The FCC wants to move quickly to implement provisions to help prevent future 911 outages, David Furth, deputy chief of the Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau, said today at the Association of Public-Safety Communications-International’s Public Safety Broadband Summit in Washington.

Last November, the FCC adopted a notice of proposed rulemaking that proposed requiring 911 communications service providers to provide public notice of major outages and requiring potential new providers to certify their technical and operational qualifications (TRDaily, Nov. 21, 2014). The NPRM came after a “sunny-day” outage in April 2014 that affected more than 11 million people in seven states.

A myriad of industry entities criticized the NPRM, while some state, 911, and public safety entities said that while they supported some of the FCC’s proposals, they opposed any FCC actions that would usurp state and local control over public safety answering points (PSAPs) (TRDaily, March 24).

Meanwhile, the National Emergency Number Association asked the FCC to consider a public safety-industry consensus approach to the issues raised in the NPRM if one could be achieved, and it said it would seek to reach such a consensus.

“We very much want to work with public safety and with industry on the right way to move forward on how to establish the structure,” Mr. Furth said today at the APCO summit. “And we need to do this quickly, because the outage that occurred a year ago was, in many ways, a wake-up call to all of us.”

In response to a question, Mr. Furth said he could not give a timeframe for when the Commission would like to see action in the proceeding.

On other 911 issues, Mr. Furth said that the Commission wants to ensure that the public has the same access to 911 and other services as networks transition to all-Internet protocol technology. He said that the Commission wants to ensure that IP-based services “provide the same or better quality and reliability” as legacy services.

He also outlined other efforts the Commission has taken on the 911 front, including the adoption of orders addressing 911 location accuracy and text-to-911; an NPRM proposing to sunset the agency’s non-service-initialized (NSI) phone rules; and the establishment of the FCC’s Task Force on Optimal Public Safety Answering Point (PSAP) Architecture. Regarding the NSI item, he said it is expected to be published in the “Federal Register” this week.

Meanwhile, a Capitol Hill aide discussed the prospects of legislation important to the 911 community and other 911 and public safety priorities of lawmakers.

“I wouldn’t expect much out of this Congress on NG-911 legislation,” said David Goldman, chief minority counsel-communications and technology for the House Energy and Commerce Committee, noting next year’s presidential election. But he said it is possible that if spectrum legislation were to move, NG-911 provisions could be added to it. However, he added, “I don’t have anything in mind that’s likely to move right now.”

He said the committee can be influential in engaging in oversight and applying pressure on issues, and emphasized it is important for public safety stakeholders to make their views known to members of Congress and their aides.

Mr. Goldman said committee members “are pretty happy” with how things are going with the First Responder Network Authority (FirstNet) and want to continue oversight of FirstNet. He noted that communications and technology subcommittee Chairman Greg Walden (R., Ore.) has indicated that he wants to hold an oversight hearing on FirstNet.

Mr. Goldman also said that some lawmakers are looking forward to a report from the FCC’s 911 architecture task force to see if there are “holes in the jurisdiction” that Congress take can take action to address.

Dorothy Spears-Dean, public safety communications coordinator for the Virginia Information Technologies Agency who spoke on behalf of the National Association of State 911 Administrators, said states “are all over the board” in terms of deploying next-generation 911 services, with some not beginning any deployment and other states already done. – Paul Kirby, paul.kirby@wolterskluwer.com