Frontier blames third-party vendor for 911 outage

Tensions continue to run high after Wednesday's 911 outage fiasco.

Although all services have been restored at area dispatch centers, questions continue to surface, but some may never be answered.

During the 911 outages, people were told to call alternate numbers. But according to law enforcement agencies, there's no real way to tell if any emergencies were missed.

"Believe me when I say that we hope that no one out there that needed assistance couldn't get through," said Brad Herron, general manager for the Hillsborough County Sheriff Office's communication Bureau.

Hillsborough County Commissioner Stacy White is blasting Frontier Communications for the outages.

“For this system to be down, for so long, and with very little explanation – if any – amazes me," said White in a written release.

White is also calling for an investigation and wants Frontier to reimburse each agency that had to use extra resources during the outages.

Frontier says it plans to talk to county officials soon.

"We feel that we were responsive," said Bob Elek, spokesman for Frontier.

Frontier says a third party, Century Link, caused the outage. It explains that its 911 service consists of two signals -- the main signal and the backup.

According to Frontier, the third party was doing maintenance work and combined both signals into one cable, which in turn caused the outage.

To prevent this from happening again, Frontier says it's separating both signals, each handled by separate carriers.

One of those will continue to be Century Link.