[Federal Register Volume 69, Number 232 (Friday, December 3, 2004)]
[Rules and Regulations]
[Pages 70316-70342]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 04-26167]



[[Page 70315]]

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Part II





Federal Communications Commission





-----------------------------------------------------------------------



47 CFR Parts 0, 4, and 63



Disruptions to Communications; Final Rule

  Federal Register / Vol. 69, No. 232 / Friday, December 3, 2004 / 
Rules and Regulations  

[[Page 70316]]


-----------------------------------------------------------------------

FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION

47 CFR Parts 0, 4 and 63

[ET Docket No. 04-35; FCC 04-188]


Disruptions to Communications

AGENCY: Federal Communications Commission.

ACTION: Final rule.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

SUMMARY: This document extends the Commission's disruption reporting 
requirements to communications providers who are not wireline carriers. 
The Commission also streamlines compliance with the reporting 
requirements through electronic filing with a ``fill in the blank'' 
template and by simplifying the application of that rule. In addition, 
the Commission delegates authority to the Chief, Office of Engineering 
and Technology, to make the revisions to the filing system and template 
necessary to improve the efficiency of reporting and to reduce, where 
reasonably possible, the time for providers to prepare, and for the 
Commission staff to review, the communications disruption reports 
required to be filed. These actions will allow the Commission to obtain 
the necessary information regarding service disruptions in an efficient 
and expeditious manner and to achieve significant concomitant public 
interest benefits.

DATES: Effective January 3, 2005 except for Part 4 and the amendments 
to Sec.  63.100, which contains information collection requirements 
that have not been approved by the Office of Management and Budget. The 
Federal Communications Commission will publish a document in the 
Federal Register announcing the effective date. Written comments by the 
public on the modified information collection requirements must be 
submitted on or before January 3, 2005. Written comments must be 
submitted by the Office of Management and Budget on the information 
collection requirements on or before January 3, 2005.

ADDRESSES: Comments on the information collection requirements should 
be addressed to the Office of the Secretary, Federal Communications 
Commission, 445 12th Street, SW., Washington, DC 20554. In addition to 
filing comments with the Secretary, a copy should be submitted to 
Leslie Smith, Federal Communications Commission, Room 1-C804, 445 12th 
Street, SW., Washington, DC 20554, or via Internet to 
[email protected], and to Kristy L. LaLonde, OMB Desk Officer, 10234 
NEOB, 725 17th Street, NW., Washington, DC 20503 or via the Internet to 
[email protected]. or via fax at (202) 395-5167.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Charles Iseman at (202) 418-2444, 
[email protected], Office of Engineering and Technology, TTY (202) 
418-2989.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: This is a summary of the Commission's Report 
and Order, portion of the Report and Order and Further Notice of 
Proposed Rule Making, ET Docket No. 04-35, FCC 04-188, adopted August 
4, 2004, and released August 19, 2004. The full text of this document 
is available for inspection and copying during normal business hours in 
the FCC Reference Center (Room CY-A257), 445 12th Street, SW., 
Washington, DC 20554. The complete text of this document also may be 
purchased from the Commission's copy contractor, Best Copy and 
Printing, Inc., 445 12th Street, SW., Room, CY-B402, Washington, DC 
20554. The full text may also be downloaded at www.fcc.gov. Alternate 
formats are available to persons with disabilities by contacting Brian 
Millin at (202) 418-7426 or TTY (202) 418-7365.

Final Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995 Analysis

    This document contains modified information collection 
requirements. The Commission, as part of its continuing effort to 
reduce paperwork burdens, invites the general public to comment on the 
information collection requirements contained in this R&O as required 
by the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995, Public Law 104-13. Public and 
agency comments are due January 3, 2005. In addition, the Commission 
notes that pursuant to the Small Business Paperwork Relief Act of 2002, 
Public Law 107-198, see 44 U.S.C. 3506(c)(4), we previously sought 
specific comment on how the Commission might ``further reduce the 
information collection burden for small business concerns with fewer 
than 25 employees.''
    In this present document, we have assessed the effects of how the 
modified outage-reporting requirements, which apply to wireline 
communications providers and to cable communications providers of 
circuit-switched telephony, and the new outage-reporting requirements, 
which apply to satellite communications providers, Signaling System 7 
(``SS7'') providers, terrestrial wireless communications providers, and 
affiliated and non-affiliated entities that maintain or provide 
communications networks or services used by the provider in offering 
such communications, will impose information collection burdens on 
small business concerns. We anticipate that the revised rule will 
require the reporting of a few more outages than the approximately 200 
outages that were reported annually. Communications providers that are 
small businesses are likely to have far fewer end users than the large 
ILECs, which have filed the vast majority of all outage reports in the 
past. We find it likely that, only on the rarest of occasions, small 
businesses may be required to file outage reports. Furthermore, it is 
practically inconceivable that a small business employing 25 or fewer 
employees will ever be required to file an outage report, because the 
communications providers to whom the revised rule applies typically 
require far larger numbers of employees.

Congressional Review Act

    The Commission will send a copy of this Report & Order, in a report 
to be sent to Congress and the Government Accountability Office 
pursuant to the Congressional Review Act, see 5 U.S.C. 801(a)(1)(A).

Summary of Report and Order

    1. The Report and Order adopted, with some modifications, the 
Commission's proposal to extend mandatory outage-reporting requirements 
to include all communications providers (satellite and wireless 
providers, in addition to wireline and cable communications providers, 
which are now covered by the rule) that provide voice and/or paging 
communications. As proposed, we adopt a common metric that will apply 
across all communications platforms in determining the general outage-
reporting threshold criteria. The common metric is the number of 
``user-minutes'' potentially affected by an outage and is defined as 
the mathematical result of multiplying the outage's duration expressed 
in minutes and the number of users potentially affected by the outage. 
For example, a 30-minute outage that potentially affects 30,000 end 
users also potentially affects 900,000 user-minutes (30 minutes x 
30,000 users = 900,000 user-minutes). The general threshold criteria 
are that an outage must be reported to the Commission if (a) its 
duration is at least 30 minutes; and (b) it potentially affects at 
least 900,000 user-minutes. We have applied the common metric and 
general threshold criteria as a basis for determining specific outage-
reporting threshold criteria that account for the

[[Page 70317]]

unique technical aspects of each communications platform. In taking 
these actions, the Commission recognizes that, although these 
requirements were originally established within the telecommunications 
common carrier context, it is now appropriate to adapt and apply them 
more broadly across all communications platforms to the extent 
discussed in the Report and Order. In an effort to promote rapid 
reporting and minimal administrative burden on covered entities, the 
Commission also streamlines compliance with the reporting requirements 
through electronic filing with a ``fill in the blank'' template and by 
simplifying the application of the existing rule (47 CFR 63.100).
    2. Extension of Mandatory Reporting Requirements for Communications 
Providers. Most commenting parties recognize the need for some form of 
outage reporting so that the Commission can fulfill its 
responsibilities in overseeing the reliability and security of our 
Nation's telecommunications networks. The Department of Homeland 
Security (``DHS'') undisputedly needs this data to fulfill its 
responsibilities concerning homeland security. There was, however, a 
mixed record concerning the manner in which outage data should be 
collected, with some commenting parties in favor of mandatory outage 
reporting and others opposed. We find that the mandatory reporting of 
network outages is the only reliable way to collect this important 
information for use by this Commission and, where appropriate, for 
other government entities.
    3. In its comments, the Department of Homeland Security states it 
``is not opposed to a voluntary reporting structure, provided there is 
persuasive evidence of an absolute commitment from all carriers in the 
relevant industry segments to participate fully and to furnish complete 
and accurate disruption information in a consistent, timely, and 
thorough manner.'' There is, however, no evidence in the record that 
the ``Industry-Led Outage Reporting Initiative'' (``ILORI'') process 
proposed by the Alliance for Telecommunications Industry Solutions 
(ATIS) and other commenting parties, or any other voluntary process, 
would meet the Department's criteria that all relevant communications 
providers provide an absolute commitment to participate fully in a 
voluntary reporting structure; nor is there any probative evidence that 
the participants would, thereafter, furnish complete or accurate 
service disruption information in a consistent, or timely, or thorough 
manner.
    4. In sum, based on the record before us, we find no persuasive 
evidence that a voluntary program would be workable. We therefore adopt 
our proposal to extend mandatory outage reporting to non-wireline 
communications providers, and we will treat information in all outage 
reports as confidential information that is exempt from routine public 
disclosure under Freedom of Information Act (``FOIA''). See the 
Commission's Rules, 47 CFR 0.457, 0.459. We note, however, that the 
analytical substance of these reports is essential to the development 
and validation of best practices. As a consequence, we will also use 
information from those reports in analyses that will enable us to 
provide guidance to the Network Reliability and Interoperability 
Council, the Network Reliability Steering Committee and other 
organizations. We will do so, however, in a way that does not provide 
sensitive information to those who might use it for hostile, or 
competitive, purposes. (This may take the form, for example, of 
providing direct assistance to developers of Best Practices who address 
sources of outage problems. This would be consistent with previous 
efforts by our staff who, by analyzing outage reports, were able to 
provide detailed guidance to the Network Reliability Steering Committee 
and Network Reliability and Interoperability Councils.)
    5. The Department of Homeland Security (``DHS'') requests that it 
receive outage information directly, so that the Secretary of the 
Department of Homeland Security and the Department's organizational 
units can fulfill their responsibilities under the Homeland Security 
Act of 2002, which granted DHS broad authority to obtain information 
from federal agencies. See 6 U.S.C. 21(d)(4) and (13) providing DHS 
with ``timely and efficient access * * * to all information necessary 
to discharge the responsibilities under this section. * * *''); 6 
U.S.C. 122(a)(1) (giving DHS access to ``all information concerning 
infrastructure or other vulnerabilities of the United States to 
terrorism, whether or not such information has been analyzed, that may 
be collected, possessed, or prepared by any agency of the Federal 
Government''); 6 U.S.C. 122(b) (DHS may obtain access to information 
from agencies ``on regular or routine basis''). In addition, the 
Commission has an affirmative obligation to ``promptly'' provide DHS 
with all reports and information relating to threats of terrorism 
concerning critical infrastructure vulnerability. See 6 U.S.C. 
122(b)(2). We will, therefore, make available to DHS, in encrypted form 
and immediately upon receipt, all electronically submitted outage 
reports. DHS can then undertake to provide information from those 
reports to such other governmental authorities (such as State Public 
Utilities Commissions) as it may deem to be appropriate.

Consistent Reporting

    6. A. Common Metric. We conclude that the reporting threshold 
should henceforth be based on the number of ``users'' potentially 
affected by outages instead of the more ambiguous term ``customers,'' 
which is currently employed in our rules. Most commenting parties 
agree, in the abstract, that ``users'' would be a less ambiguous metric 
than ``customers.'' In addition, we are not persuaded by the comments 
that suggest the use of ``blocked calls'' would be superior to user-
minutes as a basis for a threshold reporting criterion, and we adopt 
the proposed 900,000 user-minutes as a common metric to serve as an 
outage-reporting threshold. The major weakness of the blocked calls 
proposal is that it would result in a significant undercount of the 
number of users potentially affected by any outage. Our focus on the 
number of potentially affected end users is even more important today, 
in light of the homeland security concerns raised in the aftermath of 
the tragic events of September 11, 2001. In short, and more generally, 
because earthquakes, hurricanes, and terrorist attacks can occur at any 
time, day or night, we need to ensure that our communications 
infrastructure is reliable and secure on a ``24-7'' basis. In sum, our 
proposed 900,000 user-minute threshold could result in the reporting of 
more outages in rural areas (e.g., if telecommunications in those areas 
were less reliable); however, the availability of essential 
telecommunications services are particularly vital in rural areas, 
given the remote nature and lack of quick access to emergency services 
and other forms of communications that are more frequently available in 
urban environments. In this regard, we do not agree with the comments 
of the Staff of the Kansas Corporation Commission that it is necessary 
to lower the reporting threshold to 150,000 user-minutes in order to 
capture rural outage data. And, an increased number of outages 
affecting large organizational customers could also be reported because 
the number of potentially affected end users would no longer be under 
counted. In other words, use of the common metric will result in a more

[[Page 70318]]

accurate and realistic assessment of outages on a national basis. We 
have adopted our proposed 900,000 user-minute as a common metric for 
determining the general outage-reporting threshold for each 
communications technological platform addressed in the Report and 
Order.
    7. B. Simplified Reporting for Special Offices and Facilities and 
911 Services. Based on the record, we conclude that some revisions to 
our proposed 911/E911 outage-reporting criteria are justified. We have 
adopted the following threshold criteria for reporting 911/E911 outages 
for wireline and non-wireline operations:
    (1) There is a loss of communications to PSAP(s) potentially 
affecting at least 900,000 user-minutes and: (a) The failure is neither 
at the PSAP(s) nor on the premises of the PSAP(s); (b) no reroute for 
all end users was available; and (c) the outage lasts 30 minutes or 
more; or
    (2) There is a loss of 911 call processing capabilities in one or 
more E-911 tandems/selective routers for at least 30 minutes duration; 
or
    (3) One or more end-office or MSC switches or host/remote clusters 
is isolated from 911 service for at least 30 minutes and potentially 
affects at least 900,000 user-minutes; or
    (4) There is a loss of ANI/ALI and/or a failure of location 
determination equipment, including Phase II equipment, for at least 30 
minutes and potentially affecting at least 900,000 user-minutes 
(provided that the ANI/ALI or the necessary location determination 
equipment was then currently deployed and in use, and the failure is 
neither at the PSAP(s) or on the premises of the PSAP(s)).
    In taking this action, we have applied the 900,000 user-minute 
threshold as a substitute for the 30,000 customer threshold proposed by 
commenting parties in order to maintain consistency with the general 
threshold that we have adopted. We also adopted BellSouth's suggestion 
to specify that it is the loss of ``911 call processing capabilities'' 
in E-911 tandem/selective routers, and not the loss ``all call 
processing capabilities,'' that is the gist of this reportable event. 
In addition, we are persuaded by NENA's comments that ANI/ALI (callback 
and location identification) functionality is a fundamental part of 
E911 service whose loss should be considered to be a reportable event. 
ANI/ALI functionality or its loss can make, and has made, the 
difference between life and death, even in situations in which voice 
911 calls were completed. We understand that communications providers 
will not necessarily know whether the PSAP(s) receive 911/E911 
communications. Therefore, the providers' responsibility is to report 
outages that meet the threshold criteria and that potentially affect 
their ability to transmit 911/E911 communications to the PSAP(s). We 
will not hold providers accountable for determining whether their 
transmissions were in fact received by the PSAP(s). For this reason, we 
are excluding outages caused by ``failures at the PSAP(s) or on the 
premises of the PSAP(s).'' We disagree with the contention that some of 
the threshold criteria should be limited to only those outages that are 
caused by a failure in the reporting communications provider's network. 
We find that it is vitally important that we be informed of all 
significant outages that affect PSAPs, regardless of the network(s) in 
which the underlying causal factors lie. This information is crucial to 
gleaning more quickly a fuller understanding of how outages in a 
network affect other networks. This is especially so where PSAPs are 
affected, because of their major role in protecting public safety and 
human lives. We also disagree with the contention that the Commission 
should defer addressing outage reporting requirements for E911 until 
the completion of NRIC VII's study of the issue, at the end of 2005. We 
find that the public's interest in reliable and secure public safety 
E911 telecommunications is better served by our acting promptly.
    8. We are persuaded that our original proposal to include as 
special facilities all airports, including those small private airports 
that lack modern air traffic control communications infrastructure, may 
be overly inclusive. Instead, we shall limit the reporting requirement 
to those airports that are listed as current primary (PR), commercial 
service (CM), and reliever (RL) airports in the FAA's National Plan of 
Integrated Airport Systems (NPIAS) (as issued at least one calendar 
year prior to the outage) for the following reasons. There are over 
19,000 airports in the United States. Most of those airports are 
civilian landing areas that are not open to the general public. That 
leaves a total of 5,314 airports open to the public. Of those airports, 
there is a list of (currently) 3,489 airports listed in the current 
NPIAS plan as airports that are ``significant to national air 
transportation.'' These airports are categorized as primary (PR), 
commercial (CM), reliever (RL), and general aviation (GA). There are 
currently 422 PR, 124 CM, 260 RL, and 2558 GA airports. Commercial 
airports are airports that receive scheduled passenger service and 
enplane at least 2,500 passengers per year. Of the primary airports, 
142 are hubs. A hub is a commercial airport that individually enplanes 
at least .05% of the total U.S. customer volume per year. All hub 
airports will be covered by our outage reporting requirements. We also 
find that the primary non-hub airports, which are commercial airports 
that enplane over 10,000 passengers per year, should be covered by 
these requirements. Similarly, we are including reliever airports, 
which are airports that are used as alternatives for congested hubs, as 
well as providing general aviation service to the surrounding area. In 
contrast we will exclude at this point general aviation airports, which 
are the airports that do not receive scheduled commercial service. In 
sum, 806 airports--the 422 primary airports including all hubs, the 124 
commercial service airports, and the 260 reliever airports that are 
used as alternative airports for congested hubs--will now be covered by 
the revised outage-reporting requirements for special facilities that 
we are adopting herein. Although we believe that all communications 
providers will be able to adapt fairly easily to the inclusion of these 
airports within the outage-reporting requirements for special offices 
and facilities, we recognize that in some cases small rural 
communications providers might not be able to comply with the revised 
rule. In such cases, we anticipate granting appropriate waivers of this 
rule to providers that file a written request for waiver of the rule 
that is supported with clear and convincing evidence of the need for 
such a waiver.
    9. As commenting parties have pointed out, the critical 
communications infrastructure serving airports is landline based. 
Therefore, the outage-reporting requirements for special offices and 
facilities, insofar as they cover communications to airports, will not 
be applied to satellite and terrestrial wireless communications 
providers at this time.
    10. C. Elimination of Separate Reporting Requirement for Fires. A 
separate reporting requirement, set forth in Sec.  63.100(d), pertains 
to the reporting of outages caused by fires. Carriers are required to 
report fire-related incidents that affect 1,000 or more service lines 
for a period of 30 minutes or more, Sec.  63.100(d). Only a few outages 
have been reported pursuant to this subsection and these have tended to 
be very minor outages. In general, major fire outages have met the more 
general reporting criteria because they exceed the current 30-minute, 
30,000-customer

