May 26, 2016–The FCC today released the text of the report and order, further notice of proposed rulemaking (FNPRM), and order on reconsideration regarding network outage reporting rules that the Commissioner approved at its meeting earlier this week (TRDaily, May 25).  The FCC said comments on the FNPRM will be due 45 days after the date of its publication in the “Federal Register,” with reply comments due 60 days after the publication date.

In the documents released today in Public Safety docket 15-80, Engineering and Technology docket 04-35, and PS docket 11-82, the FCC said the report and order updates the agency’s Part 4 network outage reporting requirements to “update the reporting metric and threshold for communication disruptions impacting major transport facilities from a DS3-based to an OC3-based standard, and reduce the reporting window for simplex events (transmission line disruptions) from five days to four days;  [and] update the reporting of wireless outages by adopting a standardized method to calculate the number of users ‘potentially affected’ in an outage, and clarify that, when an outage affects only some 911 calling centers, or public safety answering points (PSAPs), served by a mobile switching center, wireless providers may utilize their own identifiable scheme to allocate the number of potentially affected users so long as the allocation reflects the relative size of the affected PSAP(s).”

The order also finds “that a ‘loss of  communications’ to a PSAP occurs when there is a network malfunction or higher-level issue that significantly degrades or prevents 911 calls from being completed to PSAPs, including when 80 percent or more of a provider’s trunks serving a PSAP become disabled.”

The Commission also decided to “update the rules regarding reporting of outages affecting ‘special offices and facilities’ by (i) extending the reporting obligation to high-level enrollees in the Telecommunications Service Priority program, (ii) eliminating outdated and non-applicable rules, (iii) narrowing the types of airports that are considered ’special offices and facilities,’ and (iv) limiting outage reporting from airports to critical communications only.”

In addition, it concluded “that direct access to NORS [Network Outage Reporting System] by our state and federal partners is in the public interest, but determine[d] that further consideration is warranted to ensure that the process includes adequate safeguards to maintain the security and confidentiality of sensitive information, and accordingly direct the Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau (Bureau) to study these issues and develop recommendations for the successful implementation of our information sharing proposals.”

The FNPRM seeks comment on “a proposal to update part 4 [of the agency’s rules] to address broadband network disruptions, including packet-based disruptions based on network performance degradation; proposed changes to the rules governing interconnected Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) outage reporting to (i) include disruptions based on network performance degradation, (ii) update our outage definition to address incidents involving specified network components; and (iii) modify the VoIP outage reporting process to make it consistent with other services; reporting of call failures in the radio access network and local access network, and on geography-based reporting of wireless outages in rural areas; and refining the covered critical communications at airports subject to part 4 reporting.”

The agency said the order on reconsideration “limits outage reporting for events affecting airports to outages that impact airport critical communications, and exempts satellite and terrestrial wireless carriers from reporting outages affecting all ‘special offices and facilities,’ extending the exemption previously limited to airports.” – John Curran, john.curran@wolterskluwer.com

Courtesy TRDaily

May 26, 2016–The FCC has decided to grant some flexibility to winning bidders in its Connect America Fund Phase II auction to serve less than 100% of funded locations if they refund support for the unserved locations, to designate bidders qualified for the CAF Phase II auction as automatically qualified for the subsequent Remote Area Fund auction, and to seek input on a variety of means by which it could ensure that states for which price cap carriers declined CAF Phase II funding could be made substantially whole. Comments on the further notice of proposed rulemaking adopted yesterday along with a report and order will be due 30 days after publication in the “Federal Register,” and reply comments will be due 15 days later, according to the text of the 164-page item released today in Wireline Competition dockets 10-90, 14-58, and 14-259.

As previously reported, the order establishes a framework for the CAF Phase II auction to allocate $215 million in annual high-cost support, for a total of roughly $2 billion over 10 years, and designates four technology-neutral service tiers from which providers can choose when bidding for support. The four service tiers adopted in the order are (1) a minimum performance tier of 10 megabits per second downstream and 1 Mbps upstream, with at least 150 gigabytes of data usage per month included; (2) a baseline performance tier of 25 Mbps/3 Mbps, with a minimum usage allowance of the higher of 150 GB per month or the average usage of a majority of fixed broadband customers nationwide according to Measuring Broadband America data; (3) an above-baseline performance tier of 100 Mbps/20 Mbps, with an unlimited monthly data allowance; and (4) a gigabit performance tier, with 1 Gbps/500 Mbps and an unlimited monthly data allowance. Continue reading →

May 26, 2016–FCC Commissioners today approved a report and order that the agency said makes “targeted refinements” to current communications network outage reporting requirements, as well as a further notice of proposed rulemaking seeking comment on proposals to change the reporting requirements to cover broadband service disruptions, establish reporting requirements for interconnected voice-over-Internet-protocol (VoIP) providers, and change reporting requirements to better reflect wireless service outages in rural areas.

The text of the report and order, further notice of proposed rulemaking (FNPRM), and order on reconsideration in Public Safety docket 15-80, Engineering and Technology docket 04-35, and PS docket 11-82 were not available at TRDaily’s news deadline. The order updates the FCC’s part 4 rules.

FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler and Commissioners Mignon L. Clyburn and Jessica Rosenworcel  voted for the items.  Commissioners Ajit Pai and Mike O’Rielly concurred in part and dissented in part. In a blog posting earlier this month (TRDaily, May 18), Chairman Wheeler noted that “communications providers currently report 911 outages that occur on legacy networks, but not for next-generation 911 over IP networks,” and said the item that he had circulated for a vote at today’s meeting “would refine our network outage reporting requirements and propose common-sense updates to keep pace with technological change.”  Last year, the FCC adopted an NPRM in the proceeding that proposed requiring providers to report any outages that “significantly” degrade or prevent the completion of 911 calls to public safety answering points (PSAPs), not just total outages (TRDaily, March 30, 2015). It also proposed allowing states to access outage information covering their states.

At today’s FCC meeting, David Simpson, chief of the agency’s Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau, said that the increased reliance on broadband communications by consumers, businesses, and public safety agencies makes it “critical” that network outage reporting requirements change to meet that reality, and that the new requirements will help promote greater network reliability and resilience. Continue reading →