On June 19, 2025, thousands of internet users across the U.S. were affected by a significant outage that was linked to multiple internet service providers—CenturyLink, Quantum Fiber, and Brightspeed.
The reports started to come in during the morning and were the product of customers experiencing internet blackouts, slow connections, and dropped connections. According to outage trackers like DownDetector, we were able to see that at the peak, the outage affected well over 45,000 users.
The most affected areas were Colorado, California, and portions of the Pacific Northwest. Of the affected, more than 35,000 CenturyLink users, 17,000 Quantum Fiber subscribers, and roughly 3,000 Brightspeed customers reported connection issues.
The issue was ultimately determined to be a network routing error which caused a disruption in DNS (Domain Name System) users. DNS is crucial in linking and connecting to websites or services; when it fails the end user is often left unable to successfully use the most basic functions of the internet.
Many customers took to social media to air their frustrations, especially customers who were dependent on the internet to continue their remote work, video conferencing, and home security.
There were reports that some areas had their service restored after a few hours; regardless, there should be cause for concern surrounding the reliability of large ISPs during an event of technical failure.
đź”´ BREAKING NEWS | CenturyLink, Brightspeed, Google, Verizon, COX Xfinity are suffering outages... Cyberattack? https://t.co/ZrmfWJFL4f pic.twitter.com/7WlC2dUkmZ
— Faith Defender (@faithdefender) June 19, 2025
What Caused the Outage and What You Can Do
The reason for the service outage was verified as a routing issue in the network that interrupted DNS services. DNS is like the phonebook of the internet; when DNS is down, your device can't find the websites or servers it needs to find.
So even though some users may have had a signal, they were unable to access most websites, apps, and streaming services. This affected homes, businesses, schools, and any user utilizing connected smart devices.
In some areas like West Seattle, CenturyLink technicians reacted swiftly and restored service after about two hours. But when the failure occurred users utilized social platforms like Reddit and X (formerly Twitter) to create temporary workarounds.
One of the more effective suggestions was changing the DNS settings manually to run off of a public server like Google DNS (8.8.8.8) or Cloudflare DNS (1.1.1.1). These instructions gave some users access to the internet while they waited for an official resolution.
As such, for future outages, customers should:
Use the My CenturyLink app or provider portal to check real-time outage maps
Attempt to switch to a trusted third-party DNS server
Restart your modem/router to refresh your connection
Follow up on service updates through the company's website or social