[[Page 70319]]

threshold criteria. Such outages would also exceed the proposed 900,000 
user-minute threshold criterion. We therefore proposed to eliminate 
this requirement. Commenting parties unanimously support elimination of 
this rule for the reasons that we advanced in the NPRM. We therefore 
conclude that the separate reporting requirement for outages caused by 
fires no longer serves the public interest and rescind that 
requirement.
    11. D. Simplified Time Calculation for Filing Initial Report. In 
the NPRM, we had proposed to require the filing of initial outage 
reports within two hours of the onset of the outage and the filing of 
final reports within 30 days of the onset of the outage. We are 
persuaded, however, that the alternative three-step approach proposed 
by various commenting parties would best provide the information that 
we need in an efficient and timely manner and would lessen the 
administrative burden on communications providers. A ``bare-bones'' 
notification within two hours of the provider's first knowledge of the 
outage will alert the Commission and DHS that a significant outage 
might be underway and will also provide some essential initial 
information (e.g., who to contact if more information were required in 
order to proceed further) if it is necessary to proceed further. This 
will not impose any significant burden on the provider's restorative 
efforts. Efficient, electronic, Web-based filing, using a ``fill-in-
the-blank'' template will be the preferred method of notification, but 
since there cannot be a guarantee that any particular method of 
communications would be operating normally, other written alternatives 
(e.g., FAX, courier) would be equally acceptable. The Notification 
shall include the following items--Reporting Entity, Date, Time, Brief 
Description of Problem, Services Affected, Geographic Area, Contact 
Name and Contact Telephone Number. At the three-day (72-hour) mark, the 
initial report shall be due. The data contained in the initial report 
will tend to be more complete and accurate than those that are filed at 
the two-hour mark under our current reporting rule. It may be the case, 
as PanAmSat and SES Americom suggest, that varying amounts of 
information will be available at the three-day mark from one outage to 
another and, thus, that not all data fields in every initial outage 
report will be able to be completed on time. We understand this but 
expect that reporting providers will exercise good faith in filling out 
the initial report as completely as possible. As a result, use of the 
same template for initial and final reports will enable reporting 
entities to submit all available information in the initial report and 
re-use that information in the final report to the extent that it is 
still accurate. Attestation will be required for the final report only.
    12. E. Other. In the NPRM, we tentatively found that existing 
requirements for final disruption reports should be modified to include 
the following information:
     A statement as to whether the reported outage was at least 
partially caused because the network did not follow engineering 
standards for full diversity (redundancy) (the deployment and operation 
of redundant assets (e.g., transmission facilities, network equipment, 
or logical paths) to achieve survivable communications in the event of 
a failure. Diversity requirements are specified in applicable industry 
standards and best practices.); and
     A statement of all of the causes of the outage. Outages 
may result from the occurrence of several events. The current rule 
requires that the final report identify the root cause, Sec.  
63.100(h)(1). Experience in administering this part of our rules has 
convinced us that there may be more than one root cause and that, to 
facilitate analysis, all causes of each outage should be reported.
    In addition, as the communications market evolves, we anticipated 
that communications might increasingly be offered through complex 
arrangements among communications providers and other entities (which 
may or may not be affiliated with the provider) that maintain or 
provide communications networks or services for them. For example, 
local exchange carriers have long provided Signaling System 7 (``SS7'') 
communications for their own use as well as for their customers, but 
some entities have more recently emerged to provide SS7 for such 
carriers. We proposed to require these entities to comply with any 
disruption reporting requirements that we may adopt to the same extent 
as would be required of the communications provider if it were directly 
providing the voice or data communications or maintaining the system.
    13. After reviewing the record in this proceeding, we find that the 
public interest will be best served by requiring that final outage 
reports identify whether the outage was at least partially caused 
because the network did not follow engineering standards for full 
diversity (redundancy). In an era in which networks are increasingly 
interconnected and in which there is heightened concerns that a failure 
of one network could conceivably cause the failure of other, 
interconnected networks, we find it important to facilitate analysis of 
the extent to which lack of diversity causes significant network 
outages. To analyze the text fields of existing outage reports manually 
for variations from best practices and for lack of diversity would be a 
very time consuming task. If past outage reports had contained a check 
box for identifying a lack of diversity, those analyses could have been 
readily done. In any event, we deem it important to discover if 
increased diversity would appreciably prevent the occurrences of 
outages. Therefore, we conclude that the outage template should, as 
proposed, include a checkbox for diversity. In general, if Best 
Practices related to diversity are discussed in any of the Best 
Practice fields or if lack of diversity is listed as a root cause or 
contributing factor to the outage, then the diversity checkbox must 
also be checked. In addition, we have been persuaded by those comments 
that assert that each outage has only a single root cause but may have 
many contributing factors. Accordingly, reporting entities will be 
required to reveal in the final outage report the root cause of the 
outage and several contributing factors (if any) to the outage.
    14. Regarding outage reporting by third party entities that 
maintain or provide communications networks or services for covered 
communications providers, we adopt our proposal. We point out that 
equipment manufacturers or vendors that do not maintain or provide such 
networks or services will not be subject to outage-reporting 
requirements. As BellSouth cogently observes: ``SS7 outages have the 
potential to affect large numbers of end users and can have a large 
impact on the reliability and availability of the public switched 
telephone network'' and therefore ``it is reasonable to require 
disruption reporting for SS7 service from all SS7 providers.'' 
Although, as Syniverse, KCC, and Ericsson observe, third party entities 
and communications providers should fully cooperate in assembling 
outage report data and in restoration efforts, we do not deem it 
advisable to countenance any delay that could result from these 
coordination efforts or from any emerging contractual disputes among 
the parties with respect to their service agreements. The outage 
reporting requirements we have adopted serve not only the general, 
long-term interests of network reliability and security, and potential 
resultant improvements in customer service, but also the overarching 
need to obtain

[[Page 70320]]

rapidly and accurately outage data that could serve the vital interests 
of homeland security. Our proposal better serves those vital interests 
and we therefore adopt it.

Outage Reporting Requirements for Wireline Communications

    15. A. Voice Telephony. We use the term ``wireline provider'' to 
refer to an entity that provides terrestrial communications through 
direct connectivity, predominantly by wire, coaxial cable, or optical 
fiber, between the serving central office (as defined in the Appendix-
Glossary to 47 CFR part 36) and end user location(s). We proposed to 
require wireline providers to report outages that meet the following 
criteria:
     The outage duration must be at least 30 minutes; and
     The number of ``user-minutes'' potentially affected must 
equal or exceed 900,000.
    16. For telephony, we proposed to define the number of end users as 
the number of ``assigned telephone numbers,'' by which we mean the sum 
of ``assigned numbers'' and ``administrative numbers'' as defined in 
Sec.  52.15(f)(i) and (iii) of the Commission's Rules, Sec.  
52.15(f)(i), (iii). Assigned numbers are defined as ``numbers working 
in the Public Switched Telephone Network (``PSTN'') under an agreement 
such as a contract or tariff at the request of specific end users or 
customers for their use, or numbers not yet working but having a 
customer service order pending.'' Administrative numbers are ``numbers 
used by telecommunications carriers to perform internal administrative 
or operational functions necessary to maintain reasonable quality of 
service standards.'' We tentatively concluded that the combination of 
these two measurements would provide a better assessment of the number 
of users that are potentially affected by the communications 
disruption, as distinguished from the number of ``customers'' that may 
be potentially affected.
    17. After reviewing the record, we agree with a number of 
commenting parties that our proposed use of assigned telephone numbers 
as a count of potentially affected wireline end users could result in a 
small over counting, which might unnecessarily increase the number of 
reports. Hence we have revised our requirement to include assigned 
telephoned number or working telephone numbers, where working telephone 
numbers refer to telephone numbers that have been assigned and 
provisioned for service. (To be more specific, ``working telephone 
numbers'' are defined to be the sum of all telephone numbers that can 
originate, or terminate telecommunications. As a consequence, this 
would include, for example, all working telephone numbers on the 
customer's side of a PBX or Centrex.) Working telephone numbers include 
direct inward dialing (``DID'') telephone numbers assigned to PBX and 
Centrex customers. Service providers may be aware of working telephone 
numbers to support their billing and operations processes and, if so, 
may use working telephone numbers in place of assigned telephone 
numbers. If the working telephone numbers are unknown for any reason, 
assigned telephone numbers must be used.
    18. Blocked calls, which were proposed as an alternative by a 
number of commenting parties, measure the actual impact, not the 
potential impact, of an outage. Our concern is to identify problem 
areas in the network by receiving reports on events that, if they had 
occurred at a different time or on a different day of the week, could 
have affected many users. We are not interested primarily in a tally of 
the exact number of users that were affected because we have not, and 
do not currently intend to rank or rate outage reports based on their 
actual impact on end users.
    19. Furthermore, the use of blocked calls as a reporting criterion 
would result in a significant undercounting of the number of end users 
potentially affected by outages. We find that the use of ``access lines 
in service'' or any of the other types of lines mentioned in the 
comments would suffer from the same flaw primarily because there are no 
useful definitions on the record for any of those terms. (As a general 
example, a large PBX or Centrex with many users, working stations, and 
telephone numbers can be connected to a switch by a relatively small 
number of lines or trunks. Simply counting these lines or trunks would 
underestimate the number of potentially-affected end users. In fact, 
even counting telephone numbers may underestimate the impact, 
particularly in the case of PBXs for which unique telephone numbers are 
not assigned to each end user.)
    20. We disagree with ATIS's assertions about inaccuracies and 
``out-datedness'' of, and difficulties in using, NRUF data. ATIS's 
claim that the NRUF reports ``do not reflect working telephone lines'' 
is not apposite because the Commission's rules, which are also clearly 
set forth in the NRUF instructions, state that ``assigned numbers are 
numbers working in the Public Switched Telephone Network.'' (Sec.  
52.15 (f)(1)(iii) makes no reference to the number of ``lines.'') In 
addition, it is not clear what definition of ``working'' ATIS is using 
in reference to access lines. We emphasize that telephone switches are 
not designed to enable every telephone number that can be served by a 
switch to be actually served simultaneously, but every such number is 
potentially affected if the switch fails. Our rules and the NRUF 
guidelines clearly spell out the five mutually exclusive utilization 
categories in which telephone numbers are to be counted. These 
categories cover all of the various problem areas mentioned in the 
comments.
    21. Similarly, ATIS and other's proposed requirement--that a 
``survivable element'' must fail in order for an outage to be 
reportable--fails to account for the fact that end users are 
potentially affected by outages regardless of whether ``survivable 
elements'' fail. We take particular exception to the USTA comment that 
outages should not be required to be reported if ``non-intelligent 
elements'' are involved regardless of the number of users affected. We 
stress that our concern is with the communications users, not with the 
intelligence or lack thereof in various network elements. As ATIS and 
others state, the adoption of our proposal could result in the filing 
of more outage reports than have been filed under the existing 
reporting threshold criteria. We do not believe that the number of such 
reports will dramatically increase, but the additional data will better 
enable the Commission to meet its responsibilities to facilitate 
increased reliability and security of our nation's telecommunications 
infrastructure.
    22. Finally, we reject the assertions that it is difficult and 
cumbersome for wireline providers to use NRUF data to determine the 
number of assigned telephone numbers potentially affected by outages. 
The NRUF data is reported by rate center, and the individual 
utilization records in each rate center are reported by NPA, NXX, and 
the thousands digit of the telephone numbers. It is a simple, straight 
forward process for wireline providers to use the Local Exchange 
Routing Guide (``LERG'') (which is published by Telcordia and updated 
monthly) to sum up the utilization of all the numbers served by each 
switch to determine the total assigned numbers and administrative 
numbers. We note that none of the smaller carriers or their industry 
associations that submitted comments in this proceeding has raised any 
concern regarding their ability to

[[Page 70321]]

track assigned and administrative numbers for each switch. All wireline 
carriers continuously keep track of assigned and administrative numbers 
so that an incoming call to any of those numbers can be switched to the 
correct line and trunk, so that they can respond to requests for new 
service or for specific vanity telephone numbers. As a consequence, we 
find that our proposal will best serve the public interest and, 
therefore, has been adopted.
    23. B. IXC and LEC Tandem Outages. Section 63.100(g) states that, 
for the tandem facilities of interexchange or local exchange carriers, 
``carriers must, if technically possible, use real-time blocked calls 
to determine whether criteria for reporting an outage have been 
reached. Carriers must report IXC and LEC tandem outages * * * where 
more than 90,000 calls are blocked during a period of 30 or more 
minutes for purposes of complying with the 30,000 potentially affected 
customers threshold.'' Sec.  63.100(g) (emphasis supplied). This 
subsection further provides that: ``[c]arriers may use historical data 
to estimate blocked calls when required real-time blocked call counts 
are not possible. When using historical data, carriers must report 
incidents * * * where more than 30,000 calls are blocked during a 
period of 30 or more minutes for purposes of complying with the 30,000 
potentially affected customers threshold.'' We proposed to modify this 
rule to replace the ``customer'' metric with the ``assigned telephone 
number-minute'' metric, in order to be consistent with the other 
modifications that we proposed. We also noted that the term ``blocked 
calls'' is not clearly defined in Sec.  63.100 and that some companies 
have counted only originating calls that are blocked, while other 
companies count both originating and terminating blocked calls. To 
eliminate this ambiguity and permit the Commission to gain an 
understanding of the full impact of each outage, as well as to promote 
consistent reporting by all carriers, we proposed to require that all 
blocked calls, regardless of whether they are in the originating or 
terminating direction, be counted in determining compliance with the 
outage reporting threshold criteria.
    24. For those outages where the failure prevents the counting of 
blocked calls in either the originating or terminating direction, or in 
both directions, historical data may be used. We tentatively concluded 
that three times the actual number of carried calls for the same day of 
the week and the same time of day should be used as a surrogate for the 
number of blocked calls that could not be measured directly. The 
proposed multiplicand of three is based on the total number of times 
(three) that an average subscriber would attempt to redial a number 
after first not being able to complete a telephone call. In the Matter 
of Amendment of Part 63 of the Commission's Rules to Provide for 
Notification by Common Carriers of Service Disruptions, CC Docket No. 
91-273, Second Report and Order, 9 FCC Rcd 3911, 3914 at ] 14 (1994). 
We also clarified that ``blocked calls'' are a ``running measurement'' 
made for the total duration of the outage. That is, an outage that 
blocks only 50,000 calls in the first 30 minutes may nevertheless reach 
the 90,000 blocked-call threshold criterion if the outage lasts, for 
example, for one hour. In relatively rare cases, it may be possible to 
obtain the number of outgoing blocked calls only, or the number of 
incoming blocked calls only, but not both. For these cases, we proposed 
to require that the blocked-call count be doubled to compensate for the 
missing data, unless the carrier certifies that only one direction of 
the call set-up was affected by the outage.
    25. Based on our review of the record, we believe that there is 
some confusion about our proposal. Contrary to the comments of several 
entities, we are not using assigned telephone numbers as the basis for 
determining if a tandem outage is reportable. Instead, we are using 
blocked calls. We disagree with commenting parties who object to our 
proposal to triple the number of historic carried calls to determine if 
an outage is reportable. We believe that setting the threshold for 
real-time blocked calls equal to triple the threshold using the number 
based on measured historic carried calls is still appropriate. This is 
not a change in the Commission's position. The existing rule, as it 
always has, states:

    Carriers must report IXC and LEC tandem outages * * * where more 
than 90,000 calls are blocked during a period of 30 or more minutes 
for purposes of complying with the 30,000 potentially affected 
customers threshold. Carriers may use historical data to estimate 
blocked calls when required real-time blocked call counts are not 
possible. When using historical data, companies, corporations or 
entities must report incidents * * * where more than 30,000 calls 
are blocked during a period of 30 or more minutes for purposes of 
complying with the 30,000 potentially affected customers threshold.

    Section 63.100(f) of the Commission's Rules, (emphases added). 
(When referring to historical data, for which 30,000 ``historic carried 
calls'' is the appropriate criterion, the existing rule inaccurately 
refers to 30,000 ``calls [that are] blocked.'' This is so, because in 
the historic period, all calls were presumably carried and none were 
``blocked.'') One can logically infer that there are more call attempts 
when outages occur. This implies that there should be a conversion 
factor when using real-time information instead of historical 
information. In the early 1990s, ATIS Committee T1A1.2 used a factor of 
three in its recommended methodology. This resulted in the existing 
threshold of 90,000 for real-time blocked calls. If we follow the 
suggestion of certain commenting parties and eliminate the factor of 
three, the threshold for real-time blocked calls would be 30,000 
blocked calls--the same as the threshold for historical carried calls. 
We find that this would be an unsupported deviation from the existing 
rule and would disserve the public interest.
    26. We strongly disagree with Sprint's recommendation that we limit 
the counting of blocked calls to those that occur in the first 30 
minutes of an outage. This would result in a severe and unjustified 
undercount of the effects of outages. Thus, many severe outages would 
not be reported. Most outage reports that the Commission receives and 
which have been triggered by blocked calls are the result of cable 
failures; these outages can persist for hours and even days. Regarding 
the ``originating'' and ``terminating'' terminology that we have 
historically applied to blocked calls, we acknowledge that for tandem 
switches the terms ``incoming'' and ``outgoing'' would serve just as 
well. Our paramount goal is to ensure that all effects of outages are 
counted. For outages of tandem switches, all blocked calls need to be 
counted. Since any call incoming to a tandem switch is also outgoing 
from that tandem, the number of blocked calls can be counted by 
determining the number of blocked incoming calls or by determining the 
number of outgoing blocked calls. That is, there is no need to double 
either figure or to add them together. For failures of interoffice 
facilities, blocked calls also need to be counted. Many interoffice 
facilities carry traffic in both directions. In this case, if the 
number of blocked calls in only one direction can be determined, then 
the estimate of the number of blocked calls for both directions must be 
obtained by doubling that number. Our proposal, when interpreted and 
applied in this manner, will not result in the double counting of 
blocked calls but will accurately count the number of all blocked 
calls. Therefore, we adopt our

[[Page 70322]]

proposal. Additionally, we clarify that whenever a provider relies on 
available ``historical data,'' it must use historic carried call load 
data for the same day of the week and the same time of day as the 
outage, and for a time interval not older than 90 days preceding the 
onset of the outage. Finally, we must account for situations where, for 
whatever reason, real-time and historical data are unavailable to the 
provider, even after a detailed investigation. In such cases, the 
provider must determine the carried call load based on data obtained in 
the time interval between the onset of the outage and the due date for 
the final report; this data must cover the same day of the week and the 
same time of day as the outage. Justification that such data accurately 
estimates the traffic that would have been carried at the time of the 
outage had the outage not occurred must be available on request.

