NORFOLK, Neb. -- Nebraska residents are expressing growing concerns as 9-1-1 outages within the Lumens network have plagued the state over the past 14 to 16 months. In response, the Nebraska Public Service Commission has provided an update on the ongoing investigations and measures being implemented to prevent future disruptions.

"Through our investigation hearings, we found that lumens performance was not acceptable at all to Nebraska's 9-1-1 system," Eric Kamler said, Nebraska's Public Service Commissioner of District 4. "The carrier Lumen, they failed to meet the level of service provided within our state contract and they guaranteed the commission, and we expect it to work 99.99% of the time. If Lumen can't provide the service that Nebraskans expect and that we expect from the Public Service Commission standpoint, we will find a provider that does.

Lumen has provided us assurances that it's made substantial improvements to its network, but we're going to continue to double check that and triple check that. The next steps here, we've directed our 9-1-1 department to examine the 9-1-1 system, and we'll identify any potential changes, but the outages were unacceptable. There needed to be better redundancy. And as Nebraskans, we definitely expect better."

"Lumen has a five year contract but if things continue, they will be looking to do third party testing," the Nebraska Public Service Commission also said. "When people pick up the phone and they have an emergency, they expect 9-1-1 to work, and we expect it to work as well."