WASHINGTON—The Federal Communications Commission voted to approve changes to its Disaster Information Reporting System which collects and reports communications outage information before, during, and after emergencies like hurricanes and floods.
The new rules streamline reporting requirements and allow providers to focus more of their resources on service restoration during the immediate wake of a disaster.
“In the middle of a disaster recovery effort, the FCC should be focused on helping crews reconnect communities and clearing barriers that slow recovery down,” FCC Chair Brendan Carr said. “Limited manpower shouldn’t be spent on unnecessary red tape. That’s why I am pleased we are taking action today to modernize the FCC’s disaster reporting system in a way that reduces burdens while still ensuring we have accurate, up-to-date information on service restoration efforts. This will be especially important for small, rural providers that may already be stretched thin during emergencies.”
The Disaster Information Reporting System (DIRS) is a web-based system that collects infrastructure status and service restoration information from communications service providers during and after major disasters. This information allows state, Tribal, territorial, and federal emergency management officials to more efficiently prioritize disaster response efforts. For example, DIRS provided daily reports before, during, and for weeks after the recent landfall of Super Typhoon Sinlaku in the U.S. island territories of Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands.
The Report and Order adopted on May 20 will enhance DIRS’ capabilities while eliminating unnecessary burdens on communications service providers, allowing them to focus critical resources on service restoration instead of redundant paperwork in those circumstances when every second counts, the agency said.
For manual filers, it permits the submission of a single streamlined form instead of multiple worksheets and it establishes a “one-click” option to indicate no change from the previous day’s report. The new rules also simplify DIRS reporting requirements by eliminating fields that do not offer significant value to public safety stakeholders, ending the requirement to submit a final report after DIRS is deactivated and limiting reporting obligations to facilities-based providers.
The new rules also direct the FCC’s Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau to improve the ability of filers to voluntarily submit geographic information about service areas and the locations of facilities that are out of service. And it establishes mandatory DIRS reporting for public safety voice and broadband network operators on the status of public safety network infrastructure and public safety customer impact.
Chairman Carr, Commissioners Gomez and Trusty approved the changes in the Third Report and Order (FCC 26-34).
The Order and more details on the changes are available here.
