Woman on reservation goes 6 months with no phone service; committee discusses 

RIVERTON — As of late May, an elderly woman who lives at the end of North Fork Road had been without landline phone service for months. 

There isn’t reliable cellphone service at her home; although Wi-Fi calling is supported by many cellphone carriers, it requires a good, stable internet connection. 

That means, Chairman Sen. Cale Case, R-Lander, told the Select Committee on Tribal Relations at its May meeting, that in case of an emergency she has not had a reliable way to call 911 for more than six months. 

“Your company continued to bill both [Saint David’s Episcopal Church] and her location, and finally you sent her a disconnect notice,” Case told a CenturyLink representative. “From January 6 till Tuesday [May 20], she had no contact other than a disconnect notice.”

Last year, the Wyoming State Legislature’s Joint Corporations, Elections, and Political Subdivisions heard testimony about 911 outages that have troubled emergency service communications around the state. 

But this issue is specific to the Wind River Reservation. 

The woman Case described is one of approximately 15 CenturyLink customers who had been without service since sometime in November. 

Tim Kunkelman, a public policy director at Lumen, CenturyLink’s parent company, said the outages started when a “competitive provider” was doing work of its own; Wind River Internet, the competitor in question, showed up with a thick binder full of its requests to locate utilities, some of which had gone unfulfilled for weeks, it countered. 

CenturyLink has been the major provider of telecommunications services to the Wind River Reservation for years; Northern Arapaho Business Council CoChairwoman Kimberly Whiteman Harjo alleged that CenturyLink and the Bureau of Indian Affairs had an agreement in place for years without the input of the tribes. 

When he and committee Chairman Rep. Ivan Posey, D-Fort Washakie, served on the business council, it had an analysis of the reservation’s communication systems done

explained Mike Lawson, director of CenturyLink’s Advanced Technology Systems. 

“Within the boundaries of the reservation, we were 20 years to 25 behind anybody else outside the reservation,” Lawson noted. 

Communication systems are important for everything from public safety to education, and Wind River Internet was born as an attempt to provide updated, reliable telecommunications to the reservation. 

At this point, CenturyLink is considered a competitive carrier, while Wind River Internet is an Incumbent Local Exchange Carrier on the reservation. That means that Wind River Internet is held to certain regulatory standards that don’t apply to CenturyLink. 

Kunkelman explained that although the topic was listed on the committee agenda as 911 outages, 911 systems had not been directly impacted by the downed lines. He told the committee that Lumen/ CenturyLink had now rectified the bills received by the customers without service.

 “Rest assured, none of those folks are being charged for those services,” he remarked. 

Kunkelman also emphasized that internet connections had not been impacted by the outage and CenturyLink had continued to provide internet services to those customers who wanted it (noting that at least one impacted customer had chosen to opt out of CenturyLink internet). 

“We’ve at least been able to ensure that folks have had connectivity this whole time” and were able to call 911 using Wi-Fi calling, he explained. 

Wi-Fi calling may be more unreliable than Kunkelman thinks, Case pushed back. 

The CenturyLink lines, which Case described as “very old” and Kunkelman noted are made of copper, were damaged in multiple places, Kunkelman testified; although Lumen initially intended to attempt to repair them, it encountered complications. 

Instead, it’s changed course to helping impacted customers switch over to a different provider. They’re more than just old, according to Wind River Internet’s Patrick Adam Lawson. 

There are many places where old lines were left in the ground, running parallel to the replacement line, and sometimes the wrong line will be flagged as the current utility, he told the committee. 

And, added Mike Lawson, there are places on the reservation where CenturyLink’s lines aren’t buried at all, but draped across fences alongside the barbed wire. 

For the question of how this happened, Kunkelman said, CenturyLink received location requests for most of the areas where Wind River Internet was working; there was maybe one area where one was not received, he said.

“We believe that the locates were correct and maybe care wasn’t taken,” Kunkelman explained. 

For its part, said One-Call of Wyoming’s Jan Warren, One-Call is lacking a complete, updated facilities map from Wind River Internet. One-Call location requests are supposed to be fulfilled within a matter of days – and utilities should notify the requester when one may take longer for some reason. 

Wind River Internet has filed all of its paperwork, representatives pushed back, including locate requests. When it’s been in the wrong in the past, Adam Lawson added, it’s been willing to pay accordingly and take responsibility.

 “There’s no reason why they shouldn’t have our records,” Mike Lawson said. 

Additionally, due to the age and nature of CenturyLink’s system, there’s no notification system when a hit occurs – and those who are digging don’t necessarily know that they’ve hit the line. The first sign of a problem comes when someone picks up a phone to try to make a call and doesn’t hear a dial tone, Adam Lawson observed. 

“We [have] dilapidated infrastructure from CenturyLink – they don’t even know where the infrastructure is at,” Northern Arapaho Business Council Chairman Keenan Groesbeck remarked.

On top of that, Mike Lawson and Wind River Internet’s Tim O’Neal told the committee, CenturyLink contracts out its locate requests to a third party contractor. 

That’s a system that works for much of the state – but the reservation requires that those doing business on the reservation get a business license through the Eastern Shoshone and Northern Arapaho Tribal Employment Rights Office. 

CenturyLink’s contractor repeatedly has told them that it doesn’t have such a license, significantly delaying the process; by contrast, O’Neal pointed out, gas line companies usually have someone out to locate their infrastructure within a matter of hours. 

For one locate request put in by Wind River Internet on October 4, Mike Lawson said, it took until October 29 for it to be finalized. 

CenturyLink is usually good about working with the Wyoming Public Service Commission, even though it isn’t required to as a competitive utility, PSC Chief Counsel John Burbridge told the committee. 

Everyone needs to commit to the idea that the One-Call system is important, Case commented. 

Groesbeck and other tribal and Wind River Internet representatives testifying at that time agreed.

“So we’re going to do better, everybody – including you, Mr. Kunkelman,” Case concluded. 

A dedicated call line has been established for those experiencing issues related to these outages, Kunkelman noted. Those who are having trouble with CenturyLink service on the Wind River Reservation should call 1-800- 355-6336.

This story was published on June 14, 2025.