Outage Reporting Requirements for Wireless and Paging Communications

    27. A. Common Metric for Paging and Wireless Services. Consistent 
with the 30-minutes/900,000 user-minutes criteria, we proposed in the 
NPRM to require wireless service providers to report outages of at 
least 30 minutes duration that potentially affect 900,000 user-minutes. 
We sought comment on this proposal. For those paging networks in which 
each individual user is assigned a telephone number, we proposed to 
define an end user as an assigned telephone number, and the number of 
potentially-affected user minutes would be the mathematical result of 
multiplying the outage's duration (expressed in minutes) by the number 
of potentially-affected assigned telephone numbers. It is our 
understanding that for other paging networks in which a caller must 
first dial a central number (e.g., an ``800 number'') and then dial a 
unique identifier for the called party, the paging provider maintains a 
database of identifiers for its end users and would therefore know how 
many of its end users are potentially affected by any particular 
outage. The number of potentially-affected end users for those paging 
networks would simply be the mathematical result of multiplying the 
outage's duration (expressed in minutes) by the number of end users 
potentially affected by the outage. We sought comment on this 
interpretation and proposed addition to our rules.
    28. In the Report and Order, we adopted outage reporting 
requirements for paging providers because of paging's vitally important 
role in alerting first responders and other critical personnel in 
emergencies, as well as its general importance as part of our Nation's 
telecommunications infrastructure. Nonetheless, we recognize that 
paging users are highly mobile, and there is no way to predict 
accurately how many users will be at specific locations at any 
particular time. Therefore, after considering the comments filed with 
respect to our proposal, we are adopting modified outage-reporting 
threshold criteria for paging to account for its unique 
characteristics. We find that the key, common element in paging 
networks is the switch. All messages are processed through a single 
switch before being distributed for broadcast. In addition, most paging 
switches have large numbers of users assigned to them. Therefore, if 
the switch cannot receive messages or distribute them to the 
transmitters, all assigned users are potentially affected. On the other 
hand, we find that it would be difficult to determine the number of 
potential users affected by the failure of one or more transmitters. 
Also, a failure of a single transmitter would not cause a service 
outage if the paging messages were successfully completed through the 
use of other transmitters. Therefore, we find that the 900,000 user-
minute reporting threshold is applicable only to failures of the 
switch, and not to failures of individual transmitters. If the switch 
is incapable of processing paging messages for at least 30 minutes and 
at least 900,000 user-minutes are thereby potentially affected, then 
the paging provider will be required to report the outage to the 
Commission.
    29. B. Related Criteria for Wireless Communications. To measure the 
extent of wireless service system degradation, in the NPRM we proposed 
to require the use of blocked calls instead of using assigned telephone 
numbers as a proxy for the usefulness of the system to users. In the 
wireless telephony service, a call is deemed ``blocked'' whenever the 
Mobile Switching Center (``MSC'') cannot process the call request of an 
authenticated, registered user. Call blocking can result from a 
malfunction or from an overloaded condition in the wireless service 
network. Usually when calls are blocked, users newly attempting to 
access the system cannot be registered on the system until the 
underlying problem is corrected. Because wireless service networks 
typically provide user access through several MSCs, an outage on a 
single MSC affects only those subscribers served by that MSC. 
Accordingly, under our proposal, call blocking on a single MSC would be 
reportable if it were to result in an outage of at least 30 minutes 
duration that meets or exceeds the 900,000 user-minute criterion.
    30. To estimate the number of potential users affected by a 
significant system degradation of wireless service facilities, we 
proposed to require providers to determine the total call capacity of 
the affected MSC switch (or, in the case of a MSC that has more than 
one switch, the total call capacity of all switches in the affected 
MSC) and multiply the call capacity by the concentration ratio. 
Although the concentration ratio may vary among MSCs, we tentatively 
concluded that, on average, the concentration ratio used for 
determining the outage reporting threshold should be uniform to 
facilitate correlative analyses of outage reports from different 
wireless providers. Based upon discussions with telecommunications 
engineers and our understanding of typical traffic loading/switch 
design parameters, we proposed that the concentration factor be ten. 
Thus, a MSC switch that is capable of handling 3,000 simultaneous calls 
would have 30,000 potentially affected users (i.e., (3,000) x (10) = 
30,000). We tentatively concluded that this concentration factor should 
adequately account for those users that are in the service area of the 
MSC and are thus eligible for immediate service. This factor would also 
take into account users that are assigned to the local home location 
register database for the MSC as well as potential visitors. Thus, 
under the general outage-reporting criteria that we proposed, wireless 
service providers would be required to report MSC outages of at least 
30 minutes duration that potentially affect at least 900,000 user-
minutes. The 900,000 minutes were calculated by multiplying the number 
of simultaneous calls the MSC can complete through the switch by the 
concentration ratio of 10, and then multiplying the result by the 
duration of the outage expressed in minutes. In the case of the 
preceding example, the calculation would be 3,000 multiplied by 10, or 
30,000 users. 30,000 users multiplied by 30 minutes would equal 900,000 
user minutes. That is, 3,000 (user switch capacity) multiplied by 10 
(concentration ratio) equals 30,000 (number of potentially affected 
users). Then, 30,000 (number of potentially affected users) multiplied 
by 30 minutes (outage duration) equals 900,000 user-minutes. If the 
outage were to involve less than the full capacity of the switch, then 
that portion of the traffic that is disrupted would be calculated. For 
example, if a 3,000 user switch were operating at one-half of its 
capacity for one hour, during which the switch

[[Page 70323]]

could simultaneously serve a maximum of only 1,500 users, then the 
calculation would be 1,500 users multiplied by 10 = 15,000 potentially 
affected users. Then, 15,000 potentially affected users multiplied by 
60 minutes would equal 900,000 user-minutes. This outage would meet the 
threshold and, therefore, would be required to be reported. We sought 
comment on this proposed addition to our rules and on whether there are 
specific types of wireless networks for which a concentration factor 
other than ten should be applied. As with CMRS paging providers, we 
also sought comment on possible alternative criteria for wireless 
service providers and approaches to measure the extent of the impact of 
system degradation that would yield useful outage data on which to base 
the development of best practices.
    31. We further proposed to require the filing of an outage report 
whenever a MSC is incapable of processing communications for at least 
30 minutes, without regard to the number of user-minutes potentially 
affected by the outage. Our reason for this specific proposal on MSC-
outage reporting was based on our continuing need to be aware of the 
underlying robustness, as well as the overall reliability, of wireless 
networks. The MSC, in this regard, is a critical architectural 
component in wireless networks that is designed to address significant 
levels of traffic aggregation and call routing that is dependent upon 
SS7 signaling. We sought comment on these additional conclusions and 
further proposal.
    32. In the Report and Order, after considering the comments filed 
with respect to our proposals, we have adopted modified outage-
reporting criteria for wireless communications providers. First, we 
clarify that only those SMR providers that meet the definition of 
``covered CMRS'' providers shall be required to submit outage reports. 
As explained in the NPRM, our intent is to include SMR providers that 
offer services interconnected with the PSTN and compete with cellular 
and PCS services. We believe that our clarification accurately depicts 
the SMR services to which we intend to apply outage-reporting 
requirements. Second, we find that there is a public interest need to 
determine the potential number of users that may be affected by an 
outage. As explained in the NPRM the current trend is for wireless 
users to replace their landline telephones with wireless service. The 
number of U.S. households that have completely cut the cord remains 
small. However, half of the wireless households report that wireless 
usage has replaced some, a significant amount or all of their regular 
telephone usage. In addition, wireless service providers are offering 
flat rate calling plans that encourages users to approximate wireline-
calling patterns. Similar to wireline, there are many users who seldom 
make or receive wireless telephone calls, their main intent is to have 
communications available in case of an emergency. This reliance on 
wireless for emergency communications has reportedly increased in the 
wake of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. In addition, in the 
immediate aftermath of these terrorist attacks, the volume of wireless 
communications traffic reached saturation levels, causing several 
wireless networks to become overloaded. In such situations, it is clear 
that the alternative proposed by some commenting parties, that we rely 
on either real-time or historical blocked call counts to determine 
whether an outage has reached the reporting threshold, would result in 
severe undercounts of the number of users that would have likely relied 
on wireless phones to attempt calls to reach emergency assistance or 
loved ones. Therefore, we find it imperative that the outage-reporting 
threshold rely on a more realistic method for calculating the number of 
users potentially affected by a wireless outage. The impact of an 
outage on the Nation's infrastructure and the growing reliance of first 
responders on wireless communications make the reporting of the number 
of potential users affected imperative to determine the robustness of 
the nation's wireless infrastructure. Although concentration ratios 
vary among MSCs, we believe that, on average, the concentration ratio 
used for determining outages should be uniform to facilitate 
correlative analysis of outage reports from different wireless 
providers. Based on discussions with telecommunications engineers and 
our understanding of typical traffic loading/switch design parameters, 
the NPRM proposed that the number be 10.
    33. We conclude, however, that the concentration ratio should be 
reduced to 8 to account for the dynamic nature and the mobility of 
wireless telephony systems. The proposed concentration ratio of 10 was 
based on an analysis that assumed a presented load of 0.05 Erlangs/
user, which is half the load presented to a typical wireline switch. We 
believed this assumption was justified in light of the fact that 
wireless phones, while gaining considerably in popularity, are still 
not complete substitutes for wireline telephone service. For example, 
because wireless users tend to be aware of remaining battery life, they 
may tend to shorten the average duration of their calls. Wireless calls 
can also terminate prematurely due to the uncertain nature of wireless 
coverage areas and dead spots. However, despite these issues, more 
recent information leads us to believe that more users are considering 
wireless service to be a complete substitute for wireline local 
exchange service, where issues like coverage area and battery life 
would weigh less on the average call duration, and that this trend is 
likely to continue. Hence, we find that our original assumption about 
the average load presented to a typical wireless switch was low but 
could increase in the future. After increasing the assumed presented 
load to a more realistic level, we conclude that the concentration 
ratio should be reduced to 8. Thus, a MSC switch that is capable of 
handling 3,750 simultaneous calls would have 30,000 potentially 
affected users (i.e., (3,750) x (8) = 30,000).
    34. The comments help illustrate the complexities of developing a 
common method to estimate the number of potential users affected by an 
outage. The use of historical data will only account for the normal 
usage patterns of the MSC. Once a MSC is overloaded or is out of 
service there is no mechanism to count blocked calls. As a consequence, 
reliance on historical data would result in a gross underestimate of 
the number of roamers and the number of users who only use their 
wireless phones in an emergency. This underestimation of potential 
users through the use of historical data has been repeatedly 
illustrated during emergencies in which wireless usage has overloaded 
wireless networks. As one commenting party, the BloostonLaw Rural 
Carriers, concede, when a switch fails, all users assigned to the 
switch are potentially affected. We conclude that outage reports should 
account for all potential users, not just those users who normally use 
their phones.
    35. The concentration ratio of 8 reflects the generic parameters 
that are routinely used in basic telecommunication traffic analysis. In 
practice, cellular and PCS networks strive to maintain not more than 2% 
blocking. The wireless design goal is to accommodate 2% blocking of 
calls during the busy hour. Similar statistical calculations are used 
to determine wireline switch capacity. During an ex parte meeting held 
on June 10, 2004, discussions with CTIA and other representatives of 
the cellular industry confirmed that wireless networks are designed to 
not permit more than 2%

[[Page 70324]]

blocking during the busy hour. This means that, on average, during the 
switch's busy hour, 2% of all calls presented to the switch will be 
blocked and 98% will be completed. Based on application of the 2% 
blocking factor and commonly accepted switch design parameters and 
principles, we find, first, that use of a concentration ratio to 
determine the call capacity of MSC switches is appropriate. Second, we 
find that the choice of 8 as the concentration ratio for determining 
the wireless outage-reporting threshold is also appropriate.
    36. We conclude that application of a concentration ratio of 8 in 
determining the call capacity of MSC switches will not result in over 
counting users in rural areas. Finally, we find that the use of a 
common concentration ratio for all wireless networks will provide 
consistency, will be easy to understand and use, and, in turn, will 
best serve the public interest. In sum, we adopt a common concentration 
ratio of 8 based on our best engineering judgment as applied to the 
record before us. This concentration ratio corresponds to a service 
level approximately equal to a 2% blocking factor, for which wireless 
networks are designed. Accordingly, we have adopted our proposed method 
of determining the call capacity of a MSC, that is, the number of 
potential users = (MSC switch capacity) x (the concentration ratio of 
8). We recognize, however, that this concentration ratio may change 
over time. As a consequence, we direct the Chief, Office of Engineering 
and Technology, to monitor the numerical value of the concentration 
ratio and advise the Commission if this value needs to be revised to 
more adequately reflect the number of potential users that are impacted 
by an outage.
    37. Outage Reporting Requirements for Cable Circuit-Switched 
Telephony. Failures in various portions of cable network 
infrastructures can cause disruptions to cable circuit-switched 
telephony service. For example, failures within the cable distribution 
plant, the fiber distribution plant, cable headend systems, and voice 
terminating equipment, as well as failures within Local Exchange 
Carrier (``LEC'') facilities such as switches and other points within 
the PSTN can cause cable telephony to be disrupted. Circuit-switched 
telephony provided by cable operators has always been subject to our 
communications disruption reporting requirements, and outage reports 
have been filed by cable operators. Nonetheless, we proposed to amend 
Sec.  63.100 to make it explicitly clear that cable circuit-switched 
telephony is subject to our service disruption reporting requirements. 
The current thresholds for reporting cable telephony outages are the 
same as those for wireline telephony--outages must last at least 30 
minutes in duration and potentially affect at least 30,000 customers. 
We proposed to apply to cable telephony the same revised threshold-
reporting criteria (30 minutes/900,000 assigned telephone number-
minutes potentially affected) that we proposed for wireline telephony 
outage reporting and sought comment on this proposed addition to our 
rules. In the Report and Order, we adopted our proposed outage-
reporting requirements for cable communications providers. We note that 
the customer base for circuit-switched telephony over cable may not be 
as large as the one over wireline and, hence, few cable outages might 
be reported. However, the reporting threshold that we adopted will 
capture outages when they are sufficiently long, and it is a more 
stringent threshold than the existing one. We do not find that the 
needs of homeland security warrant a different action at this time. 
Also, as we stated in the NPRM, we are not addressing VoIP or public 
data network outage reporting at this time.
    38. Outage Reporting Requirements for Satellite Communications. 
Section 63.100 of our rules does not contain outage-reporting 
requirements that are applicable to satellite communications. We 
tentatively concluded in the NPRM, that because of the increasing role 
and importance of satellites in our national communications 
infrastructure, it would be prudent to require U.S. space station 
licensees and those foreign licensees that are providers of satellite 
communications to the American public to report all major failures. 
This would apply to satellites or transponders used to provide 
telephony and/or paging. Thus, our proposal did not include satellites 
or transponders used solely to provide intra-corporate or intra-
organizational private telecommunications or solely for the one-way 
distribution of video or audio programming.
    39. Satellite communications have space components and terrestrial 
components. The reporting requirements that we proposed cover all 
satellite communications outages, regardless of whether they result 
from failures in the space or terrestrial components. Specifically, we 
proposed to require the reporting of any loss of complete accessibility 
to a satellite or any of its transponders for 30 minutes or more. Such 
outages could result, from an inability to control a satellite, a loss 
of uplink or downlink communications, Telemetry Tracking and Command 
failures, or the loss of a satellite telephony terrestrially-based 
control center, and we regard such outages to be major infrastructure 
failures. Analogous to the cases of wireline, wireless, and cable 
communications, we also proposed to require the reporting of the loss, 
for 30 minutes or more, of any satellite link or its associated 
terrestrial components that are used to provide telephony and/or 
paging, whenever at least 900,000 user-minutes are potentially 
affected. We anticipated that the satellite provider's Network 
Operations Center would be aware of the loss of satellite system 
components and their potential impact on end users. For telephony and 
many paging networks, one user-minute would be defined as one assigned 
telephone number-minute.
    40. The Report and Order adopted modified outage-reporting criteria 
for satellite communications. We are persuaded that FSS communications 
providers do not have a way to determine the number of end users nor 
the nature of the communications traffic that would be potentially 
affected by any given transponder failure. In addition, we find that 
MSS service providers are not likely to know how many end users are 
potentially affected during intermittent service disruptions. 
Nevertheless, we think it is important that major outages of satellite 
networks involving voice or paging services be reported. As a result, 
in the Report and Order, we adopted a two tier approach for reporting--
one for satellite operators and one for satellite communications 
providers. In either of the satellite outage reporting tiers, we are 
applying our rules only to voice and paging communications. In many 
cases, the satellites may carry a mix of traffic that includes video or 
audio programming, or private network communications, which are not 
covered by these rules. We believe that it is important that we obtain 
information on any outages that meet our criteria if they could involve 
voice or paging communications. As a result, our reporting rules will 
not apply to satellites, satellite beams, inter-satellite links, MSS 
gateway earth stations, and satellite networks when those elements are 
used exclusively for non-covered services (that is, when they never are 
used to carry voice or paging communications). We believe this 
clarification will help satellite operators and satellite 
communications providers to determine more easily when reporting is 
required, and are modifying our rules accordingly. We are also 
modifying our rules to more clearly

[[Page 70325]]

