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The FCC should require carriers to notify public safety answering points within 15-30 minutes of a detected outage, CEO Brian Fontes and others from the National Emergency Number Association said in a meeting with Public Safety Bureau officials. NENA reacted to proposed rules by the commission, saying a requirement of immediate notification should be further refined. “The requirement under the PSAP notification rule should substantially differ from that under the Commission’s general network outage reporting rules,” NENA said. It said that a single notice of an outage won’t suffice. “We recommended that the Commission consider requiring regular supplemental notices, no less than twice per day, to keep PSAPs up-to-date as carriers and other service providers gain further information about an outage,” the filing said. “We also noted that while telephone and email contacts should be mandatory, PSAPs, carriers, and service providers should be free to adopt other notification methods, provided that PSAPs have a legitimate private choice as to whether they will adopt any particular method offered by a carrier or service provider.” NENA also weighed in on when PSAPs and carriers should be responsible for the connection of 911 call centers to the larger carrier network. “Diversity of circuits connecting end office switches with selective routers, as well as those connecting selective routers with the main distribution frames (or their equivalents) of end offices serving PSAPs should be the responsibility of carriers or service providers while the diversity of circuits connecting the ‘outside’ faces of main distribution frames with PSAPs should be the responsibility of PSAPs and 911 authorities,” the filing said. The FCC had said 911 calling problems were widespread following the derecho that hit the Midwest and East Coast June 29 (CD July 20 p1).