More than 22,000 CenturyTel customers in Mid-Missouri temporarily lost service late yesterday morning when six exchanges lost power.

CenturyTel spokeswoman Carrie Trent said yesterday that exchanges in Ashland, Centralia, Clark, Sturgeon, Hallsville and west Columbia were affected.

The service was lost at about 10:30 a.m. yesterday, Trent said, and affected landline, Internet and television services. Service was restored by about 12:30 p.m.

A failed controller card caused the outage, Trent said. The card transports data from Columbia to a remote site, she said.

Crews replaced the failed equipment to restore the service, Trent said. CenturyTel today was investigating why the equipment malfunctioned.

Advertisement

Get your brain and body in shape. Food Wednesdays, Pulse Sundays and Sports daily. 13 weeks of everyday delivery for as little as 29¢ a day. Get the Tribune. Get a lot.