distinguish between the requirements that apply to satellite operators 
and satellite communications providers.
    41. As a first tier, all satellite operators will be required to 
report any outage of more than 30 minutes duration of the following key 
system elements: satellite transponders, satellite beams, inter-
satellite links, or entire satellites. In addition, MSS satellite 
operators will be required to report any outage of more than 30 minutes 
duration at any gateway earth station. We recognize that several 
commenting parties have suggested that reporting requirements should 
apply only for service outages, not for equipment outages. They argue 
that satellite operators can often bring in-orbit spares into use or 
rely on other satellites in the network to provide coverage. While this 
may be true, we still believe that reporting should be required when 
key satellite system elements have failed for more than 30 minutes. 
Satellite systems in general are expensive and difficult to replace, 
and it can take a long time for replacement satellite systems to be 
manufactured and launched. Furthermore, use of in-orbit spares or other 
satellites in a network can have a significant impact on future 
satellite network redundancy and overall system capacity. Given the 
critical backup role that satellites systems play in the overall U.S. 
communications infrastructure, we believe it is essential that 
operators report outages of key satellite system elements.
    42. We have adopted rules that identify the key satellite system 
elements, which would require reporting if there is an outage of more 
than 30 minutes duration, as satellite transponders, satellite beams, 
inter-satellite links, or entire satellites. We are also applying 
reporting requirements to MSS gateway earth stations if there is an 
overall gateway outage of more than 30 minutes duration. The reporting 
requirements will not apply to individual MSS gateway earth station 
outages where other earth stations at the gateway location are used to 
continue gateway operations within 30 minutes. Outage of any of the key 
satellite elements for an extended period could have a significant 
impact on the overall functioning of a satellite network and can affect 
system coverage, capacity and usability. They can also affect that 
ability of satellite systems to handle higher levels of emergency 
traffic if there is an outage elsewhere in the communications 
infrastructure. We note that this approach avoids the concerns raised 
by satellite operators that they could not determine the number of 
users or user-minutes that would be involved in an outage.
    43. The second tier of our approach for satellite outage reporting 
is to require satellite communications providers to report outages that 
involve more than 900,000 user-minutes. We recognize that a FSS 
satellite operator may not know that an outage is even occurring when 
it involves the failure in a service provider's network that 
communicates with the FSS satellite. However, the satellite 
communications provider should know when such an outage occurs, and 
should be responsible for reporting that outage just as other non-
satellite communications providers are required to do. We recognize 
that there may be cases, as raised by MSS operators, that a satellite 
communications provider doesn't know how many users may be potentially 
affected by the outage. This can be particularly true with the MSS 
operator is providing service both inside and outside the U.S. In those 
cases, we expect the satellite communications provider to determine 
whether reporting is required based on an estimate of how many users in 
the U.S. might be impacted and the amount of time those users lose 
service.
    44. Reporting of Major Infrastructure Failures. The communications 
outage reports that we have received over the past ten years have 
provided significant insight into some of the major problems affecting 
circuit-switched voice communications. The infrastructure used to 
provide these services, however, is also used to provide many other 
services that are essential to Homeland Security and our Nation's 
economy. A tiny glimpse into the other uses of our Nation's 
communications infrastructure was provided in Verizon's network outage 
report covering the World Trade Center disaster on September 11, 2001. 
That report states that ``some 300,000 dial tone lines and some 3.6 
million DS0 equivalent data circuits were out of service'' as a result 
of the damage. The ratio of more than ten times as many DS0-equivalent 
services using the infrastructure as dial tone lines is not unusual in 
a major metropolitan area. Most of the DS0-equivalent circuits are used 
to carry what are frequently called ``special services.'' While we have 
not previously required the reporting of communications outages that 
affected large numbers of special services, we need to recognize in our 
communications disruption reporting rules the continuously increasing 
importance of data communications throughout the United States. We 
tentatively concluded in the NPRM that our rules should be revised to 
account for certain important attributes of special services. Rather 
than collect information that is limited specifically to ``special 
services,'' however, we proposed to directly address the underlying 
issue and collect information on the potential impact on all 
communications services of major infrastructure failures.
    45. A. DS3 Minutes. As a consequence, we proposed to establish 
additional outage-reporting criteria that would apply to failures of 
communications infrastructure components having significant traffic-
carrying capacity. This requirement would apply to those communications 
providers for which we have already proposed outage-reporting 
requirements and would also apply to those affiliated and non-
affiliated entities that maintain or provide communications networks or 
services on their behalf. We tentatively concluded that the threshold 
reporting criterion for such infrastructure outages should be based on 
the number of DS3 minutes affected by the outage because DS3s are the 
common denominator used throughout the communications industry as a 
measure of capacity.
    46. In the Report and Order, after considering the comments, we 
adopted our proposal to require the reporting of all outages that last 
at least 30 minutes and affect 1,350 or more DS3 minutes. For example, 
if 45 or more DS3s are out of service for 30 minutes, an outage report 
must be filed. However, the quantity of DS3s affected in an outage is 
just one factor used to determine if the 1,350 DS3 minute threshold has 
been reached. Outages of longer duration will become reportable for 
fewer than 45 DS3s according to the 1,350 DS3 minute threshold. For 
example, a single DS3 that was out of service for 1,350 minutes would 
constitute a reportable outage. Similarly, an outage of two DS3s for 
675 minutes would constitute a reportable outage, and so forth.
    47. When a DS3 is part of a protection scheme such as a SONET ring, 
it will frequently switch to a protect-path within seconds of a failure 
in the primary path. The communication services being provided over the 
DS3 will not be immediately affected, but they will no longer be 
protected. Unfortunately, we have had a number of network outages 
reported where there are multiple failures on a SONET ring at different 
points in time, in one case five months after the initial failure. The 
second failure that occurs before the first failure is repaired causes 
the loss of all communications services being provided over the DS3. We 
therefore require that DS3s that switch to protect

[[Page 70326]]

be counted in DS3 outage minutes until such time as the DS3s are 
restored to normal service, including protection. An analogy would be 
to a two-engine airplane that can still fly with one engine. If one 
engine fails, the second (protection) engine keeps the plane flying but 
in an impaired state. Service is not restored to normal until both 
engines operate properly. Protected communications services are not 
restored to normal until both the primary and protect DS3s operate 
properly. In this same regard, if protection DS3s should fail while the 
primary DS3s are still working, services would not be immediately 
affected but the failed DS3 minutes are still counted toward the 
reportable trigger due to the loss of protection. Hence, we reject the 
proposed alternative that would exempt failures of DS3's that are part 
of a protection scheme.
    48. A DS3 is a communications highway that has been put in place to 
carry traffic in a digital format. That traffic can range from simple 
alarm and control circuits, to voice circuits, to radio and television 
programs, to circuits carrying ATM or credit card transactions, to FAA 
flight control circuits, to Department of Defense circuits, to circuits 
transferring billions of dollars from one Federal Reserve Bank to 
another, to circuits critical to the operation of the stock and bond 
markets. Some DS3s that carry no traffic are built strictly as 
protection in the case of a failure of another DS3. We find it 
necessary to point out that our concern is with the loss of 
communication highways regardless of how lightly or heavily they may be 
loaded at the time of an outage. The actual impact of a DS3 failure is 
that a communications highway that is part of this nation's 
communications infrastructure is no longer available. We are not asking 
carriers to calculate the potential impact of a DS3 failure. For 
example, if a failed DS3 is the only working DS3 in an OC48 (with 48 
possible DS3s), then the potential is for 48 DS3s to have failed. 
Likewise, if that same OC48 was riding one fiber in a 72-fiber cable 
that was cut, then the potential is for all of the fibers to be 
multiplexed at the OC48 level even if some of the fibers were actually 
dark. We only require that the working DS3s be counted, not those that 
could be potentially working.
    49. A number of commenting parties suggested that only DS3 failures 
that should be reported are those where ``the service provider owns, 
operates and maintains the electronic terminal equipment at both end 
points.'' This is an extremely restrictive provision that would be very 
difficult for the ``service provider'' to implement. The American 
National Standard for Telecommunications, T1.238-2003 (Information 
Interchange--Structure for the Identification of Telecommunications 
Facilities for the North American Telecommunications System), used to 
identify DS3s, does not even include data elements that identify who 
owns, operates or maintains the electronic terminal equipment at the 
ends of DS3s. The Commission is concerned with understanding 
infrastructure failures that might suggest that adequate facilities are 
not being provided to serve the communications needs of the people of 
the United States, and not with who owns, operates and maintains the 
electronic terminal equipment. Hence, we reject the suggestion that the 
only DS3 failures that should be reported are those where ``the service 
provider owns, operates and maintains the electronic terminal equipment 
at both end points.''
    50. We also clarify that we have no intention of asking service 
providers to report individual DS3 outages where the customer has 
deliberately turned the DS3 off, or where the customer's equipment has 
failed. To do so would be unfair to the communications provider. 
However, if that same DS3 goes through a multiplexer, a digital cross-
connect, a fiber cable or other network component that fails then it 
shall be counted as one of the many DS3s that are affected. The 
determination that a customer intentionally or unintentionally caused a 
DS3 failure typically cannot be made until after service is restored.
    51. We agree with the suggestion that the service provider whose 
infrastructure network component causes a reportable DS3 outage, or has 
maintenance responsibility for the point of failure, should submit an 
outage report. But we will not limit the reporting responsibility to 
such providers only. In this regard, we recognize that any given 
failure may trigger multiple outage reports. We have made the reporting 
process very simple so as to readily accept and process multiple 
reports triggered by the same event such as a fiber cable cut. The 
individual fibers in the cable may be leased to different 
organizations, and the working DS3s riding on each fiber may be used to 
provide a wide variety of services. If a reportable quantity of calls 
is blocked due to the cut fiber then that should be reported. Likewise, 
if the cut fiber also causes a reportable quantity of wireline user 
minutes to be potentially affected then that should also be reported. 
The value of this system of outage reporting is that it is most likely 
to reveal how failures in one part of a network can trigger failures in 
other parts of the same network or in other networks. The needs of 
homeland security and the long-term goal of improving network security 
and reliability demand no less.
    52. We disagree with AT&T's suggestion that in cases in which DS3s 
are the subject of a Service Level Agreement, they should not be 
counted in DS3 outages. The presence or absence of a SLA is not shown 
in the records described in ANSI T1.238-2003 and such information would 
only be readily available to the parties to the contract. 
Communications service providers routinely contract with third party 
vendors for equipment and various services, but the service provider 
always maintains ultimate responsibility for its network operations and 
services. Thus, all DS3s, regardless of whether they are the subjects 
of SLAs, shall be included in the DS3 minute calculation. We disagree 
with BellSouth's assertion that our proposal on outage reporting for 
major infrastructure failures would result in the indirect regulation 
of the ``Internet and other data services'' that should be free of 
regulation. Internet and data services are two examples of hundreds of 
services that can be, and are, provided on DS3s. We have no intention 
of requiring every carrier to examine all of the services that were 
provided on every failed DS3 and then deciding if it is reportable. 
That would be an almost impossible burden for the carriers and would 
unacceptably extend the amount of time that would be required before an 
outage would be reported. If a DS3 fails it shall be counted regardless 
of the services it was providing at the time of the failure. We also 
disagree with the contention that a ``working DS3 should be defined as 
one that has more than 10% of the DS0s in use, i.e., 67 DS0s'' and the 
SBC suggestion to increase the threshold to 400 DS0s. Many of the 
working transport DS3s being are not demultiplexed down to the DS2, 
DS1, or DS0 level within the confines of the reporting carrier so it 
would be almost impossible to determine how many DS0, or DS0-
equivalent, channels were in use at the time of a failure. The fact 
that a DS3 is working, as we have defined working, is sufficient for it 
to be counted as part of this infrastructure.
    53. We also disagree with the suggestions that various labels, such 
as ``access,'' ``customer,'' ``interoffice,'' or ``infrastructure'' be 
placed on DS3s and that they then be counted, or not, depending on the 
label. None of the labels suggested by the commenting

[[Page 70327]]

parties are clearly defined and they are not necessary to identify a 
failure. We are not asking telecommunications providers to apply 
various labels to working DS3s and then to count them, or not count 
them, based on those labels. The fact that a DS3 is working, as we have 
defined ``working,'' is sufficient for it to be counted as part of the 
infrastructure.
    54. We observe that Nextel's comments regarding problems it has had 
with T-1 (DS1) lines provided by ILECs illustrate just how dependent 
wireless carriers are on the services provided by wireline carriers. 
While we are concerned with the DS1 problems identified by Nextel we 
decline to include DS1s in the outage reporting requirements at this 
time.
    55. We also observe that, in the case of a ``mid-span meet,'' we 
require, at a minimum, that an outage report be submitted by the 
provider whose network element failed or who ``has maintenance 
responsibility for the point of failure.'' Other service providers may 
also report the same failure if their failed services met one of the 
other reporting thresholds such as blocked calls or user minutes. MCI 
recognizes that ``a single outage situation could * * * give rise to 
two [or more] reportable events.'' We recognize this possibility and 
have made the electronic reporting of outages as simple as possible. 
The advantage of multiple reports of the same outage under these 
circumstances is that: (i) Outages can be reported more rapidly without 
provider confusion as to who should report; and (ii) we will have a 
much better understanding of the overall impact of a given outage. We 
further observe that several commenting parties portray DS3 outage 
reporting as far more complex a matter than we intend it to be. These 
concerns are misplaced. We have absolutely no intention of placing a 
burden on the DS3 provider to determine just what services were being 
carried, nor of determining just how many DS0s, if any, might have been 
in use, at the time of the outage, nor of determining the ``real impact 
on end users'' (an almost impossible task). Our concern is with the 
failure of working DS3s regardless of the services being carried or the 
fill at the time of the failure. In this regard, while a DS3 has a 
capacity of 672 DS0 communication channels, this is not relevant to 
infrastructure outage reporting since it is only one of hundreds of 
possible services that can be carried in a DS3. A DS3 is simply a unit 
of communications capacity that can be and is used to carry hundreds of 
different services, and the services that are actually carried can vary 
from hour to hour, if not moment by moment.
    56. B. Signaling System Seven (``SS7''). In the NPRM, we observed 
that Signaling System 7 (SS7) networks provide information to process, 
and terminate, virtually all domestic and international telephone calls 
irrespective of whether the call is wireless, wireline, local, long 
distance, or dial-up telephone modem access to ISPs. SS7 is also used 
in providing SMS text messaging services, 8XX number (i.e., toll free) 
services, local number portability, VoIP Signaling Gateway services, 
555 type number services, and most paging services. Currently our rules 
do not require outage reporting by those companies that do not provide 
service directly to end users. In addition, even for companies 
currently subject to outage reporting requirements, no threshold 
reporting criteria are currently based on blocked or lost SS7 messages. 
Implicit in this statement is that a blocked or lost signaling message 
will result in a blocked or lost call. There are numerous types of 
failures that have already resulted in lost or blocked signaling 
messages. For example, SS7 failures have occurred: when both A links 
were cut; when A links were out of service due to a common power pack 
failure; when a timing problem on both A links isolated a central 
office; when all B links became overloaded; when a common software 
problem caused a pair of STPs to fail; when a translation error caused 
both STPs to fail; when a common table entry error caused both SCPs to 
fail; and when a software upload problem in both STPs resulted in SS7 
service failure.
    57. As a consequence, the NPRM proposed the addition of SS7 
communications disruption reporting requirements. To be more specific, 
all providers of Signaling System 7 service (or its equivalent) would 
be required to report those communications disruptions of at least 30 
minutes duration for which the number of blocked or lost ISDN User Part 
(ISUP) messages (or its equivalent) was at least 90,000.
    58. In the Report and Order, we agree with most commenting parties 
that third-party SS7 providers should have to report an outage if the 
outage is big enough so that one or more affected carriers would also 
have to report. Having both the third party SS7 providers report as 
well as the affected communications service providers will help us to 
understand underlying vulnerabilities in these interconnected signaling 
networks. We continue to find it important for carriers to report 
outages that affect their customers even if the actual cause of the 
outage did not occur in their network or was not caused by them. This 
is the case with our current rule, and we find no reason to change the 
rule in this regard. The Commission continues to need outage 
information irrespective of whether culpability has been definitely 
determined. In the absence of such outage information, it may not be 
possible to determine with rapidity whether further action is 
necessary. Under the requirements that we have adopted, if several 
small carriers are simultaneously affected by an outage in a third-
party SS7 provider's network, the third-party SS7 provider must report 
the outage if it meets the threshold criteria.
    59. We shall require carriers and third party SS7 providers with 
access to blocked call information to report each outage in an SS7 
network that lasts 30 minutes and either generates 90,000 blocked calls 
based on real-time traffic data or would result in 30,000 lost calls 
based on historic carried loads. Blocked or lost call information 
should be readily available for database outages (e.g., ``800-number'' 
service outages). Also, third party SS7 providers may be able to use 
their link monitoring system to obtain blocked call data for other 
outages. In addition, third party SS7 providers could ask for traffic 
data from the affected carriers. Whenever blocked or lost call 
information is available, that information must be used to determine 
whether the reporting-threshold criteria have been met. For situations 
in which blocked or lost call information is unavailable, we had 
proposed to use a count of lost ISUP messages as a surrogate for a 
count of lost or blocked calls. We agree with Alcatel, however, that 
there is an equally acceptable, more straightforward, and less 
burdensome alternative that will achieve this same goal. That is, 
whenever a third party SS7 provider cannot directly estimate the number 
of blocked calls, the provider must count the number of lost MTP 
messages (level 3). A count of 500,000 real-time lost MTP messages 
shall be used as a surrogate for 90,000 real-time blocked calls, and a 
count of 167,000 lost MTP messages on a historical basis shall be used 
as a surrogate for 30,000 lost calls based on historic carried loads. 
(Alcatel estimates that there are between 5 and 6 times as many MTP 
messages as there are call attempts.) Additionally, we clarify that 
whenever a provider relies on available historic carried call load 
data, that data must be for the same day of the week and the same time 
of day as the outage,

[[Page 70328]]

and for a time interval not older than 90 days preceding the onset of 
the outage. Finally, we must account for situations where, for whatever 
reason, real-time and historical data are unavailable to the provider, 
even after a detailed investigation. In such cases, the provider must 
determine the carried load based on data obtained in the time interval 
between the onset of the outage and the due date for the final report; 
this data must cover the same day of the week and the same time of day 
as the outage. Justification that such data accurately estimates the 
traffic that would have been carried at the time of the outage had the 
outage not occurred must be available on request.
    60. Electronic Filing and New Reporting Process. Consistent with 
authority granted by the Communications Act of 1934, as amended, and in 
furtherance of the objectives of the Government Paperwork Elimination 
Act, 44 U.S.C. 3504 note, Public Law 105-277, Div. C, Title XVII, 112 
Stat. 2681-749 (1998), we proposed in the NPRM to require that 
communications outage reports be filed electronically with the 
Commission. (An illustrative depiction of the proposed data collection 
fields was set forth in Appendix C of the NPRM.) Electronic filing 
would have several major advantages for the Commission, reporting 
communications providers, and the public. For example:
     Providers would be able to file reports more rapidly and 
more efficiently.
     Information would be updated immediately. The expenses and 
efforts that are associated with the outage reporting process should be 
reduced substantially which, in turn, should result in continuing 
productivity gains.
     Changes to outage report data should be more easily 
accessible by communications providers, the public, and the Commission. 
Thus, reporting entities should be able to file initial and final 
report information more easily, and interested parties should also be 
able to access this information more quickly.
     Changes to electronic input form(s) can be implemented 
more quickly. Two of the purposes of the reliability database are to 
help identify causes of outages and to refine best practices for 
averting failures in communications networks. As networks evolve and 
experience is gained, the data fields can be more easily revised to 
improve the quality of the information received to reflect changes in 
communications infrastructures and management procedures.
     In addition, security precautions can be implemented to 
authenticate access by authorized users.
    61. Our current outage reporting rules do not require, or even 
refer to, electronic filing (other than by facsimile). Although it is 
understandable, in retrospect, that our rules did not incorporate 
electronic filing because the Internet was just beginning to expand in 
1992, we tentatively concluded that the time has now arrived to 
implement electronic filing procedures. These procedures should not 
only facilitate compliance with the objectives that are expressed in 
the Government Paperwork Elimination Act but also should improve 
service to the public, enhance the efficiency of our internal 
operations, and virtually eliminate any burden that would be associated 
with complying with the proposed reporting requirements. Irrespective 
of any of the reporting requirements that we proposed, we expect that 
communications firms will track, investigate, and correct all of their 
service disruptions as an ordinary part of conducting their business 
operations--and will do so for service disruptions that are 
considerably smaller than those that would trigger the reporting 
criteria that we proposed. As a consequence we believe, in the usual 
case the only burden associated with the reporting requirements 
contained in this NPRM will be the time required to complete the 
initial and final reports. We anticipated that electronic filing, 
through the type of illustrative template that we appended to the NPRM, 
will minimize the amount of time and effort that will be required to 
comply with the rules that we have adopted. Electronic records and 
signatures are legally binding to the same extent as if they were filed 
by non-electronic means. See generally, Sections 101-106 of the 
Electronic Signatures in Global and National Commerce Act, Public Law 
106-229, June 30, 2000, 114 Stat. 464, codified at 15 U.S.C. 7001-7006.
    62. We recognized in the NPRM that it may, however, be desirable 
for other reasons to have alternative ways by which outage reports can 
be filed with this Commission. Accordingly, we requested comment on 
whether there are any circumstances under which electronic filing would 
not be appropriate and, if so, on what alternative filing procedures 
should be used in such circumstances. Finally, we recognized that as 
experience is gained with the electronic filing of outage reports, 
modifications to the filing template may be necessary to fully 
implement an automated outage reporting system that will maximize 
reporting efficiency and minimize the time for providers to prepare, 
and for the Commission staff to review, outage reports. Accordingly, we 
proposed to delegate authority to the Chief, Office of Engineering and 
Technology to make the revisions to the filing system and template that 
are necessary to achieve these goals.
    63. In the Report and Order, we agree with virtually all 
suggestions made about the electronic reporting process. That is, we 
agree that it is necessary to provide a method for time and date 
stamping all report submissions. The current process date stamps all 
faxed transmissions, with electronic time and date stamping occurring 
virtually automatically. All submissions will have a unique identifier 
or control number. We agree that companies will be allowed to prepare, 
save, and update draft reports to allow for management review and 
revision. The draft reports should not be available to anyone other 
than the reporting company since the information may still be 
tentative. We will permit providers to print drafts and reports 
submitted to the Commission. We plan on allowing only a small number of 
users from each company to submit and edit initial and final reports 
for security reasons. We are currently investigating the proper level 
of security for the electronic system. This may include digital 
signatures and encryption. We will allow for the appropriate withdrawal 
of the two-hour notification reports without requiring a formal 
retraction letter. We agree that companies need to be able to withdraw 
notifications and initial reports in legitimate circumstances (such as 
where a notification was filed under the mistaken assumption that a 
reportable outage had occurred). However, the system will keep copies 
of all submissions. The electronic system will be able to deliver a 
filed copy.
    64. We adopted the suggestion that our outage-reporting template 
contain a link to a website for accessing the list of Best Practices. 
Since several reporting fields are related to the use of Best 
Practices, it is essential to make it easy for users to access the 
relevant Best Practices. We have adopted suggestion that the template 
indicate whether the report is an initial report or a final report. 
Clearly, we need to be able to distinguish between initial and final 
reports. The electronic template will have a field to designate the 
appropriate time zone in which the outage occurred, as suggested by 
BellSouth. This will make it easier to compare outages that occurred 
nearly simultaneously across the country. We plan to have instructions 
for all the fields. We

