Courtesy: TR Daily
The FCC plans to vote at its April 22 meeting on a draft third notice of proposed rulemaking that would propose harmonizing requirements for reporting network outages that affect 911 service and thus improving public safety.
The NPRM proposes harmonizing “the time-frame, means, and frequency of notification from originating and covered 911 service providers to PSAPs [public safety answering points] about network disruptions. This includes requiring originating service providers to notify, via telephone and in writing through electronic means, potentially affected 911 facilities of an outage no later than 30 minutes of discovering the outage. Also, as additional information becomes available, service providers would be required to communicate such information no later than two hours after the initial notification,” the FCC said in a fact sheet released with the draft NPRM today.
The draft item would also propose standardizing “the type of information conveyed to PSAPs, which includes ‘all available material information,’ such as name of the service provider(s) offering the notification and/or experiencing the outage, date and time when the incident began, communications services affected, and potential impact on PSAPs.”
Finally, it would propose ensuring “that originating and covered 911 service providers maintain accurate PSAP contact information”; establishing “consumer notification procedures for 911 unavailability, such as service providers notifying customers of 911 outages within 60 minutes of determining the outage by providing information on their websites and Internet-related applications.” —Lynn Stanton, lynn.stanton@wolterskuwer.com
FederalNews FCC PublicSafety