a third-party transit provider incident,” and it confirmed to The Verge that this referred to the CenturyLink outage.

Digital Trends has reached out to CenturyLink to request more details about the service outage.

Update August 30: Added information about CenturyLink service being restored and the related Cloudflare issue.

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