— from State Senator Kevin Ranker —
The state Utilities and Transportation Commission (UTC) announced today, November 18, that it will open an investigation into the CenturyLink voice and data service outage that affected the San Juan Islands for several days.
The UTC’s formal recognition of this crisis and the serious impacts to the people of the San Juan Islands is an important step in making sure this does not happen again.
“I am extremely pleased that the Utilities and Transportation Commission will do a formal investigation of the CenturyLink outage, as it will allow us to understand exactly the cause and response to this crisis,” Senator Kevin Ranker said.
“We recognize this outage caused serious disruption and inconvenience to the people of the San Juan Islands,” said David Danner, UTC Chairman. “Our investigation will look into the cause of the outage, the company’s emergency preparedness and response, restoration efforts, and communication with the public.”
What would it cost to run a cable out from Anacortes to the Islands that would plug into the current phone system and deliver the high speed internet everyone is already paying for?
OPALCO has such a cable for their fiber network, running from the mainland and throughout the islands.
Can and would OPALCO plug the fiber cable into the telephone line system, that reaches almost everyone already?