BOISE, Idaho- CenturyLink says engineers have identified a problem that left customers across the country without internet service and expected to restore it within hours.
The company said Thursday night the problem involved a "network element" that was affecting services but didn't provide details.
The outages reported Thursday afternoon stretched from New York to California and even temporarily shut down phone services at the Idaho Department of Correction and knocked out 911 emergency call services in parts of western Washington state.
Most of the trouble appeared to be in the West.
Verizon says it had service interruptions in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and parts of Montana because of issues with CenturyLink, which Verizon said helps handle wireless network data traffic for several providers.
Neither company indicated how many customers were affected.
