Future of Telecom Creates New Resiliency, Public Safety Questions, NARUC Told

The NARUC telecom subcommittee advanced versions of both resolutions Sunday for full consideration of the NARUC telecom committee. The resolution urging more coordination among telcos, carriers and cable companies passed with ease, but there was more controversy about D.C. Public Service Commission Chairman Betty Ann Kane’s proposal on companies that coexist in the 902-928 MHz spectrum band. Industry advocates spoke both in favor of and against that draft.

That draft argued for more testing to determine whether a company called Progeny unacceptably interferes with unlicensed Part 15 devices in that shared spectrum band. Progeny attorney Bruce Olcott of Squire Sanders touted Progeny as “the best technology” of its type and emphasized its E911 location-finding ability: “We can tell what floor you are on in a building,” Alcott told the subcommittee Saturday. He said the “professional” FCC has already investigated interference without results and that to delay Progeny’s progress would be a risk.

"We have some very strong arguments that technical interference is going to be a problem,” countered attorney Laura Stefani, representing the Part 15 Coalition. Part 15 operators include WISPA, E-ZPass and others that use the spectrum. “This doesn’t have to be a public safety versus non-public safety issue,” she said. Representatives from General Electric and electric utilities also encouraged NARUC to push for more FCC testing of Progeny, as the draft resolution originally urged. Several subcommittee members repeatedly expressed concern that they lacked enough knowledge or jurisdiction to push for more FCC testing, and talked of tamping down the resolve clauses. The telecom committee will more fully debate this issue Tuesday before voting.

Panels, meanwhile, focused on reliability. The future will require communications companies and regulators to work more with energy ones, panelists said throughout the meeting. “What’s really central to any communications network is electricity, and that was the biggest challenge,” said Rory Whelan, a Time Warner Cable regional vice president-government relations, speaking on a Monday panel on Sandy damage. Cablevision Vice President-Government Affairs Adam Folk emphasized how important access to fuel was after Sandy, and said regulators will need to look at how to ensure fuel access. Coordination with utilities will also be crucial, he said.

Sandy should be compared to Hurricane Katrina rather than to Irene, said AT&T Regional Vice President Chris Nurse, emphasizing the overwhelming nature of the damage. He said AT&T was bringing fuel from as far as Texas, “an almost military-type response because that was the challenge” of Sandy, he said. New York State Public Service Commissioner Gregg Sayre called Verizon’s post-Sandy replacement of copper with fiber an “excellent” move. California Public Utilities Commissioner Catherine Sandoval described problems concerning joint use poles in her states as well as talked of concern for having sufficient coordination and enough backup power, an issue that Verizon Senior Vice President-National Operations Support Tom Maguire agreed should be “prioritized."

The transitions to IP infrastructure, as AT&T and others have discussed in recent months, and to NG-911 will collectively raise new questions of reliability, multiple panelists said. NG-911 will benefit public safety, panelists said Saturday. Intrado Assistant General Counsel Lynn Stang described how during Hurricane Irene, when one of Vermont’s eight 911 centers went down, Intrado was able to reroute those calls in the network it runs there, so Vermont consumers experienced no adverse impact, she said. “Text-to-911 trials have saved lives,” she said, alluding to the data-heavy nature of NG-911. “We're learning how to marshal this data.” Top officials from the National Emergency Number Association explained the transition in detail. Consumer education will be the biggest challenge as these changes occur, said CTIA State Regulatory and External Affairs Director Matt Gerst. Even though carriers plan to have a text-to-911 option available in 2014, it’s still up to 911 centers to be ready to accept texts, he said. 911 center readiness will become a “state matter,” Public Safety Bureau Chief David Turetsky noted during a Monday afternoon panel. “What CTIA’s really looking for in an NG-911 framework is certainty,” said Gerst, also a member of the FCC’s Emergency Access Advisory Committee.

IP networks may be less reliable for consumers than legacy networks, said Christopher White, deputy rate counsel of the New Jersey Division of Rate Counsel, during a Sunday panel. “State commissions, as a general rule, are going to have to be involved and make a public policy determination,” he said, citing need for “some reliability standard” with IP. He described the way traditional phone networks endured during the derecho and Sandy. IP transition advocate AT&T is “of course” concerned about preserving reliability, said Vice President-Federal Regulatory Hank Hultquist at the same panel. But the new technologies require “larger thinking” about reliability and the different vulnerabilities and the ways to lessen vulnerabilities, he said. He cited burying power lines, portable cell sites and wireless power packs as examples of different strategies. “The phones come with chargers in the box,” said Sprint Nextel Senior Counsel Ken Shifman, dismissing concerns about consumer ignorance. “I think people know they have to plug their phones in to make sure it works.” Time Warner Cable Group Vice President and Chief Counsel-Regulatory Julie Laine expressed similar thoughts: “Frankly we've never had any outcry from customers that they want batteries.”