[[Page 70329]]

disagree that the outage template is too comprehensive noting that we 
received suggestions for additional fields. We disagree with the 
comments that suggest that it is inappropriate and wasteful for the 
Commission to require different entities to file reports with respect 
to the same underlying outage. We have historically required all 
entities to report the same event if those companies cross one of our 
thresholds. There have been some instances of multiple filings on the 
same event in the past, but typically the number of reports per such 
events does not exceed two. Requiring all companies that cross a 
relevant threshold to report is simpler and, in the long run, less 
burdensome to all. And, it facilitates faster reporting which is 
essential for homeland security. If a communications provider 
experiences a single outage that satisfies several reporting thresholds 
(e.g., wireline, SS7 and DS3), the provider will be required to file 
only one report for the outage. The only occasions that a 
communications provider would have to file an outage report when it has 
not experienced an outage that satisfies the general threshold criteria 
based on the 30-minute/900,000 user-minute common metric are when it 
experiences outages based on the additional threshold criteria that we 
are adopting (e.g., for DS3 or SS7). Generally, on only rare occasions, 
the modified rule could result in the filing of an additional report on 
the same outage event; in the case of SS7 outages, for example, an 
additional report could be required as a result of an outage in a 
third-party SS7 network. Finally, analysis of these additional reports 
could be exceedingly important in understanding how reliability in one 
network affects the reliability of other networks. The insights gleaned 
from such analysis could contribute greatly to increasing the 
reliability and security of the nation's telecommunications 
infrastructure and to furthering our Nation's homeland security.
    65. With respect to the issue of potential duplication of the 
efforts of the states, we emphasize that we do understand the potential 
value of having one outage template instead of 50 different templates. 
Individual states, however, may have their own unique needs that could 
necessitate their collection of outage-reporting data that may differ 
from that needed by the Commission. It is, however, possible that our 
reporting requirements may provide a common framework that will be of 
assistance to state, commonwealth and territorial governments; and 
which may, therefore, serve to reduce the number of outage reports that 
might otherwise be required by those jurisdictions. Furthermore, we 
anticipate increased collaboration with DHS, state and local 
governments, and expert industry groups on matters of network 
reliability, homeland security, and emergency communications. The 
fruits of this collaboration will require that adjustments be made to 
our outage-reporting template and filing system on an expeditious 
basis. The most efficient manner in which the Commission can address 
this issue is to delegate authority to the Chief, Office of Engineering 
and Technology, to make necessary changes to the template and filing 
system.
    66. Conclusion. We have adopted outage-reporting requirements for 
wireline, cable, satellite, and terrestrial wireless communications 
providers, Signaling System 7 providers, and ``affiliated and non-
affiliated entities that maintain or provide communications networks or 
services used by the provider in offering such communications.'' We 
conclude that this action will best serve the public interest by 
enabling the Commission to obtain the necessary information regarding 
services disruptions in an efficient and expeditious manner. This 
action addresses the critical need for rapid, full, and accurate 
information on service disruptions that could affect homeland security, 
public health and safety, as well as the economic well being of our 
Nation. This action takes into account the increasing importance of 
non-wireline communications, as well as wireline communications, in the 
Nation's communications networks and critical infrastructure.

Final Regulatory Flexibility Analysis

    67. As required by the Regulatory Flexibility Act of 1980, as 
amended (RFA),\1\ an Initial Regulatory Flexibility Analysis (IRFA) was 
incorporated into the Notice of Proposed Rulemaking in this 
proceeding.\2\ The Commission sought written public comment on the 
proposals in the NPRM, including comment on the IRFA. The comments 
received are discussed in the FRFA. This present Final Regulatory 
Flexibility Analysis (FRFA) conforms to the RFA.\3\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \1\ See 5 U.S.C. 603. The RFA, see 5 U.S.C. 601-612, has been 
amended by the Small Business Regulatory Enforcement Fairness Act of 
1996 (SBREFA), Public Law 104-121, Title II, 110 Stat. 857 (1996).
    \2\ In the Matter of New Part 4 of the Commission's Rules 
Concerning Disruptions to Communications, ET Docket No. 04-35, 
Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, FCC 04-30, 19 FCC Rcd 3373 (2004) 
(``NPRM''), at ] 56 and Appendix C.
    \3\ See 5 U.S.C. 604.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    68. A. Need for, and Objectives of, the Report and Order: The 
purpose of the Report and Order is to extend the Commission's 
requirements for reporting communications disruptions to communications 
providers that are not wireline carriers.\4\ Previously, such 
requirements have applied to wireline and cable telecommunications 
common carriers only.\5\ Now they will additionally apply to all 
communications providers that offer circuit-switched telephony, 
satellite communications providers, Signaling System 7 providers, 
terrestrial wireless communications providers, and affiliated and non-
affiliated entities that maintain or provide communications networks or 
services used by the provider in offering such communications. We have 
taken this action because we recognize the critical need for rapid, 
full, and accurate information on service disruptions that could affect 
homeland security, public health and safety, as well as the economic 
well-being of our Nation, especially in view of the increasing 
importance of non-wireline communications in the Nation's 
communications networks and critical infrastructure. We also are moving 
the outage-reporting requirements from part 63 of our rules to part 4 
as a way to take cognizance that, although these requirements were 
originally established within the telecommunications common carrier 
context, it is now appropriate to adapt and apply them more broadly 
across all communications platforms to the extent discussed in the 
NPRM. Further, in an effort to promote rapid reporting and minimal 
administrative burden on covered entities, we are streamlining 
compliance with the reporting requirements through electronic filing 
with a ``fill in the blank'' template and by simplifying the 
application of that rule. In addition, we are adopting a common metric 
that would establish a general outage-reporting threshold for all 
covered communications providers.

[[Page 70330]]

These actions are designed to allow the Commission to obtain the 
necessary information regarding services disruptions in an efficient 
and expeditious manner and achieve significant concomitant public 
interest benefits.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \4\ By the term ``communications provider'' we mean an entity 
that provides two-way voice and/or data communications, and/or 
paging service, by radio, wire, cable, satellite, and/or lightguide 
for a fee to one or more unaffiliated entities.
    \5\ See Sec.  63.100 of the Commission's rules currently 
requires only wireline and cable telecommunications common carriers 
to report significant service disruptions. Section 63.100 of the 
Commission's rules, which is codified at 47 CFR 63.100, was first 
adopted in 1992. Notification by Common Carriers of Service 
Disruptions, CC Docket No. 91-273, Report and Order, 7 FCC Rcd 2010 
(1992); Memorandum Opinion and Order and Further Notice of Proposed 
Rulemaking, 8 FCC Rcd 8517 (1993); Second Report and Order, 9 FCC 
Rcd 3911 (1994); Order on Reconsideration of Second Report and 
Order, 10 FCC Rcd 11764 (1995).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    69. The general outage-reporting threshold criteria that we adopted 
specify that those outages of at least 30 minutes duration that 
potentially affect 900,000 user-minutes must be reported. This metric 
is the mathematical result of multiplying the number of end users 
potentially affected by the outage and the outage's duration expressed 
in minutes. For example, a 30-minute outage that potentially affects 
30,000 users meets the 900,000 user-minute threshold for reporting 
(i.e., 30,000 users x 30 minutes = 900,000 user-minutes). Also, a 60-
minute outage that potentially affects 15,000 users meets this 
threshold (i.e., 15,000 users x 60 minutes = 900,000 user-minutes). We 
also adopted specific outage-reporting thresholds for 911/E911 services 
and for other special offices and facilities. Major airports have 
always been included as special offices and facilities, and we are 
expanding this definition to include all of those airports that are 
primary (PR), commercial service (CM), or reliever (RL) airports as 
listed in the FAA's National Plan of Integrated Airport Systems (NPIAS) 
(as issued at least one calendar year prior to the outage). We also 
specified thresholds for major infrastructure failures, such as those 
involving the loss of DS3 facilities or Signaling System 7 messages.
    70. B. Summary of Significant Issues Raised by Public Comments in 
Response to the IRFA: One comment--by the Rural ILECs \6\--was filed 
directly in response to the IRFA. The Rural LECs state that the outage 
reporting rules that we proposed in the NPRM--which called for 
detailed, initial communications outage reports to be filed within 120 
minutes of the discovery of the outage--``could compromise the ability 
of a small, rural ILEC to restore service during the crucial hours 
immediately after the onset of an outage. Indeed, compliance with the 
proposed rules may be technically infeasible in situations where faxes 
cannot be sent and the Internet cannot be accessed.'' \7\ To minimize 
the impact on small, rural companies, they suggest that the Commission 
exempt those companies that are already subject to state outage 
reporting requirements. They further suggest that the Commission permit 
those companies that are not subject to such state requirements to 
report outages orally within 24 hours of the discovery of a reportable 
outage.\8\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \6\ The Rural ILECs include the following 33 rural incumbent 
local exchange carriers that state that they have fewer than 1,500 
employees and should therefore be considered to be small businesses: 
Big Sandy Telecom, Inc.; Bluestem Telephone Company; C-R Telephone 
Company; Chautauqua and Erie Telephone Corporation; China Telephone 
Company; Chouteau Telephone Company; Columbine Telecom Company; 
Community Service Telephone Company; Ellensburg Telephone Company, 
Inc.; Fremont TelCom; Great Plains Communications, Inc.; GTC, Inc.; 
Kennebec Telephone Company; K&M Telephone Company; Maine Telephone 
Company; Marianna and Scenery Hill Telephone Company; Northland 
Telephone Company of Maine, Inc.; Odin Telephone Exchange, Inc.; 
Peoples Mutual Telephone Company; RC Communications, Inc.; Roberts 
County Telephone Cooperative Association; Sidney Telephone Company; 
Standish Telephone Company, Inc.; STE/NE Acquisition Corp. d/b/a 
Northland Telephone Company of Vermont; Sunflower Telephone Co., 
Inc.; Taconic Telephone Corp.; The El Paso Telephone Company; The 
Columbia Grove Telephone Company; The Nebraska Central Telephone 
Company; The Orwell Telephone Company; Waitsfield-Fayston Telephone 
Company; Yates City Telephone Company; and YCOM Networks, Inc. See 
Rural ILECs Comments on the IRFA at 1 & Attachment A.
    \7\ Rural ILECs Comments on the IRFA at 1-2.
    \8\ Id. at 2.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    71. Based on these comments and the more general comments of other 
parties in the proceeding, we are adopting modifications to our 
proposed rule that, we believe, will adequately address the concerns 
raised by the Rural LECs. Specifically, instead of requiring the filing 
of a detailed, initial outage report within 120 minutes of discovery of 
the outage, we are requiring the filing of only a bare-bones 
Notification disclosing the name of the Reporting Entity; the Date and 
Time of onset of the outage; a Brief Description of the Problem; the 
particular Services Affected; the Geographic Area affected by the 
outage; and a Contact Name and Contact Number by which the Commission's 
technical staff may contact the reporting entity. We will not require 
the more detailed initial outage report to be filed until 72 hours 
after discovery of the outage. The final communications outage report 
will be due 30 days after discovery of the outage, as originally 
proposed. This action will enable communications providers to focus on 
their repair and restoration efforts immediately after onset of the 
outage. The bare-bones Notification that we require will not 
substantially divert them from these efforts but will alert the 
Commission to the possibility that a major communications might be 
occurring. The 72-hour time frame for filing initial outage reports is 
more generous than the 24-hour time frame suggested by the Rural ILECs. 
The notification will be submitted electronically, but if the outage 
makes this impossible, other written alternatives (such as FAX or 
courier) will suffice. The initial and final reports will be filed 
electronically. We believe that electronic filing will minimize the 
burdens imposed on all reporting entities, including those (if any) 
which might be considered to be small businesses. We do not adopt the 
Rural ILECs suggestion that we exempt those small, rural companies that 
are subject to state outage-reporting requirements. We believe that 
there is a legitimate need for the national, uniform outage-reporting 
system that we adopted and which covers various communications 
platforms. This system is designed to address the critical need for 
rapid, full, and accurate information on service disruptions that could 
affect homeland security, public health and safety, as well as the 
economic well being of our Nation. Nonetheless, as the Commission, the 
Department of Homeland Security, and appropriate State authorities gain 
experience with the outage-reporting system that we adopting, the 
Commission and the States may make further refinements in their systems 
to improve the analytic results that can be gleaned from them and to 
eliminate any unnecessary duplication.
    72. C. Description and Estimate of the Number of Small Entities to 
Which the Rules Will Apply: The RFA directs agencies to provide a 
description of, and, where feasible, an estimate of, the number of 
small entities that may be affected by the rules adopted herein.\9\ The 
RFA generally defines the term ``small entity'' as having the same 
meaning as the terms ``small business,'' ``small organization,'' and 
``small governmental jurisdiction.'' \10\ In addition, the term ``small 
business'' has the same meaning as the term ``small business concern'' 
under the Small Business Act.\11\ A ``small business concern'' is one 
which: (1) Is independently owned and operated; (2) is not dominant in 
its field of operation; and (3) satisfies any additional criteria 
established by the Small Business Administration (SBA).\12\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \9\ 5 U.S.C. 604(a)(3).
    \10\ 5 U.S.C. 601(6).
    \11\ 5 U.S.C. 601(3) (incorporating by reference the definition 
of ``small-business concern'' in the Small Business Act, 15 U.S.C. 
632). Pursuant to 5 U.S.C. 601(3), the statutory definition of a 
small business applies ``unless an agency, after consultation with 
the Office of Advocacy of the Small Business Administration and 
after opportunity for public comment, establishes one or more 
definitions of such term which are appropriate to the activities of 
the agency and publishes such definition(s) in the Federal 
Register.''
    \12\ 15 U.S.C. 632.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

[[Page 70331]]

    73. We further describe and estimate the number of small entity 
licensees and regulatees that may be affected by rules adopted pursuant 
to the Report and Order. The most reliable source of information 
regarding the total numbers of certain common carrier and related 
providers nationwide, as well as the number of commercial wireless 
entities, appears to be the data that the Commission publishes in its 
``Trends in Telephone Service'' report.\13\ The SBA has developed small 
business size standards for wireline and wireless small businesses 
within the three commercial census categories of Wired 
Telecommunications Carriers,\14\ Paging,\15\ and Cellular and Other 
Wireless Telecommunications.\16\ Under these categories, a business is 
small if it has 1,500 or fewer employees. Below, using the above size 
standards and others, we discuss the total estimated numbers of small 
businesses that might be affected by our actions.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \13\ FCC, Wireline Competition Bureau, Industry Analysis and 
Technology Division, ``Trends in Telephone Service'' at Table 5.3, 
Page 5-5 (Aug. 2003) (hereinafter ``Trends in Telephone Service''). 
This source uses data that are current as of December 31, 2001.
    \14\ 13 CFR 21.201, North American Industry Classification 
System (NAICS) code 517110.
    \15\ 13 CFR 121.201, NAICS code 517211.
    \16\ 13 CFR 121.201, NAICS code 517212.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    74. We have included small incumbent local exchange carriers in 
this present RFA analysis. As noted, a ``small business'' under the RFA 
is one that, inter alia, meets the pertinent small business size 
standard (e.g., a telephone communications business having 1,500 or 
fewer employees), and ``is not dominant in its field of operation.'' 
\17\ The SBA's Office of Advocacy contends that, for RFA purposes, 
small incumbent local exchange carriers are not dominant in their field 
of operation because any such dominance is not ``national'' in 
scope.\18\ We have therefore included small incumbent local exchange 
carriers in this RFA analysis, although we emphasize that this RFA 
action has no effect on Commission analyses and determinations in 
other, non-RFA contexts.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \17\ 15 U.S.C. 632.
    \18\ Letter from Jere W. Glover, Chief Counsel for Advocacy, 
SBA, to William E. Kennard, Chairman, FCC (May 27, 1999). The Small 
Business Act contains a definition of ``small-business concern,'' 
which the RFA incorporates into its own definition of ``small 
business.'' See 15 U.S.C. 632(a) (Small Business Act); 5 U.S.C. 
601(3) (RFA). SBA regulations interpret ``small business concern'' 
to include the concept of dominance on a national basis. 13 CFR 
121.102(b).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    75. Wired Telecommunications Carriers. The SBA has developed a 
small business size standard for Wired Telecommunications Carriers, 
which consists of all such companies having 1,500 or fewer 
employees.\19\ According to Census Bureau data for 1997, there were 
2,225 firms in this category, total, that operated for the entire 
year.\20\ Of this total, 2,201 firms had employment of 999 or fewer 
employees, and an additional 24 firms had employment of 1,000 employees 
or more.\21\ Thus, under this size standard, the majority of firms can 
be considered small.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \19\ 13 CFR 121.201 (1997), NAICS code 513310 (changed to 517110 
in October 2002).
    \20\ U.S. Census Bureau, 1997 Economic Census, Subject Series: 
Information, ``Establishment and Firm Size (Including Legal Form of 
Organization),'' Table 5, NAICS code 513310 (issued October 2000).
    \21\ Id. The census data do not provide a more precise estimate 
of the number of firms that have employment of 1,500 or fewer 
employees; the largest category provided is ``Firms with 1,000 
employees or more.''
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    76. Incumbent Local Exchange Carriers (LECs). Neither the 
Commission nor the SBA has developed a small business size standard 
specifically for incumbent local exchange services. The appropriate 
size standard under SBA rules is for the category Wired 
Telecommunications Carriers. Under that size standard, such a business 
is small if it has 1,500 or fewer employees.\22\ According to 
Commission data,\23\ 1,337 carriers have reported that they are engaged 
in the provision of incumbent local exchange services. Of these 1,337 
carriers, an estimated 1,032 have 1,500 or fewer employees and 305 have 
more than 1,500 employees. Consequently, the Commission estimates that 
most providers of incumbent local exchange service are small businesses 
that may be affected by our action.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \22\ 13 CFR 121.201, NAICS code 517110 (changed from 513310 in 
Oct. 2002).
    \23\ ``Trends in Telephone Service'' at Table 5.3.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    77. Competitive Local Exchange Carriers (CLECs), Competitive Access 
Providers (CAPs), ``Shared-Tenant Service Providers,'' and ``Other 
Local Service Providers.'' Neither the Commission nor the SBA has 
developed a small business size standard specifically for these service 
providers. The appropriate size standard under SBA rules is for the 
category Wired Telecommunications Carriers. Under that size standard, 
such a business is small if it has 1,500 or fewer employees.\24\ 
According to Commission data,\25\ 609 carriers have reported that they 
are engaged in the provision of either competitive access provider 
services or competitive local exchange carrier services. Of these 609 
carriers, an estimated 458 have 1,500 or fewer employees and 151 have 
more than 1,500 employees. In addition, 16 carriers have reported that 
they are ``Shared-Tenant Service Providers,'' and all 16 are estimated 
to have 1,500 or fewer employees. In addition, 35 carriers have 
reported that they are ``Other Local Service Providers.'' Of the 35, an 
estimated 34 have 1,500 or fewer employees and one has more than 1,500 
employees. Consequently, the Commission estimates that most providers 
of competitive local exchange service, competitive access providers, 
``Shared-Tenant Service Providers,'' and ``Other Local Service 
Providers'' are small entities that may be affected by our action.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \24\ 13 CFR 121.201, NAICS code 517110 (changed from 513310 in 
Oct. 2002).
    \25\ ``Trends in Telephone Service'' at Table 5.3.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    78. Interexchange Carriers (IXCs). Neither the Commission nor the 
SBA has developed a small business size standard specifically for 
providers of interexchange services. The appropriate size standard 
under SBA rules is for the category Wired Telecommunications Carriers. 
Under that size standard, such a business is small if it has 1,500 or 
fewer employees.\26\ According to Commission data,\27\ 261 carriers 
have reported that they are engaged in the provision of interexchange 
service. Of these, an estimated 223 have 1,500 or fewer employees and 
38 have more than 1,500 employees. Consequently, the Commission 
estimates that the majority of IXCs are small entities that may be 
affected by our action.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \26\ 13 CFR 121.201, NAICS code 517110 (changed from 513310 in 
Oct. 2002).
    \27\ ``Trends in Telephone Service'' at Table 5.3.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    79. Wireless Service Providers. The SBA has developed a small 
business size standard for wireless small businesses within the two 
separate categories of Paging \28\ and Cellular and Other Wireless 
Telecommunications.\29\ Under both SBA categories, a wireless business 
is small if it has 1,500 or fewer employees. According to the 
Commission's most recent data,\30\ 1,387 companies reported that they 
were engaged in the provision of wireless service. Of these 1,387 
companies, an estimated 945 have 1,500 or fewer employees and 442 have 
more than 1,500 employees.\31\ Consequently, the Commission estimates 
that most wireless service providers are small

