Maine utility regulators are weighing whether to penalize a telephone carrier that routed 911 calls to an administrative line for nearly two years, potentially limiting callers’ ability to reach dispatchers during an emergency.

The Public Utilities Commission opened an investigation into the Union River Telephone Company last week after the state emergency communications bureau learned of the issue.

The company acknowledged it directed some of its customers’ 911 calls to an administrative line at the Hancock County Regional Communications center from September 2023 to August of this year. In a letter to the bureau, telephone company officials said they did that to ensure calls went through while they were addressing a slew of technical issues, adding that they did not realize it violated the bureau’s rules.

“It’s unclear at this time if calls went unanswered or if responses were delayed, but 911 calls have priority over other calls coming into the emergency communications center,” said Susan Faloon, spokesperson for the Public Utilities Commission, which oversees the bureau and regulates telecommunications in the state.

Union River serves about 1,100 residential customers in the Hancock County towns of Otis and Aurora, as well as Beddington in Washington County, according to case filings and the company’s 2024 annual report.

Federal regulations require phone companies to provide the systems necessary for their customers to access 911. For landlines, that includes the ability to convey information about where 911 calls are made from, such as a street address and specifics like room or floor numbers.

Emergency calls routed through the administrative number would “not have (had) the benefit of the location capabilities of 911 calls so if a caller could not communicate their location, it may have resulted in a delayed response,” Faloon said.

The Public Utilities Commission opened an investigation Oct. 7 to determine whether a number of the state’s 911 rules were violated, including those related to proper call routing and the timely notification of problems. Depending on the outcome, it could fine the telephone company up to $1,000 per day for each violation — potentially totaling hundreds of thousands of dollars — and revoke its license to operate in Maine.

Direct Communications, an Idaho-based internet services provider, purchased Union River late last year. KaLee Ralphs, a spokesperson for the company, said it plans to cooperate with the commission and noted that the issue began before it purchased Union River.

“We are awaiting further determination from the Commission on how it wishes to proceed regarding its investigation, and therefore we do not think it is appropriate to comment further at this time,” Ralphs said in a written statement.

WHAT HAPPENED?

Wired phone lines are grouped into bundles of circuits called “trunks,” which share equipment and more efficiently route large quantities of data across long distances.

The emergency communication bureau’s rules require that 911 networks operate on trunks that are not shared with other traffic. The bureau also requires that phone carriers have at least two trunks for 911 calls, meaning one should be available if the other goes offline.

Union River’s 911 calls were supposed to be routed through trunks to Portland and Lewiston, but technical issues prompted the company to disable both lines on Sept. 6, 2023, Vice President of Technology Jacob Wood wrote in a letter to the bureau last month.

It is unclear when the Lewiston path failed, but Union River workers realized that no calls were going over that line while troubleshooting problems with the Portland line in September 2023, according to the letter.

With both trunks down, the company worked with communications center staff, devising a plan to route its 911 calls to a 10-digit number at the center, “as an emergency fallback” while they resolved the issues, Wood wrote.

Robert Conary, the communication center’s executive director, said the telephone company told his staff that calls on the Portland trunk were only transmitting audio one way, meaning dispatchers could hear but not speak to callers.

Conary said he could not recall the full details of that conversation, but he understood the workaround to be a short-term solution, good for “a couple days” while the company diagnosed the issue. He checked in with Union River later that month, inquiring about whether proper routings had been restored.

“I was told that they could check and get back to me, and then I never heard another word,” Conary said. Hearing no further updates, Conary assumed the matter was resolved, he said.

But on July 21 of this year, he heard from a dispatcher that one emergency caller hit a phone-tree after dialing 911, Conary said. He reported the incident to the emergency communications bureau the next day. Faloon declined to confirm when the bureau was notified, citing the ongoing investigation.

Calls were routed that way until Aug. 1 of this year, when the company “discovered (the Portland trunk) was fixed” after being unable to find a solution itself, Wood wrote. Technicians then found and corrected the problem with the Lewiston trunk one week later, restoring regular service.

Emergency calls are now being routed properly, Wood wrote.

“That’s quite a long time to be troubleshooting something, so I don’t know where the ball got dropped,” Conary said.

FAILURE TO REPORT

Phone carriers are required to report any defective 911 circuits to the bureau within 30 minutes of discovering them and make repairs “promptly,” according to the bureau’s rules.

It’s not clear when the bureau first heard about the issue with Union River’s lines, but it sent an initial letter inquiring about the disruption on Aug. 27 — just under two years after the lines were disabled and weeks after they were finally restored.

Union River officials “acted on the assumption that the (communication center’s) involvement constituted adequate notification,” so they did not inform the bureau directly, Wood wrote.

The company is conducting an internal review of the incident and plans to implement new safeguards to avoid a repeat problem, Wood wrote in the letter.

Conary said he was not aware of incidents in which callers were unable to reach a dispatcher, and the overall volume of calls did not appear to change during that period. He said the company handles only a handful of 911 calls each month but did not provide specific figures.

The utilities commission has scheduled an initial case conference for Oct. 23.