The FCC will investigate the nationwide CenturyLink outage that disrupted 911 service for many Americans, Chairman Ajit Pai said Friday. At our deadline, the carrier was still working to resolve the multistate outage that began Thursday (see 1812270050). The National Emergency Number Association (NENA) said the outage shows urgent need to fully deploy next-generation 911. NARUC and state consumer advocates applauded FCC action.

Text-to-911 adoption is growing, but more work lies ahead, with many state-and-territory deployments not stretching across the entire jurisdiction, emergency number officials told us last week. “We’re absolutely headed in the right direction,” but funding is necessary as well as "many, many 911 centers" and "we need to try to accelerate that,” said NG-911 Institute Executive Director Patrick Halley in an interview. Ahead of most, Maine and Massachusetts completed statewide text-to-911 rollouts this month.

Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam (D) appoints to 9-1-1 Services Board new members Mary Blowe, Winchester; Scott Garber, Staunton Fire & Rescue Department; Seth Weise, Sprint; and Kelvin Wright, Chesapeake Police Department ... Seagate names Gianluca Romano, ex-Micron, executive vice president-chief financial officer.

Parties backed an FCC effort to improve 911 calling and location accuracy, noting technical challenges. There was broad support for proposals to implement Kari's Law requirements requiring 911 direct dialing from multiline telephone systems (MLTS) in larger enterprises. Industry resisted some potential regulations, particularly on a Ray Baum's Act (see 1812110052) mandate to consider requiring "dispatchable location" information is conveyed with calls to responders. Telecom and VoIP providers, equipment makers, public safety entities, enterprise groups and others filed over 30 comments in docket 18-261 through Tuesday on an NPRM (see 1809260047).

Much attention during Tuesday's House Communications Subcommittee hearing on implementation of the Repack Airwaves Yielding Better Access for Users of Modern Services (Ray Baum's) Act FCC reauthorization and spectrum statute focused on language to aid the broadcast incentive auction repacking process, as expected (see 1812070040). Industry witnesses praised the act and highlighted areas where additional Capitol Hill action may be needed to improve implementation, also as expected (see 1812100049). The FCC also got implementation comments (see 1812110025).

FCC Commissioner Mike O’Rielly blamed 911 fee diversion for Guam’s reported inability to record 911 calls. “Guam's consumers pay the fees & rewarded with broken system,” O’Rielly tweeted Monday. “Diversion must end!” He added: “How is it possible that for almost three years the capabilities of Guam's 9-1-1 system were compromised -- no recording ability -- but leadership wasn't informed or didn't know? Guam's government needs to stop stealing consumer paid fees & modernize its system.” The U.S. territory didn’t comment. O'Rielly this summer said Guam was playing politics on the issue (see 1807090052). A Tuesday editorial in the Guam Daily Post, which first reported the 911 recording problem, condemned the territory's fee diversion and urged incoming Gov. Lou Leon Guerrero (D) to prioritize the issue.

A surge in FCC ex parte meetings about access to national outage data in the network outage reporting system (NORS) and disaster information reporting system (DIRS) may foreshadow commission action in the near future, said parties to docket 15-80. States and others seek access, but the telecom industry is raising confidentiality concerns (see 1811060036). Multiple stakeholders that have talked with the FCC said the bureau is asking for input and meetings, but it's not clear what, if anything, Chairman Ajit Pai wants to do on the issue or when. The impetus for those meetings isn't clear, we were told.

APCO told the FCC direct access to the network outage reporting system and the disaster information reporting system by 911 emergency communications centers (ECCs) would be “helpful.” It's "more important that ECCs receive timely, actionable information regarding any outage that affects 9-1-1 service, including directly from communications service providers,” APCO filed Tuesday in docket 15-80 on a call with Public Safety Bureau staff. “ECCs should receive outage information in an easily accessible format that provides situational awareness with regard to the timing, nature, and scope of any impacts to 9-1-1.”

Michigan's Public Service Commission unanimously adopted reimbursement cost categories for deploying IP-based 911 services, the PSC said Friday. An order in docket U-20146 approved 12 cost categories and directed providers to submit categorized costs and to indicate if they're recurring. Cable companies disagreed with Frontier Communications seeking reimbursement for the 911 call conversion costs of service providers that aren't a county's 911 service provider (see 1806190065). The agency said the state 911 statute “specifically limits reimbursement to IP-based 9-1-1 service providers after review by the Commission.” In two other unanimous votes Friday, commissioners approved sending (1) unbundled network element and local interconnection services rules in docket U-20160 and (2) basic local exchange service customer migration rules in docket U-20161 to the Legislative Service Bureau and the Office of Regulatory Reinvention for formal approvals.

It’s premature for the FCC to adopt a Z-axis metric for accurate vertical location of wireless calls, commented CTIA and the National Emergency Number Association this week on an August report by carriers in docket 07-114 (see 1809100037). “Rather than adopting ±5 meters as the Z-Axis metric, we suggest that further testing is a better course to advance vertical location solutions that will help to provide ‘floor level’ accuracy,” CTIA commented. NENA agreed the FCC should delay adopting a Z-axis metric until a more accurate one can be validated and supported by test results: “Assuming a modest extension of the Commission’s deadline is possible, NENA hopes that the Test Bed will recognize the exceptional circumstances and allow the additional Stage Z testing to occur as quickly as is practicable for the involved parties.” Citizens and public safety need a z-axis accuracy benchmark of plus-or-minus 3 meters, NENA said. Carriers’ proposal for 5-meter metric “fails the American public and the dedicated public safety professionals who need actionable, accurate location information to find 9-1-1 callers during emergencies,” APCO commented. The National Public Safety Telecommunications Council agreed: “A vertical z-axis metric providing floor level accuracy is needed and can be accomplished with available technology, especially within the generous implementation timeframe established in the rules adopted in 2015.” NextNav technology can achieve accuracy within 2 meters, said NextNav and the Boulder Regional Emergency Telephone Service Authority. NextNav supported a 3-meter metric, while BRETSA said it should be 2 meters.