[[Page 70332]]

entities that may be affected by the rules and policies adopted.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \28\ 13 CFR 121.201, North American Industry Classification 
System (NAICS) code 517211.
    \29\ 13 CFR 121.201, North American Industry Classification 
System (NAICS) code 517212.
    \30\ FCC, Wireline Competition Bureau, Industry Analysis and 
Technology Division, Trends in Telephone Service, Table 5.3, (August 
2002).
    \31\ Id.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    80. Broadband Personal Communications Service. The broadband 
Personal Communications Service (PCS) spectrum is divided into six 
frequency blocks designated A through F, and the Commission has held 
auctions for each block. The Commission defined ``small entity'' for 
Blocks C and F as an entity that has average gross revenues of $40 
million or less in the three previous calendar years.\32\ For Block F, 
an additional classification for ``very small business'' was added and 
is defined as an entity that, together with its affiliates, has average 
gross revenues of not more than $15 million for the preceding three 
calendar years.'' \33\ These standards defining ``small entity'' in the 
context of broadband PCS auctions have been approved by the SBA.\34\ No 
small businesses, within the SBA-approved small business size standards 
bid successfully for licenses in Blocks A and B. There were 90 winning 
bidders that qualified as small entities in the Block C auctions. A 
total of 93 small and very small business bidders won approximately 40 
percent of the 1,479 licenses for Blocks D, E, and F.\35\ On March 23, 
1999, the Commission re-auctioned 347 C, D, E, and F Block licenses. 
There were 48 small business winning bidders. On January 26, 2001, the 
Commission completed the auction of 422 C and F Broadband PCS licenses 
in Auction No. 35. Of the 35 winning bidders in this auction, 29 
qualified as ``small'' or ``very small'' businesses. Based on this 
information, the Commission concludes that the number of small 
broadband PCS licenses would have included the 90 winning C Block 
bidders, the 93 qualifying bidders in the D, E, and F Block auctions, 
the 48 winning bidders in the 1999 re-auction, and the 29 winning 
bidders in the 2001 re-auction, for a total of 260 small entity 
broadband PCS providers, as defined by the SBA small business size 
standards and the Commission's auction rules. Consequently, the 
Commission estimates that 260 broadband PCS providers would have been 
small entities that could be affected by the rules and policies adopted 
herein. The results of Auction No. 35, however, were set aside and the 
licenses previously awarded to NextWave, which had qualified as a small 
entity, were reinstated. In addition, we note that, as a general 
matter, the number of winning bidders that qualify as small businesses 
at the close of an auction does not necessarily represent the number of 
small businesses currently in service. Also, the Commission does not 
generally track subsequent business size unless, in the context of 
assignments or transfers, unjust enrichment issues are implicated.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \32\ See Amendment of parts 20 and 24 of the Commission's 
Rules--Broadband PCS Competitive Bidding and the Commercial Mobile 
Radio Service Spectrum Cap, WT Docket No. 96-59, Report and Order, 
61 FR 33859 (July 1, 1996); see also 47 CFR 24.720(b).
    \33\ See Amendment of parts 20 and 24 of the Commission's 
Rules--Broadband PCS Competitive Bidding and the Commercial Mobile 
Radio Service Spectrum Cap, WT Docket No. 96-59, Report and Order, 
61 FR 33859 (July 1, 1996).
    \34\ See, e.g., Implementation of Section 309(j) of the 
Communications Act--Competitive Bidding, PP Docket No. 93-253, Fifth 
Report and Order, 59 FR 37566 (July 22, 1994).
    \35\ FCC News, Broadband PCS, D, E and F Block Auction Closes, 
No. 71744 (released January 14, 1997). See also Amendment of the 
Commission's Rules Regarding Installment Payment Financing for 
Personal Communications Services (PCS) Licenses, WT Docket No. 97-
82, Second Report and Order, 62 FR 55348 (Oct. 24,1997).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    81. Narrowband Personal Communications Services. To date, two 
auctions of narrowband personal communications services (PCS) licenses 
have been conducted. For purposes of the two auctions that have already 
been held, ``small businesses'' were entities with average gross 
revenues for the prior three calendar years of $40 million or less. 
Through these auctions, the Commission has awarded a total of 41 
licenses, out of which 11 were obtained by small businesses. To ensure 
meaningful participation of small business entities in future auctions, 
the Commission has adopted a two-tiered small business size standard in 
the Narrowband PCS Second Report and Order.\36\ A ``small business'' is 
an entity that, together with affiliates and controlling interests, has 
average gross revenues for the three preceding years of not more than 
$40 million. A ``very small business'' is an entity that, together with 
affiliates and controlling interests, has average gross revenues for 
the three preceding years of not more than $15 million. The SBA has 
approved these small business size standards.\37\ In the future, the 
Commission will auction 459 licenses to serve Metropolitan Trading 
Areas (MTAs) and 408 response channel licenses. There is also one 
megahertz of narrowband PCS spectrum that has been held in reserve and 
that the Commission has not yet decided to release for licensing. The 
Commission cannot predict accurately the number of licenses that will 
be awarded to small entities in future actions. However, four of the 16 
winning bidders in the two previous narrowband PCS auctions were small 
businesses, as that term was defined under the Commission's Rules. The 
Commission assumes, for purposes of this analysis that a large portion 
of the remaining narrowband PCS licenses will be awarded to small 
entities. The Commission also assumes that at least some small 
businesses will acquire narrowband PCS licenses by means of the 
Commission's partitioning and disaggregation rules.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \36\ In the Matter of Amendment of the Commission's Rules to 
Establish New Personal Communications Services, Narrowband PCS, 
Docket No. ET 92-100, Docket No. PP 93-253, Second Report and Order 
and Second Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, 65 FR 35875 (June 
6, 2000).
    \37\ See Letter to Amy Zoslov, Chief, Auctions and Industry 
Analysis Division, Wireless Telecommunications Bureau, FCC, from 
Aida Alvarez, Administrator, SBA (Dec. 2, 1998).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    82. 800 MHz and 900 MHz Specialized Mobile Radio Licenses. The 
Commission awards ``small entity'' and ``very small entity'' bidding 
credits in auctions for Specialized Mobile Radio (SMR) geographic area 
licenses in the 800 MHz and 900 MHz bands to firms that had revenues of 
no more than $15 million in each of the three previous calendar years, 
or that had revenues of no more than $3 million in each of the previous 
calendar years, respectively.\38\ These bidding credits apply to SMR 
providers in the 800 MHz and 900 MHz bands that either hold geographic 
area licenses or have obtained extended implementation authorizations. 
The Commission does not know how many firms provide 800 MHz or 900 MHz 
geographic area SMR service pursuant to extended implementation 
authorizations, nor how many of these providers have annual revenues of 
no more than $15 million. One firm has over $15 million in revenues. 
The Commission assumes, for purposes here, that all of the remaining 
existing extended implementation authorizations are held by small 
entities, as that term is defined by the SBA. The Commission has held 
auctions for geographic area licenses in the 800 MHz and 900 MHz SMR 
bands. There were 60 winning bidders that qualified as small or very 
small entities in the 900 MHz SMR auctions. Of the 1,020 licenses won 
in the 900 MHz auction, bidders qualifying as small or very small 
entities won 263 licenses. In the 800 MHz auction, 38 of the 524 
licenses won were won by small and very small entities. In addition, we 
note that, as a general matter, the number of winning bidders that 
qualify as small businesses at the close of an auction does not 
necessarily represent the number of small businesses currently in 
service. Also, the Commission does not generally track subsequent 
business size

[[Page 70333]]

unless, in the context of assignments or transfers, unjust enrichment 
issues are implicated.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \38\ 47 CFR 90.814(b)(1).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    83. Paging. The SBA has developed a small business size standard 
for Paging, which consists of all such firms having 1,500 or fewer 
employees.\39\ According to Census Bureau data for 1997, in this 
category there was a total of 1,320 firms that operated for the entire 
year.\40\ Of this total, 1,303 firms had employment of 999 or fewer 
employees, and an additional seventeen firms had employment of 1,000 
employees or more.\41\ Thus, under this size standard, the majority of 
firms can be considered small.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \39\ 13 CFR 121.201, NAICS code 517211 (changed from 513321 in 
October 2002).
    \40\ U.S. Census Bureau, 1997 Economic Census, Subject Series: 
Information, ``Establishment and Firm Size (Including Legal Form of 
Organization),'' Table 5, NAICS code 513321 (issued October 2000).
    \41\ Id. The census data do not provide a more precise estimate 
of the number of firms that have employment of 1,500 or fewer 
employees; the largest category provided is ``Firms with 1,000 
employees or more.''
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    84. Rural Radiotelephone Service. The Commission has not adopted a 
size standard for small businesses specific to the Rural Radiotelephone 
Service.\42\ A significant subset of the Rural Radiotelephone Service 
is the Basic Exchange Telephone Radio System (BETRS).\43\ The 
Commission uses the SBA's small business size standard applicable to 
``Cellular and Other Wireless Telecommunications,'' i.e., an entity 
employing no more than 1,500 persons.\44\ There are approximately 1,000 
licensees in the Rural Radiotelephone Service, and the Commission 
estimates that there are 1,000 or fewer small entity licensees in the 
Rural Radiotelephone Service that may be affected by the rules and 
policies adopted herein.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \42\ The service is defined in 47 CFR 22.99 of the Commission's 
Rules.
    \43\ BETRS is defined in 47 CFR 22.757 and 22.759 of the 
Commission's Rules.
    \44\ 13 CFR 121.201, NAICS code 517212.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    85. Cable and Other Program Distribution.\45\ This category 
includes cable systems operators, closed circuit television services, 
direct broadcast satellite services, multipoint distribution systems, 
satellite master antenna systems, and subscription television services. 
According to Census Bureau data for 1997, there were a total of 1,311 
firms in this category, total, that had operated for the entire 
year.\46\ Of this total, 1,180 firms had annual receipts of under $10 
million and an additional 52 firms had receipts of $10 million or more 
but less than $25 million. Consequently, the Commission estimates that 
the majority of providers in this service category are small businesses 
that may be affected by the rules and policies adopted.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \45\ 13 CFR 121.201, North American Industry Classification 
System (NAICS) code 513220 (changed to 517510 in October 2002).
    \46\ U.S. Census Bureau, 1997 Economic Census, Subject Series: 
Information, ``Establishment and Firm Size (Including Legal Form of 
Organization)'', Table 4, NAICS code 513220 (issued October 2000).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    86. Cable System Operators (Rate Regulation Standard). The 
Commission has developed a size standard for small cable system 
operators for the purposes of rate regulation. Under the Commission's 
rules, a ``small cable company'' is one serving fewer than 400,000 
subscribers nationwide.\47\ Based on our most recent information, we 
estimate that there were 1439 cable operators that qualified as small 
cable companies at the end of 1995.\48\ Since then, some of those 
companies may have grown to serve over 400,000 subscribers, and others 
may have been involved in transactions that caused them to be combined 
with other cable operators. The Commission's rules define a ``small 
system,'' for the purposes of rate regulation, as a cable system with 
15,000 or fewer subscribers.\49\ The Commission does not request nor 
does the Commission collect information concerning cable systems 
serving 15,000 or fewer subscribers and thus is unable to estimate, at 
this time, the number of small cable systems nationwide.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \47\ 47 CFR 76.901(e). The Commission developed this definition 
based on its determination that a small cable system operator is one 
with annual revenues of $100 million or less. Implementation of 
Sections of the 1992 Cable Act: Rate Regulation, Sixth Report and 
Order and Eleventh Order on Reconsideration, MM Docket No. 92-266 
and 93-215, 10 FCC Rcd 7393 (1995), 60 Fed. Reg. 10534 (February 27, 
1995).
    \48\ Paul Kagan Associates, Inc., Cable TV Investor, Feb. 29, 
1996 (based on figures for Dec. 30, 1995).
    \49\ 47 CFR 76.901(c).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    87. Cable System Operators (Telecom Act Standard). The 
Communications Act of 1934, as amended, also contains a definition of a 
small cable system operator, which is ``a cable operator that, directly 
or through an affiliate, serves in the aggregate fewer than 1% of all 
subscribers in the United States and is not affiliated with any entity 
or entities whose gross annual revenues in the aggregate exceed 
$250,000,000.'' \50\ The Commission has determined that there are 
61,700,000 subscribers in the United States. Therefore, a cable 
operator serving fewer than 617,000 subscribers shall be deemed a small 
operator, if its annual revenues, when combined with the total annual 
revenues of all of its affiliates, do not exceed $250 million in the 
aggregate.\51\ Based on available data, we find that the number of 
cable operators serving 617,000 subscribers or less totals 
approximately 1450.\52\ Although it seems certain that some of these 
cable system operators are affiliated with entities whose gross annual 
revenues exceed $250,000,000, we are unable at this time to estimate 
with greater precision the number of cable system operators that would 
qualify as small cable operators as defined in the Communications Act 
of 1934.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \50\ 47 U.S.C. 543(m)(2).
    \51\ 47 CFR 76.1403(b).
    \52\ Cable TV Investor, supra note 48.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    88. Satellite Telecommunications Providers. The appropriate size 
standards under SBA rules are for the two broad categories of Satellite 
Telecommunications and Other Telecommunications. Under both categories, 
such a business is small if it has $12.5 or less in average annual 
receipts.\53\ For the first category of Satellite Telecommunications, 
Census Bureau data for 1997 show that there were a total of 324 firms 
that operated for the entire year.\54\ Of this total, 273 firms had 
annual receipts of under $10 million, and an additional twenty-four 
firms had receipts of $10 million to $24,999,999. Thus, the majority of 
Satellite Telecommunications firms can be considered small.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \53\ 13 CFR 121.201, NAICS codes 517410 and 517910 (changed from 
513340 and 513390 in Oct. 2002).
    \54\ U.S. Census Bureau, 1997 Economic Census, Subject Series: 
Information, ``Establishment and Firm Size (Including Legal Form of 
Organization),'' Table 4, NAICS code 513340 (issued Oct. 2000).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    89. Signaling System 7 (SS7) Providers. The Commission has not 
developed a definition of small entities applicable to Signaling System 
7 providers. We shall apply the SBA's small business size standard for 
Other Telecommunications, which identifies as small all such companies 
having $12.5 million or less in annual receipts.\55\ We believe that 
there are no more than half-a-dozen SS7 providers and doubt that any of 
them have annual receipts less then $12.5 million. In the IRFA in this 
proceeding, we assumed that there may be several SS7 providers that are 
small businesses which could be affected by the proposed rules and 
requested comment on how many SS7 providers exist and on how many of 
these are small businesses that may be affected by our proposed rules. 
No comments provided this information. We conclude that none of these 
providers are small businesses.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \55\ 13 CFR 121.201, NAICS code 517910.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    90. D. Description of Projected Reporting, Recordkeeping, and Other 
Compliance Requirements for Small Entities: The rules adopted in this

[[Page 70334]]

