Disruptions to Communications; Improving 911 Reliability

Through this Third Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM), the Federal Communications Commission (FCC or Commission) proposes several rules to promote public safety by ensuring that 911 call centers and the public receive timely and useful notifications of network disruptions that affect 911 service. The NPRM seeks comment on whether to harmonize the Commission's public safety answering point (PSAP) outage notification requirements so that both originating and covered 911 service providers notify PSAPs about outages that potentially affect 911 within the same timeframe, by the same means, and with the same frequency. The NPRM proposes standardizing the information that is conveyed via outage notifications to PSAPs by service providers. This NPRM also proposes to require that service providers develop and implement procedures to gather, maintain, and update PSAP contact information annually. In addition, the NPRM proposes to require service providers to notify their customers when there is a reportable outage that affects 911 availability within 60 minutes of determining there is an outage. This NPRM also proposes to codify specific exemptions to certain reporting requirements adopted by the Commission in 2016.