[Congressional Bills 103th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[S. 238 Introduced in Senate (IS)]

103d CONGRESS
  1st Session
                                 S. 238

To require the Federal Communications Commission to report annually to 
    Congress regarding the security and reliability of the Nation's 
                      telecommunications network.


_______________________________________________________________________


                   IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES

             January 27 (legislative day, January 5), 1993

 Mr. Pressler introduced the following bill; which was read twice and 
   referred to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation

_______________________________________________________________________

                                 A BILL


 
To require the Federal Communications Commission to report annually to 
    Congress regarding the security and reliability of the Nation's 
                      telecommunications network.

    Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the 
United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

    This Act may be cited as the ``Telecommunications Network Security 
and Reliability Reporting Act of 1993''.

SEC. 2. FINDINGS.

    The Congress finds that--
            (1) telecommunications networks constitute an essential 
        infrastructure for the Nation's economy and security;
            (2) in the past several years there have been a significant 
        number of severe network outages that temporarily left millions 
        of United States telephone customers without telephone service;
            (3) there has been no requirement for systematic study of 
        the security of the network or its vulnerability to disruptions 
        caused by technical failure, accident, or other causes; and
            (4) there is a need for the Federal Communications 
        Commission to monitor network outages on a systematic and 
        ongoing basis; to assess the adequacy of default, redundancy, 
        and recovery mechanisms; and to recommend measures to prevent 
        future outages.

SEC. 3. STUDY OF NETWORK SECURITY AND RELIABILITY.

    The Federal Communications Commission shall conduct a comprehensive 
study of the security and reliability of the Nation's 
telecommunications network to identify the sources of the network's 
vulnerability to outages and to determine what default, redundancy and 
recovery mechanisms are necessary to maintain and restore service.

SEC. 4. REPORT TO CONGRESS.

    The Federal Communications Commission shall report to Congress 
within 12 months after the date of enactment of this Act the results of 
the study conducted pursuant to section 3. Such report shall include an 
analysis of information, regarding telephone service reliability and 
network outages, provided by major communications common carriers and 
their telecommunications equipment and software suppliers and 
manufacturers, and the recommendations of the Federal Communications 
Commission as to the actions which it determines necessary to ensure 
the security and reliability of the network.

SEC. 5. ANNUAL REPORT.

    Commencing with the 12-month period following the date of the 
submission of the report pursuant to section 4, and each 12-month 
period thereafter, the Federal Communications Commission shall report 
to Congress regarding the security and reliability of the Nation's 
telecommunications network.

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