Report and Order require telecommunications providers to report those 
outages that meet specified threshold criteria. These criteria are 
largely determined by the number of end users potentially affected by 
the outage and the duration of the outage, which generally must be at 
least 30 minutes. Under the prior rules, which have applied only to 
wireline carriers and cable television service providers that also 
provide telecommunications service, only about 200 outage reports per 
year from all reporting sources combined were filed with the 
Commission. In the IRFA, we stated that the proposed revisions to the 
threshold criteria were not expected to alter the number of outage 
reports filed annually to a significant degree. Nevertheless, the 
adopted rules do extend the outage reporting requirements to 
telecommunications providers that are not currently subject to these 
rules. Thus, in the IRFA we anticipated that more than 200 outage 
reports will be filed annually, but estimated that the total number of 
reports from all reporting sources combined will be substantially less 
than 1,000 annually. We noted then, and find now, that, occasionally, 
the outage reporting requirements could require the use of professional 
skills, including legal and engineering expertise. Without more data, 
the IRFA concluded that we could not accurately estimate the cost of 
compliance by small telecommunications providers. But irrespective of 
any of the reporting requirements that were proposed, the IRFA expected 
that telecommunications providers will track, investigate, and correct 
all of their service disruptions as an ordinary part of conducting 
their business operations--and will do so for service disruptions that 
are considerably smaller than for disruptions that would trigger the 
proposed reporting criteria. As a consequence, the IRFA tentatively 
found that in the usual case, the only burden associated with the 
proposed reporting requirements would be the time required to complete 
the initial and final reports. The IRFA anticipated that electronic 
filing using a ``fill in the blank'' template would minimize the amount 
of time and effort that would be required to comply with the proposed 
rules. The IFRA sought comment on the types of burdens 
telecommunications providers would face in complying with the proposed 
requirements. Entities, especially small entities, were encouraged to 
quantify the costs and benefits of the proposed reporting requirements. 
In addition, in our initial analysis pursuant to the Paperwork 
Reduction Act of 1995, we estimated that the Number of Respondents 
would be 52, the Estimated Time per Response would be 5 hours, the 
Frequency of Response would be ``on occasion,'' the Total Annual Burden 
would be 1,040 hours, and the Total Annual Costs would be $41,600. We 
sought comment on the PRA, including on: (a) Whether the proposed 
collection of information is necessary for the proper performance of 
the functions of the Commission, including whether the information 
shall have practical utility; (b) the accuracy of the Commission's 
burden estimates; (c) ways to enhance the quality, utility, and clarity 
of the information collected; and (d) ways to minimize the burden of 
the collection of information on the respondents, including the use of 
automated collection techniques or other forms of information 
technology. See Commission's Rules Concerning Disruptions to 
Communications, ET Docket No. 04-35, Proposed Rule, FCC 04-30, 69 FR 
15761 ( March 26, 2004).
    91. The Rural ILECs \56\ were the only parties to file direct 
comments on the IRFA. In these comments, they state that our original 
proposal, which would have required small communications providers to 
file detailed, initial outage reports within 120 minutes of their 
discovery that an outage was occurring, would be overly burdensome. 
They explain that their employees who diagnose outages and then work to 
repair and restore their communications networks are the same employees 
who would be called upon to supply the information needed for the 
initial outage reports and/or to file those reports with the 
Commission. Therefore, the Rural ILECs conclude that our proposal could 
compromise their ability to restore service during the critical hours 
immediately after the onset of an outage. In addition, they state that 
compliance with the proposed rules may be technically infeasible in 
situations where faxes cannot be sent and the Internet cannot be 
accessed. To address these concerns, the Rural ILECs suggest that the 
Commission exempt those companies that are already subject to state 
outage reporting requirements. They also suggest that the Commission 
allow those companies that are not subject to state reporting 
requirements to report outages orally to the Commission within 24 hours 
of their discovery of a reportable outage. Taking these comments, as 
well as the general comments of other parties into account, the 
Commission, in the Report and Order, adopted a modified outage-
reporting rule that is more flexible than the one proposed in the NPRM. 
Within 120 minutes of discovering an outage, each reporting entity, 
whether large or small, will be required to submit to the Commission a 
Notification that contains only a minimal amount of data, that is, the 
name of the Reporting Entity; the Date and Time of onset of the outage; 
a Brief Description of the Problem; the particular Services Affected; 
the Geographic Area affected by the outage; and a Contact Name and 
Contact Number by which the Commission's technical staff may contact 
the reporting entity. We anticipate that reporting entities will 
ordinarily not need more than 15 minutes to file a notification with 
the Commission. The more detailed initial report, with which Rural 
ILECs expressed concern, will not be required to be filed until 72 
hours after the outage was discovered. Further, all filings are to be 
made electronically, thereby minimizing the burden on all reporting 
entities. But, if a specific outage situation prevents the Notification 
from being filed electronically or by FAX, other written means of 
filing (such as the use of a courier) will be acceptable. Thus, we find 
that our action will enable communications providers to focus on their 
repair and restoration efforts immediately after onset of the outage. 
The bare-bones notification that we require will not substantially 
divert them from these efforts but will alert the Commission to the 
possibility that a major communications might be occurring. In 
addition, the alternative, 72-hour time frame for filing initial outage 
reports is more generous than the 24-hour time frame suggested by the 
Rural ILECs. Thus, we do not find that the public interest would be 
served by the Rural ILECs suggestion to permit outage information to be 
reported orally within 24 hours. The quality of information that would 
be submitted orally is likely to be less accurate and less uniform than 
that submitted electronically through the ``fill in the blank'' 
template which we have adopted. Also, the reporting burden would likely 
not decrease as a result of oral submissions, because of the speed that 
e-filing permits and because of the greater likelihood that the 
Commission would need to ask oral submitters to correct and supplement 
incorrect and incomplete orally-submitted information.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \56\ See supra note 6.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    92. We also do not adopt the Rural ILECs suggestion that we exempt 
those small, rural companies that are subject to state outage-reporting 
requirements. We believe that there is a legitimate need for the 
national, uniform outage-

[[Page 70335]]

reporting system that we adopted and which covers various 
communications platforms. This system is designed to address the 
critical need for rapid, full, and accurate information on service 
disruptions that could affect homeland security, public health and 
safety, as well as the economic well being of our Nation. Nonetheless, 
as the Commission, the Department of Homeland Security, and appropriate 
State authorities gain experience with the outage-reporting system that 
we are adopting, the Commission and the States may make further 
refinements in their systems to improve the analytic results that can 
be gleaned from them and to eliminate any unnecessary duplication. The 
information collection that we have adopted is necessary to fulfill the 
Commission's responsibilities for ensuring the reliability and security 
of the Nation's telecommunications networks and infrastructure, which 
also serves the public's homeland security needs. We do not find that 
further accommodations for small businesses could be made that would 
not be outweighed by the public interest benefits of our present 
action.
    93. We estimate that reporting entities will ordinarily not need 
more than 15 minutes to file electronically with the Commission the 
bare-bones Notification that will contain only a minimal amount of 
data, that is, the name of the Reporting Entity; the Date and Time of 
onset of the outage; a Brief Description of the Problem; the particular 
Services Affected; the Geographic Area affected by the outage; and a 
Contact Name and Contact Number by which the Commission's technical 
staff may contact the reporting entity. We further estimate that 
reporting entities will ordinarily not need more than 45 minutes to 
complete and submit electronically to the Commission the initial 
report, due within 72 hours of discovery of the outage, that will 
contain all information then available. Finally, we estimate that 
reporting entities will ordinarily not need more than 2 hours to 
complete and submit electronically the final report to the Commission. 
These time estimates include the actual time needed for data entry and 
submission but do not include the time taken for data gathering and 
analysis. Also excluded is idle time (for example, any time in which 
partially completed information is waiting in an in-box for further 
review), which we find cannot fairly be counted as a reporting burden. 
Since most companies routinely collect information on service failures, 
it is difficult to estimate precisely how much additional time for data 
gathering and analysis, if any, will be required to comply with the 
revised rule. In any event, we estimate that for the great majority of 
outages the total additional time so required will be significantly 
less than two (2) hours. Thus, the final report will generally not 
require more than 4 hours in total time. In making all of our time 
estimates, above, we have taken into account that all filings are to be 
made electronically, through a ``fill in the blank'' template, thereby 
minimizing the burden on all reporting entities. In sum, we estimate 
the total time needed to file all reports pertinent to each outage that 
meets or exceeds the threshold criteria to be significantly less than 5 
hours (the Notification + the Initial Report + Final Report: 15 minutes 
+ 45 minutes + 2 to 4 hours < 5 hours), and most likely little more 
than 3 hours.
    94. Although we anticipate that more than the current amount of 200 
outage reports will be filed annually, we estimate that the total 
number of reports, from all reporting sources combined, will be 
substantially less than 1,000 annually. Similarly, we anticipate that 
more than the current number of 17 respondents will file outage reports 
annually, perhaps an increase of 50%-100%, but we deem it highly 
unlikely that the number of respondents will increase to more than 52. 
We note that, occasionally, the outage reporting requirements could 
require the use of professional skills, including legal and engineering 
expertise. The commenting parties have not provided any data that would 
assist us in estimating more accurately estimate the cost of compliance 
by small telecommunications providers. But irrespective of any of the 
reporting requirements, we expect that all telecommunications providers 
(including small ones) will track, investigate, and correct all of 
their service disruptions as an ordinary part of conducting their 
business operations--and will do so for service disruptions that are 
considerably smaller than for disruptions that would trigger the 
reporting criteria that we propose here. As a consequence, we believe 
that in the usual case, the only burden associated with the reporting 
requirements will be the time required to complete the Notification, 
and the Initial and Final Reports. We anticipate that electronic 
filing, through the type of illustrative template that we have set 
forth in Appendix C of the Report and Order, should minimize the amount 
of time and effort that will be required to comply with the rules. In 
addition, we anticipate that the vast majority of outage reports will 
by necessitated by outages that meet the general reporting threshold 
criteria of having a duration of at least 30 minutes and potentially 
affecting at least 900,000 user-minutes (that is, the mathematical 
result of multiplying the outage duration expressed in minutes and the 
number of users potentially affected by the outage meets or exceeds 
900,000). We further anticipate that the vast majority of these types 
of outages will be experienced by large telecommunications providers. 
Only rarely will providers that are small businesses experience such 
outages because they are most likely to have a relatively small number 
of end users that potentially would be affected by any particular 
outage. Therefore, the outages that are experienced by those providers 
that are small businesses will most likely fall below the criteria for 
mandatory reporting and, thus, will not be required to be reported to 
the Commission. Therefore, such outages will impose minimal reporting 
burdens on small businesses. Small businesses as a group may experience 
a few outages yearly that must be reported because those outages meet 
the reporting criteria for outages potentially affecting 911/E911 
services or other special offices and facilities. Large businesses face 
the same reporting criteria and burden. Because of the critical nature 
of 911/E911 and other special offices and facilities, it is a national 
priority that all telecommunications providers, including those that 
are small businesses, comply with these particular requirements.
    95. E. Steps Taken to Minimize the Significant Economic Impact on 
Small Entities, and Significant Alternatives Considered: In order to 
minimize any adverse impact of the modified outage-reporting rule on 
small entities, we have provided for the electronic filing of reports 
through use of a ``fill in the blank'' template and have adopted a 
three-step reporting process that is less burdensome than the two-step 
process originally proposed. We had proposed to require that, 120 
minutes after discovering an outage, reporting entities file an Initial 
Report that would include all information about the outage then 
available. Instead, we have considered comments that indicate that this 
proposal could interfere with the ability of reporting entities, 
especially small businesses, to focus on repair and restorative 
efforts. Therefore, we have adopted a more flexible requirement, by 
which reporting entities, 120 minutes after discovering an outage, will 
file electronically a bare-bones Notification that will contain only a 
minimal amount

[[Page 70336]]

of data, that is, the name of the Reporting Entity; the Date and Time 
of onset of the outage; a Brief Description of the Problem; the 
particular Services Affected; the Geographic Area affected by the 
outage; and a Contact Name and Contact Number by which the Commission's 
technical staff may contact the reporting entity. The time frame for 
filing electronically the Initial Report, which is to contain all 
information then available, has been revised to be 72 hours after the 
outage's discovery. This is less burdensome to reporting entities 
because all or most of the diagnostic and restorative work will have 
typically been completed by this time, and, thus, the reporting 
requirement will not significantly interfere with such efforts. 
Moreover, because all or most of the information will already be known, 
it is unlikely that very much time will be needed to complete either 
the Initial or the Final Report. The Final Report, as we had proposed, 
will be due 30 days after discovery of the outage; no commenting party 
has objected to this time frame.
    96. In taking this action, we have considered but reject the Rural 
ILECs suggestion that, instead of requiring the filing of the Initial 
Report by the 120-minute mark, we allow small entities to submit outage 
information orally at the 24-hour mark. The requirements that we adopt 
will allow all entities 72 hours to file the Initial Report 
electronically. At the 120-minute mark, we are requiring only that a 
bare-bones Notification be submitted. We also reject Rural ILECs 
suggestion that we exempt those small entities to which State outage-
reporting requirements apply. We believe that there is a legitimate 
need for the national, uniform outage-reporting system that we have 
adopted and which covers various communications platforms. This system 
is designed to address the critical need for rapid, full, and accurate 
information on service disruptions that could affect homeland security, 
public health and safety, as well as the economic well being of our 
Nation. Nonetheless, as the Commission, the Department of Homeland 
Security, and appropriate State authorities gain experience with the 
outage-reporting system that we adopting, the Commission and the States 
may make further refinements in their systems to improve the analytic 
results that can be gleaned from them and to eliminate any unnecessary 
duplication. In any event, we believe that the requirements that we 
adopt will adequately address the concerns of small entities as well as 
provide more timely warning of outages and, ultimately, more accurate, 
complete, and uniform information that will of great use to the 
Commission, the Department of Homeland Security, and technical expert 
groups in assessing and improving network reliability and in addressing 
homeland security concerns.
    97. Our action also takes into account comments filed by the 
BloostonLaw Paging Group, which states our proposed metric of 900,000 
user-minutes would place onerous burdens on the paging industry and 
that almost all paging outages involve only a particular transmitter or 
a small cluster of transmitters and the provider's entire system. As a 
result, we adopted rules that are a modified version of our original 
proposal, which would have required the reporting of all paging 
outages, even ones that involve only a single transmitter, that meet 
the threshold. Instead, we have decided to apply the 900,000 user-
minute criterion to outages of the switch only. Therefore, we 
anticipate that very few paging outages will be reportable. The 
BloostonLaw Paging Group also states that the proposed 120-minute time 
frame for filing Initial Reports would cause providers to divert 
resources from restoration efforts and/or to hire additional personnel. 
We addressed these concerns, above, where we referenced the comments of 
the Rural ILECs, and have adopted a more flexible, three-step process 
that adequately addresses and mitigates these concerns and, we find, 
would not impose a significant financial burden on paging providers. 
Thus, we reject the suggestions of BloostonLaw Paging Group that we 
limit the contemporaneous outage-reporting requirements for paging 
providers to those outages whose origins appear ``suspicious'' and 
require reports for ``non-suspicious'' outages to be filed semi-
annually or less frequently. We do not find that it is always 
immediately evident whether or not an outage has a ``suspicious'' 
origin.
    98. Finally, we reject the suggestions of BloostonLaw Rural 
Carriers that, in order to reduce reporting burdens, outage reporting 
by small (i.e., Tier III) wireless carriers should be on a voluntary 
basis or an annual or semi-annual basis, with contemporaneous reporting 
required only for outages of ``suspicious'' origin. We believe that the 
modifications we have adopted are sufficient to address and mitigate 
the concerns of small entities while ensuring that the Commission, DHS, 
and technical expert groups receive the essential information. We also 
disagree, for reasons explained in the text of the Report and Order, 
with their argument that the concentration ratio of 8 that we have 
adopted would, for rural wireless providers, result in an overstatement 
of the number of users potentially affected by an outage.\57\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \57\See Report and Order, supra, at ] 107-113.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    99. F. Federal Rules that Might Duplicate, Overlap, or Conflict 
with the Adopted Rules. None. We have separately adopted requirements, 
including information disclosure requirements, concerning aspects of 
spacecraft operations that may affect the ability of operators to 
complete appropriate satellite end-of-life procedures. See In the 
Matter of Mitigation of Orbital Debris, IB Docket No. 02-54, Second 
Report and Order, FCC 04-130, released June 21, 2004. Also, part 25 of 
the Commission's Rules provides that certain satellite licensees file 
annual reports that contain some information on outages and that 
Mobile-Satellite Service (MSS) Ancillary Terrestrial Component (ATC) 
licensees report certain outages within 10 days of their occurrence. 
These rules were adopted to provide the Commission with information 
necessary to assess the commercial and technical development of 
satellite services, including the efficiency of spectrum utilization by 
satellite licensees, and, in the case of MSS ATC licensees, to ensure 
that the terrestrial use of spectrum remains ancillary to satellite 
use. In the Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, we tentatively concluded 
that our proposed additional reporting requirements were necessary so 
that we can more rapidly acquire information that would be more useful 
in achieving our objectives of increasing reliability and security in 
satellite communications. We sought comment on these proposals and on 
alternative ways to accomplish our objectives in this proceeding while 
minimizing any duplication of reporting requirements or unnecessary 
burdens on satellite communications providers. The record in this 
proceeding does not show that the rules adopted in the Report and Order 
substantially duplicate the adopted rules. To the contrary, we find 
that the adopted rules are needed to fulfill the Commission's 
responsibilities with respect to public safety, national security and 
to assist the Department of Homeland Security with regard to the 
nation's telecommunications infrastructure within the homeland security 
context.

Ordering Clauses

    100. Pursuant to the authority contained in Sections 1, 4(i)-(j), 
4(k), 4(o), 218, 219, 230, 256, 301, 302(a), 303(f), 303(g), 303(j), 
303(r), 403,

[[Page 70337]]

621(b)(3), and 621(d) of the Communications Act of 1934, as amended, 47 
U.S.C. 151, 154(i)-(j), 154(k), 154(o), 218, 219, 230, 256, 301, 
302(a), 303(f), 303(g), 303(j), 303(r), 403, 621(b)(3), and 621(d), and 
in Section 1704 of the Omnibus Consolidated and Emergency Supplemental 
Appropriations Act of 1998, 44 U.S.C. 3504, that the Report and Order 
and Further Notice of Proposed Rule Making is adopted, and parts 0, 4, 
and 63 of the Commission's Rules are amended as specified in the rule 
changes, effective January 3, 2005, except for part 4 and the 
amendments to Sec.  63.100, which contains information collection 
requirements that have not been approved by the Office of Management 
and Budget. The Federal Communications Commission will publish a 
document in the Federal Register announcing the effective date. Written 
comments by the public on the modified information collection 
requirements must be submitted on or before January 3, 2005.
    101. The motion for acceptance of late-filed comments filed by the 
Department of Homeland Security on June 2, 2004, and the motions for 
acceptance of late-filed reply comments filed by the Department of 
Homeland Security and CCS Partners, LLC on June 29 and July 6, 2004, 
respectively, ARE GRANTED for good cause shown.
    102. The Commission's Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau, 
Reference Information Center, shall send a copy of the Report and Order 
and Further Notice of Proposed Rule Making, including the Final 
Regulatory Flexibility Analysis, to the Chief Counsel for Advocacy of 
the Small Business Administration.

List of Subjects

47 CFR Part 0

    Organization and functions (Government agencies), Reporting and 
record-keeping requirements.

47 CFR Part 4

    Airports, Communications common carriers, Communications equipment, 
Disruptions to Communications, Network Outages, Reporting and 
recordkeeping requirements, Telecommunications.

47 CFR Part 63

    Communications common carriers, Reporting and recordkeeping 
requirements.

