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jbell on DSKJLSW7X2PROD with PROPOSALS

Federal Register / Vol. 86, No. 123 / Wednesday, June 30, 2021 / Proposed Rules 15. The Commission notes that in certain circumstances, PSAPs may find that there are benefits to learning of outages or network disruptions that potentially affect 911 but do not meet the current reporting thresholds. Are the Commissions thresholds for PSAP
notification too high? Should the Commission modify these notification requirements so that originating and covered 911 service providers are required to notify PSAPs of network disruptions that potentially affect 911
service but do not meet the thresholds necessary to report to the Commission?
What would be the appropriate outage reporting threshold requiring PSAP
notification? The Commission seeks comment on the utility to PSAPs and benefits to public safety of any consequent increased situational awareness of network outages potentially affecting 911. The Commission also seeks comment on the costs of lowering these thresholds in light of the expected increase in notifications to PSAPs. The Commission seeks comment on how many additional outages beyond the estimated 37,000
outages that potentially affect 911 each year would be reportable to PSAPs.
16. The Commission seeks comment on the cost and benefits of originating service providers notifying PSAPs about 911 outages within the same timeframe, by the same means, and with the same frequency that covered 911 service providers currently do. The cost estimates below are incremental to the costs that originating service providers already incur to notify PSAPs of outages that potentially affect them pursuant to the Commissions rules. The Commission seeks comment on those estimates. Additionally, the actual cost that originating service providers would incur to comply with this requirement may be substantially lower than estimated. 47 CFR 4.9a4, c2iv, e1v, f4, g1i. For example, Verizon suggests that some service providers may have automated their PSAP outage notification processes. For originating service providers that have automated PSAP notification, the Commission anticipates that the proposed changes to the notification process would not result in recurring costs. The Commission seeks comment on this premise, as well as on the extent to which service providers have set up automated triggers for PSAP
notification. The Commission expects that the costs of PSAP outage notifications will fall as service providers transition to an automated PSAP outage notification process. The Commission seeks comment on the
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extent to which service providers expect to transition to an automated notification process and the timeframe for any such transition.
2. Ensuring PSAPs Receive Actionable Information About 911 Outages 17. Since the adoption of the PSAP
notification rules, PSAPs have reported that notifications they receive often are confusing or uninformative, and have emphasized the need for clear and actionable information regarding 911
outages so 911 authorities can inform the public about alternative means to contact emergency services.
Commenters representing public safety and industry agree that uniform information elements in PSAP
notifications can help minimize confusion at PSAPs. The Commission also has observed that when PSAPs receive actionable 911 outage notifications, they are empowered to use reverse 911, post on social media platforms, work with local media to run on-screen text crawls, and use other tools at their disposal to notify the public of alternative means to reach their emergency services. During AT&T
Mobilitys nationwide 911 outage, for example, when AT&T notified PSAPs in Orange County, Florida several hours after it discovered the outage, Orange County PSAPs were able to take measures to notify the public of their alternative 10-digit phone numbers as a means to reach their emergency services. AT&T VoLTE 911 Outage Report. Once Orange County PSAPs provided their alternative 10-digit phone numbers to the public, they received 172 calls to those numbers during the one and a half hours until AT&T Mobility resolved the outage.
AT&T VoLTE 911 Outage Report. The Bureau has credited these measures as being critical to maintaining the publics continued access to emergency services during several widespread 911 outages.
AT&T VoLTE 911 Outage Report; TMobile Order; PSHSB, December 27, 2018 CenturyLink Network Outage Report 2019, https www.fcc.gov/
document/fcc-report-centurylinknetwork-outage/; Verizon, File Nos. EB
SED1400017189, EBSED14
00017676, EBSED1400017373, Order, 30 FCC Rcd 2185 EB 2015.
18. The Commission thus proposes to require originating service providers and covered 911 service providers to include all available material information in their PSAP outage notifications. The Commission believes this proposal will help ensure that PSAPs receive relevant, actionable information to better understand 911
outages and to promote continuity of
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911 service, while minimizing superfluous or vague information. In addition to the specific information elements articulated for covered 911
service providers in the current rules, the Commission proposes that material information should also include the following for both originating service providers and covered 911 service providers, where available:
The name of the service provider offering the notification;
The name of the service providers experiencing the outage;
The date and time when the incident began including a notation of the relevant time zone;
The type of communications services affected;
The geographic area affected by the outage;
A statement of the notifying service providers expectations for how the outage will affect the PSAP e.g., dropped calls or missing metadata;
The expected date and time of restoration, including a notation of the relevant time zone;
The best-known cause of the outage;
and A statement of whether the message is the notifying service providers initial notification to the PSAP, an update to an initial notification, or a message intended to be the notifying service providers final assessment of the outage.
19. These proposed outage notifications elements follow the template developed by the Alliance for Telecommunications Industry Solutions ATIS Network Reliability Steering Committee NRSC Situational Awareness for 911 Outages Task Force Subcommittee NRSC Task Force, working together with public safety stakeholders, minus the NRSC Task Forces inclusion of an incident identifier. In the 2018 911 Reliability Public Notice, the Bureau sought comment on whether the NRSC Task Forces template should serve as a model for standardization, and commenters support the NRSC Task Forces work. For example, the National Emergency Number Association NENA
suggests that the elements of the NRSC
Task Forces template will aid PSAPs and 911 authorities in quickly understanding the nature of a service degradation or network downtime.
20. The Commission seeks comment on whether these baseline elements would provide useful and actionable information to PSAPs. Will ensuring that PSAPs receive the same information regardless of where a 911
outage originates promote situational awareness for PSAPs in a manner that
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