Ensure Backup Power in Central Facilities, 911 Circuit Audits, Public Safety Bureau Recommends

"Here’s the bottom line: We can’t prevent disasters from happening, but we can work relentlessly to make sure Americans can connect with emergency responders when they need to most,” Chairman Julius Genachowski said in a written statement (http://xrl.us/bn99ip). The FCC plans a rulemaking “to improve the reliability of existing 9-1-1 networks and prevent failures” like during the derecho, he added, saying it'll “accelerate the Commission’s Next Generation (NG) 9-1-1 agenda” due to the way the networks “harness the power of the Internet."

The bureau recommended the FCC act due to company failures: “Major wireline providers serving the affected region had not fully implemented best practices and industry-developed solutions relating to backup power, 9-1-1 circuit diversity, and 9-1-1 trunk design -- issues with a direct link to the loss of 9-1-1 service after the Derecho,” the bureau said. The report noted “about 7 percent of Verizon’s generators in central offices failed to operate properly when needed.” Telcos should be made to conduct periodic audits of 911 circuits, maintain “adequate” backup power in central offices as well as “follow regular maintenance and testing procedures,” retain “adequate” links in monitoring these networks and “have more specific obligations” in alerting 911 centers in network problems, it said.

These recommendations are “consistent with APCO’s publicly filed comments,” said Association of Public-Safety Communications Officials President Terry Hall in a statement, calling them “common sense steps” and hailing the FCC. “The importance of backup power was made clear in the aftermath of Katrina, but industry litigation prevented those recommendations from being implemented by the FCC,” said Public Knowledge Senior Vice President Harold Feld. It’s unimaginable that anyone could think central-office backup power requirements are an “unwarranted expense or unnecessary intrusion,” he added. He hopes industry embraces these recommendations. The report “validates Fairfax County’s strong concerns” about Verizon, said Board of Supervisors Chairman Sharon Bulova, and leaves the Virginia county’s 911 Director Steve Souder “pleased,” the two officials said. The county suffered some of the worst derecho-related outages.

Verizon defended its efforts since the derecho. “We have acted diligently and decisively to resolve the operational and communications issues that arose after” the June 29 event, “and our performance during Hurricane Sandy in late October demonstrated the substantial progress we've made,” said Chief Technology Officer Anthony Melone. He said Verizon has “resolved” the issues related to its generator failures in northern Virginia, and completed back-up power system audits throughout the mid-Atlantic. The telco has improved methods of identifying power outages and decentralized its operations, he added, also citing ongoing collaboration with the region’s 911 directors (CD Aug 16 p5). Verizon is “still committed” to conducting these power audits of critical 911 facilities nationwide and expects to complete those in 2013, a spokesman told us. The telco is “digesting” recommendations and not commenting further, he added.

FCC members discussed the powerful images of destruction from the derecho and Superstorm Sandy in particular during a discussion late Wednesday at CES in Las Vegas.

Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel said she was especially affected by Sandy. “The images, I can’t seem to let go of them myself, from the flooding that we saw in New York to the fires that we saw at the edge of the water and whole towns that had been devastated,” she said. “What we learned in the aftermath of that storm was that one quarter of the wireless towers in the affected area were not capable of providing service. That’s disturbing. We know now that we have many households, in fact about one third of the households in this country, are wireless only.” The derecho-related outages were “avoidable problems,” she added in a statement, calling for “an honest accounting of the resiliency of our nation’s network infrastructure in the wireless and digital age” in what amounts now to a first step with the report.

"Two million users during that catastrophe were unable to call 911,” Commissioner Mignon Clyburn said of the derecho. “We have got some significant issues” to reflect about, she said. Any deficiencies must be addressed, she said.

But Commissioner Robert McDowell noted that communications networks have gotten more resilient, especially in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in 2005. “As devastating as Sandy was, it actually could have been worse,” he said. “Towers have been strengthened and other cell sites have been hardened even more and carriers obviously have incentives to make sure they're hardened.” McDowell said he supported the decision to hold field hearings on Sandy. “There is more for us to learn,” he said. “Hopefully we'll be able to work with industry and consumers to forge some voluntary solutions."

"This conversation is taking place in a dynamic industry,” said Commissioner Ajit Pai. “That’s going to be a very important collaboration with Congress and of course with the American public. ... Existing 911 infrastructure has served us very well, but in an all-IP world there are very difficult technical, policy and legal questions that we have to confront as to how we update that infrastructure.” Pai reiterated that sentiment in a statement, calling NG-911 “a critical component of the all-IP world just over the horizon,” he said: “That is one more reason why I look forward to working with my colleagues and the public safety community to facilitate a successful IP transition -- beginning with our recommendations to Congress, due next month, on the appropriate legal framework for NG 9-1-1 services.”

Providers submitted notice of 135 outages that began on June 29, 35 submitted that day when the storm first struck, through the FCC Network Outage Reporting System, the report said, which broke down the outages by several dimensions. That number climbed to around 200 outages reported on June 30 and dropped to around 50-60 on the following two days. These provider-reported outages spread across 11 states and Washington, D.C., the majority reported in West Virginia, followed by respectively Maryland, Virginia and Ohio. June 29 to July 6, there were 534 outages tied to the derecho registered in the FCC’s systems, it said. These problems affected many different aspects of telecom: “111 describe effects to wireline users, 161 describe effects to wireless users, 249 describe effects to transport facilities, and eight reports describe effects to cable telephone users.” The bureau said 45 describe 911 outages. Telcos that lost 911 service throughout the states include not only Verizon but also Frontier, CenturyLink and AT&T. The Virginia State Corporation Commission and the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments have also investigated these outages. The final Virginia report is due Thursday, said William Irby, the commission’s telecom director. It'll include their recommendations, which are “very consistent” with the FCC’s, he said.

Wireless fared better than in prior storms, the bureau said, noting 11 percent of cell sites down during the storm’s height. Loss of power and transport facilities were bigger wireless issues, it said. “Even where wireless networks remained operational, data and anecdotal evidence suggest that many wireless customers still could not reach 9-1-1 or complete calls to landlines because of coverage or congestion problems in wireless access networks and disruptions across the [public switched telephone network] as a whole.” Cell infrastructure suffered more during Sandy, the report added, noting the bureau plans to analyze these issues further after the Sandy hearings. Frontier Executive Vice President of External Affairs Kathleen Abernathy cited her company’s performance during Sandy as a testament to lessons learned during the derecho and said in a statement the telco will “carefully study” report recommendations. The recommendations will likely play a role as the FCC begins field hearings on Sandy, a commission official said. The first hearings will take place Feb. 5 in New York and Hoboken, N.J. Chairman Julius Genachowski finds the outages unacceptable, the official added.

Robust, reliable systems are “a necessity and not merely a commodity,” said NTCA CEO Shirley Bloomfield. She praised reliable and affordable universal service as a “public good” and said people should “take stock” of the importance of carriers of last resort.