WASHINGTON—The Federal Communications Commission has voted to launch a review of its system for collecting data on network outages and restoration during major disasters. The effort, the agency reported, will pave the way for reforms to the Commission’s Disaster Information Reporting System (DIRS) that are designed to make sure that its benefits outweigh its burdens.
Since its inception in 2007, DIRS has collected information from communications providers, cable operators, phone companies, wireless firms and broadcasters on the impact of severe weather and other natural disasters on their operations. The information, which includes data on phone and broadband outages, collected through DIRS allows emergency management officials to more efficiently prioritize disaster response efforts.
Currently television and radio broadcast providers, broadband Internet access service (BIAS) providers, satellite providers, and other communications service providers may report voluntarily in DIRS when it is active, but are not required to do so.
In launching the new effort to reexamine the system, the FCC also noted, however, that DIRS reports take time to produce, potentially drawing resources away from responding to an ongoing disaster.
To address that issue, the FCC said the Notice of Proposed Rulemaking is designed to begin a thorough review of DIRS to modernize the system for reporting and to develop changes to current rules that might reduce the reporting burdens providers during disasters, while increasing the utility of the reports, the FCC said.
This includes simplifying reporting requirements, limiting DIRS reporting obligations to facilities-based providers, and promoting federal and state agencies’ ability to obtain direct access to NORS and DIRS filings by eliminating unnecessary access requirements, among other improvements for efficiency, the FCC said.
The Commission also adopted an accompanying Order on Reconsideration that clarifies the situations in which network outage reporting requirements are suspended during DIRS activations. It also maintains requirements to send outage notifications to 911 and 988 officials during DIRS activations to ensure these officials can receive timely information about outages and in turn enable the public to reach these critical services during a disaster.
More specifically, the FCC said that the NPRM proposes to:
- Provide manual filers a single streamlined, dynamic form for DIRS reporting that reduces burdens by being simpler to complete than the ten existing worksheets.
- Simplify DIRS reporting requirements by eliminating fields that do not offer significant value to public safety stakeholders, while offering limited additional voluntary fields that are tailored to the current information needs of emergency managers.
- Eliminate the requirement for mandatory DIRS filers to submit a final report after DIRS is deactivated to further reduce reporting burdens and enable providers to focus on disaster response and recovery.
- Limit DIRS reporting obligations to facilities-based providers, which will eliminate unnecessary reporting burdens for resellers and mobile virtual network operators (MVNOs).
- Examine whether to suspend NORS filing obligations during DIRS Lite activations to reduce regulatory compliance obligation during disasters.
- Promote federal and state agencies’ ability to obtain direct access to NORS and DIRS filings by reducing access requirements.
The NPRM also described the data it would collect in a new streamlined report. For broadcasters the proposed fields for that report would include what the FCC called the following "voluntary information":
- Call Sign
- FAC ID
- Broadcast Status
- Power Status
- Impacted Equipment Location Information (Latitude/Longitude or Street Address/City/State/Zip)
- Generator Availability
- Fuel Status (Volume Capacity and Hours)
For cable communications providers "required information" in the proposed new form would include:
- Physical System Identifier (PSID)
- Type of Major Equipment Down
- Power Status
- Common Language Location Identifier (CLLI) Code for the Equipment
- Impacted Equipment Location Information (Latitude/Longitude or Street Address/City/State/Zip)
- Number of OC3s or Functional Equivalents Down
- For Filers Required to Report Broadband Status: Number of Broadband Access Subscribers Served: Estimated Number of Broadband Access Subscribers Down
"Voluntary information" from cable operators would include:
- Generator Availability
- For Filers Not Required to Report Broadband Status: Number of Broadband Access Subscribers Served; Estimated Number of Broadband Access Subscribers Down
More details are available in the full NPRM here.