Federal Communications Commission
William F. Caton,
Deputy Secretary.

Rule Changes

0
For the reasons discussed in the preamble, the Federal Communications 
Commission amends parts 0 and 63 and adds part 4 of chapter I of title 
47 of the CFR as follows:

PART 0--COMMISSION ORGANIZATION

0
1. The authority citation for part 0 continues to read as follows:

    Authority: Sec. 5, 48 Stat. 1068, as amended; 47 U.S.C. 155, 
255, unless otherwise noted.


0
2. Section 0.31 is amended by revising paragraph (i) to read as 
follows:


Sec.  0.31  Functions of the Office.

* * * * *
    (i) To administer parts 2, 4, 5, 15, and 18 of this chapter, 
including licensing, recordkeeping, rule making, and revising the 
filing system and template used for compliance with the Commission's 
communications disruption reporting requirements.
* * * * *

0
3. Section 0.241 is amended by revising paragraph (a) introductory text 
and paragraphs (a)(1) and (b) through (g) and by adding paragraphs (h) 
and (i) to read as follows:


Sec.  0.241  Authority delegated.

    (a) The performance of functions and activities described in Sec.  
0.31 is delegated to the Chief of the Office of Engineering and 
Technology: Provided, that the following matters shall be referred to 
the Commission en banc for disposition:
    (1) Notices of proposed rulemaking and of inquiry and final orders 
in rulemaking proceedings, inquiry proceedings and non-editorial orders 
making changes, except that the Chief of the Office of Engineering and 
Technology is delegated authority to make the revisions to the filing 
system and template necessary to improve the efficiency of reporting 
and to reduce, where reasonably possible, the time for providers to 
prepare, and for the Commission staff to review, the communications 
disruption reports required to be filed pursuant to part 4 of this 
chapter.
* * * * *
    (b) The Chief of the Office of Engineering and Technology is 
delegated authority to administer the Equipment Authorization program 
as described in part 2 of this chapter.
    (c) The Chief of the Office of Engineering and Technology is 
delegated authority to administer the Experimental Radio licensing 
program pursuant to part 5 of this chapter.
    (d) The Chief of the Office of Engineering and Technology is 
delegated authority to administer the communications disruption 
reporting requirements that are contained in part 4 of this chapter and 
to revise the filing system and template used for the submission of 
such reports.
    (e) The Chief of the Office of Engineering and Technology is 
delegated authority to examine all applications for certification 
(approval) of subscription television technical systems as acceptable 
for use under a subscription television authorization as provided for 
in this chapter, to notify the applicant that an examination of the 
certified technical information and data submitted in accordance with 
the provisions of this chapter indicates that the system does or does 
not appear to be acceptable for authorization as a subscription 
television system. This delegation shall be exercised in consultation 
with the Chief, Media Bureau.
    (f) The Chief of the Office of Engineering and Technology is 
authorized to dismiss or deny petitions for rulemaking which are 
repetitive or moot or which for other reasons plainly do not warrant 
consideration by the Commission.
    (g) The Chief of the Office of Engineering and Technology is 
authorized to enter into agreements with the National Institute of 
Standards and Technology and other accreditation bodies to perform 
accreditation of test laboratories pursuant to Sec.  2.948(d) of this 
chapter. In addition, the Chief is authorized to make determinations 
regarding the continued acceptability of individual accrediting 
organizations and accredited laboratories.
    (h) The Chief of the Office of Engineering and Technology is 
delegated authority to enter into agreements with the National 
Institute of Standards and Technology to perform accreditation of 
Telecommunication Certification Bodies (TCBs) pursuant to Sec. Sec.  
2.960 and 2.962 of this chapter. In addition, the Chief is delegated 
authority to develop specific methods that will be used to accredit 
TCBs, to designate TCBs, to make determinations regarding the continued 
acceptability of individual TCBs, and to develop procedures that TCBs 
will use for performing post-market surveillance.
    (i) The Chief of the Office of Engineering and Technology is 
delegated authority to make

[[Page 70338]]

nonsubstantive, editorial revisions to the Commission's rules and 
regulations contained in parts 2, 4, 5, 15, and 18 of this chapter.

0
4. Part 4 is added to read as follows:

PART 4--DISRUPTIONS TO COMMUNICATIONS

General

Sec.
4.1 Scope, basis and purpose.
4.2 Availability of reports filed under this part.

Reporting Requirements for Disruptions to Communications

4.3 Communications providers covered by the requirements of this 
part.
4.5 Definitions of outage, special offices and facilities, and 911 
special facilities.
4.7 Definitions of metrics used to determine the general outage-
reporting threshold criteria.
4.9 Outage reporting requirements--threshold criteria.
4.11 Notification and initial and final communications outage 
reports that must be filed by communications providers.
4.13 Reports by the National Communications System (NCS) and by 
special offices and facilities, and related responsibilities of 
communications providers.

    Authority: 47 U.S.C. 151, 154(i), 154(j), 154(o), 218, 219, 230, 
256, 301, 302(a), 303(f), 303(g), 303(j), 303(r), 403, 621(b)(3), 
and 621(d), unless otherwise noted.

General


Sec.  4.1  Scope, basis and purpose.

    In this part, the Federal Communications Commission is setting 
forth requirements pertinent to the reporting of disruptions to 
communications and to the reliability and security of communications 
infrastructures.


Sec.  4.2  Availability of reports filed under this part.

    Reports filed under this part will be presumed to be confidential. 
Public access to reports filed under this part may be sought only 
pursuant to the procedures set forth in 47 CFR Sec.  0.461. Notice of 
any requests for inspection of outage reports will be provided pursuant 
to 47 CFR 0.461(d)(3).

Reporting Requirements for Disruptions to Communications


Sec.  4.3  Communications providers covered by the requirements of this 
part.

    (a) Cable communications providers are cable service providers that 
also provide circuit-switched telephony. Also included are affiliated 
and non-affiliated entities that maintain or provide communications 
networks or services used by the provider in offering telephony.
    (b) Communications provider is an entity that provides for a fee to 
one or more unaffiliated entities, by radio, wire, cable, satellite, 
and/or lightguide: two-way voice and/or data communications, paging 
service, and/or SS7 communications.
    (c) IXC or LEC tandem facilities refer to tandem switches (or their 
equivalents) and interoffice facilities used in the provision of 
interexchange or local exchange communications.
    (d) Satellite communications providers use space stations as a 
means of providing the public with communications, such as telephony 
and paging. Also included are affiliated and non-affiliated entities 
that maintain or provide communications networks or services used by 
the provider in offering such communications. ``Satellite operators'' 
refer to entities that operate space stations but do not necessarily 
provide communications services directly to end users.
    (e) Signaling System 7 (SS7) is a signaling system used to control 
telecommunications networks. It is frequently used to ``set up,'' 
process, control, and terminate circuit-switched telecommunications, 
including but not limited to domestic and international telephone calls 
(irrespective of whether the call is wholly or in part wireless, 
wireline, local, long distance, or is carried over cable or satellite 
infrastructure), SMS text messaging services, 8XX number type services, 
local number portability, VoIP signaling gateway services, 555 number 
type services, and most paging services. For purposes of this rule 
part, SS7 refers to both the SS7 protocol and the packet networks 
through which signaling information is transported and switched or 
routed. It includes future modifications to the existing SS7 
architecture that will provide the functional equivalency of the SS7 
services and network elements that exist as of August 4, 2004. SS7 
communications providers are subject to the provisions of this part 4 
regardless of whether or not they provide service directly to end 
users. Also subject to part 4 of the Commission's rules are affiliated 
and non-affiliated entities that maintain or provide communications 
networks or services used by the SS7 provider in offering SS7 
communications.
    (f) Wireless service providers include Commercial Mobile Radio 
Service communications providers that use cellular architecture and 
CMRS paging providers. In particular, they include Cellular Radio 
Telephone Service (part 22 of the Commission's Rules) providers; 
Personal Communications Service (PCS) (part 24) providers; those 
Special Mobile Radio Service (part 90) providers that meet the 
definition of ``covered CMRS'' providers pursuant to Sec. Sec.  
20.18(a), 52.21, and 52.31 of the Commission's rules, those private 
paging (part 90) providers that are treated as CMRS providers (see 
Sec.  20.9 of this chapter); and narrowband PCS providers (part 24) of 
this chapter. Also included are affiliated and non-affiliated entities 
that maintain or provide communications networks or services used by 
the provider in offering such communications.
    (g) Wireline communications providers offer terrestrial 
communications through direct connectivity, predominantly by wire, 
coaxial cable, or optical fiber, between the serving central office (as 
defined in the appendix to part 36 of this chapter) and end user 
location(s). Also included are affiliated and non-affiliated entities 
that maintain or provide communications networks or services used by 
the provider in offering such communications.
    (h) Exclusion of equipment manufacturers or vendors. Excluded from 
the requirements of this part 4 are those equipment manufacturers or 
vendors that do not maintain or provide communications networks or 
services used by communications providers in offering communications.


Sec.  4.5  Definitions of outage, special offices and facilities, and 
911 special facilities.

    (a) Outage is defined as a significant degradation in the ability 
of an end user to establish and maintain a channel of communications as 
a result of failure or degradation in the performance of a 
communications provider's network.
    (b) Special offices and facilities are defined as major military 
installations, key government facilities, nuclear power plants, and 
those airports that are listed as current primary (PR), commercial 
service (CM), and reliever (RL) airports in the FAA's National Plan of 
Integrated Airports Systems (NPIAS) (as issued at least one calendar 
year prior to the outage). The member agencies of the National 
Communications System (NCS) will determine which of their locations are 
``major military installations'' and ``key government facilities.'' 911 
special facilities are addressed separately in paragraph (e) of this 
section.
    (c) All outages that potentially affect communications for at least 
30 minutes with any airport that qualifies as a ``special office and 
facility'' pursuant to the preceding paragraph shall be

[[Page 70339]]

reported in accordance with the provisions of Sec. Sec.  4.11 and 4.13.
    (d) A mission-affecting outage is defined as an outage that is 
deemed critical to national security/emergency preparedness (NS/EP) 
operations of the affected facility by the National Communications 
System member agency operating the affected facility.
    (e) An outage that potentially affects a 911 special facility 
occurs whenever:
    (1) There is a loss of communications to PSAP(s) potentially 
affecting at least 900,000 user-minutes and: The failure is neither at 
the PSAP(s) nor on the premises of the PSAP(s); no reroute for all end 
users was available; and the outage lasts 30 minutes or more; or
    (2) There is a loss of 911 call processing capabilities in one or 
more E-911 tandems/selective routers for at least 30 minutes duration; 
or
    (3) One or more end-office or MSC switches or host/remote clusters 
is isolated from 911 service for at least 30 minutes and potentially 
affects at least 900,000 user-minutes; or
    (4) There is a loss of ANI/ALI (associated name and location 
information) and/or a failure of location determination equipment, 
including Phase II equipment, for at least 30 minutes and potentially 
affecting at least 900,000 user-minutes (provided that the ANI/ALI or 
location determination equipment was then currently deployed and in 
use, and the failure is neither at the PSAP(s) or on the premises of 
the PSAP(s)).


Sec.  4.7  Definitions of metrics used to determine the general outage-
reporting threshold criteria.

    (a) Administrative numbers are defined as the telephone numbers 
used by communications providers to perform internal administrative or 
operational functions necessary to maintain reasonable quality of 
service standards.
    (b) Assigned numbers are defined as the telephone numbers working 
in the Public Switched Telephone Network under an agreement such as a 
contract or tariff at the request of specific end users or customers 
for their use. This excludes numbers that are not yet working but have 
a service order pending.
    (c) Assigned telephone number minutes are defined as the 
mathematical result of multiplying the duration of an outage, expressed 
in minutes, by the sum of the number of assigned numbers (defined in 
paragraph (b) of this section) potentially affected by the outage and 
the number of administrative numbers (defined in paragraph (a) of this 
section) potentially affected by the outage. ``Assigned telephone 
number minutes'' can alternatively be calculated as the mathematical 
result of multiplying the duration of an outage, expressed in minutes, 
by the number of working telephone numbers potentially affected by the 
outage, where working telephone numbers are defined as the telephone 
numbers, including DID numbers, working immediately prior to the 
outage.
    (d) DS3 minutes are defined as the mathematical result of 
multiplying the duration of an outage, expressed in minutes, by the 
number of previously operating DS3 circuits that were affected by the 
outage.
    (e) User minutes are defined as:
    (1) Assigned telephone number minutes (as defined in paragraph (c) 
of this section), for telephony and for those paging networks in which 
each individual user is assigned a telephone number;
    (2) The mathematical result of multiplying the duration of an 
outage, expressed in minutes, by the number of end users potentially 
affected by the outage, for all other forms of communications.
    (f) Working telephone numbers are defined to be the sum of all 
telephone numbers that can originate, or terminate telecommunications. 
This includes, for example, all working telephone numbers on the 
customer's side of a PBX, or Centrex, or similar arrangement.


Sec.  4.9  Outage reporting requirements--threshold criteria.

    (a) Cable. All cable communications providers shall submit 
electronically a Notification to the Commission within 120 minutes of 
discovering that they have experienced on any facilities that they own, 
operate, lease, or otherwise utilize, an outage of at least 30 minutes 
duration that:
    (1) Potentially affects at least 900,000 user minutes of telephony 
service;
    (2) Affects at least 1,350 DS3 minutes;
    (3) Potentially affects any special offices and facilities (in 
accordance with paragraphs (a) through (d) of Sec.  4.5); or
    (4) Potentially affects a 911 special facility (as defined in 
paragraph (e) of Sec.  4.5), in which case they also shall notify, as 
soon as possible by telephone or other electronic means, any official 
who has been designated by the management of the affected 911 facility 
as the provider's contact person for communications outages at that 
facility, and they shall convey to that person all available 
information that may be useful to the management of the affected 
facility in mitigating the effects of the outage on callers to that 
facility. (DS3 minutes and user minutes are defined in paragraphs (d) 
and (e) of Sec.  4.7.) Not later than 72 hours after discovering the 
outage, the provider shall submit electronically an Initial 
Communications Outage Report to the Commission. Not later than thirty 
days after discovering the outage, the provider shall submit 
electronically a Final Communications Outage Report to the Commission. 
The Notification and the Initial and Final reports shall comply with 
all of the requirements of Sec.  4.11.
    (b) IXC or LEC tandem facilities. In the case of IXC or LEC tandem 
facilities, providers must, if technically possible, use real-time 
blocked calls to determine whether criteria for reporting an outage 
have been reached. Providers must report IXC and LEC tandem outages of 
at least 30 minutes duration in which at least 90,000 calls are blocked 
or at least 1,350 DS3-minutes are lost. For interoffice facilities 
which handle traffic in both directions and for which blocked call 
information is available in one direction only, the total number of 
blocked calls shall be estimated as twice the number of blocked calls 
determined for the available direction. Providers may use historic 
carried call load data for the same day(s) of the week and the same 
time(s) of day as the outage, and for a time interval not older than 90 
days preceding the onset of the outage, to estimate blocked calls 
whenever it is not possible to obtain real-time blocked call counts. 
When using historic data, providers must report incidents where at 
least 30,000 calls would have been carried during a time interval with 
the same duration of the outage. (DS3 minutes are defined in paragraph 
(d) of Sec.  4.7.) In situations where, for whatever reason, real-time 
and historic carried call load data are unavailable to the provider, 
even after a detailed investigation, the provider must determine the 
carried call load based on data obtained in the time interval between 
the onset of the outage and the due date for the final report; this 
data must cover the same day of the week, the same time of day, and the 
same duration as the outage. Justification that such data accurately 
estimates the traffic that would have been carried at the time of the 
outage had the outage not occurred must be available on request. If 
carried call load data cannot be obtained through any of the methods 
described, for whatever reason, then the provider shall report the 
outage.
    (c) Satellite. (1) All satellite operators shall submit 
electronically a Notification to the Commission within 120 minutes of 
discovering that they have experienced on any facilities that they own, 
operate, lease, or otherwise

[[Page 70340]]

utilize, of an outage of at least 30 minutes duration that manifests 
itself as a failure of any of the following key system elements: One or 
more satellite transponders, satellite beams, inter-satellite links, or 
entire satellites. In addition, all Mobile-Satellite Service (``MSS'') 
satellite operators shall submit electronically a Notification to the 
Commission within 120 minutes of discovering that they have experienced 
on any facilities that they own, operate, lease, or otherwise utilize, 
of an outage of at least 30 minutes duration that manifests itself as a 
failure of any gateway earth station, except in the case where other 
earth stations at the gateway location are used to continue gateway 
operations within 30 minutes of the onset of the failure.
    (2) All satellite communications providers shall submit 
electronically a Notification to the Commission within 120 minutes of 
discovering that they have experienced on any facilities that they own, 
operate, lease, or otherwise utilize, an outage of at least 30 minutes 
duration that manifests itself as:
    (i) A loss of complete accessibility to at least one satellite or 
transponder;
    (ii) A loss of a satellite communications link that potentially 
affects at least 900,000 user-minutes (as defined in Sec.  4.7(d)) of 
either telephony service or paging service;
    (iii) Potentially affecting any special offices and facilities (in 
accordance with paragraphs (a) through (d) of Sec.  4.5) other than 
airports; or
    (iv) Potentially affecting a 911 special facility (as defined in 
(e) of Sec.  4.5), in which case they also shall notify, as soon as 
possible by telephone or other electronic means, any official who has 
been designated by the management of the affected 911 facility as the 
provider's contact person for communications outages at that facility, 
and they shall convey to that person all available information that may 
be useful to the management of the affected facility in mitigating the 
effects of the outage on callers to that facility.
    (3) Not later than 72 hours after discovering the outage, the 
operator and/or provider shall submit electronically an Initial 
Communications Outage Report to the Commission. Not later than thirty 
days after discovering the outage, the operator and/or provider shall 
submit electronically a Final Communications Outage Report to the 
Commission.
    (4) The Notification and the Initial and Final reports shall comply 
with all of the requirements of Sec.  4.11.
    (5) Excluded from these outage-reporting requirements are those 
satellites, satellite beams, inter-satellite links, MSS gateway earth 
stations, satellite networks, and transponders that are used 
exclusively for intra-corporate or intra-organizational private 
telecommunications networks, for the one-way distribution of video or 
audio programming, or for other non-covered services (that is, when 
they are never used to carry common carrier voice or paging 
communications).
    (d) Signaling system 7. Signaling System 7 (SS7) providers shall 
submit electronically a Notification to the Commission within 120 
minutes of discovering that they have experienced on any facilities 
that they own, operate, lease, or otherwise utilize an outage of at 
least 30 minutes duration that is manifested as the generation of at 
least 90,000 blocked calls based on real-time traffic data or at least 
30,000 lost calls based on historic carried loads. In cases where a 
third-party SS7 provider cannot directly estimate the number of blocked 
calls, the third-party SS7 provider shall use 500,000 real-time lost 
MTP messages as a surrogate for 90,000 real-time blocked calls, or 
167,000 lost MTP messages on a historical basis as a surrogate for 
30,000 lost calls based on historic carried loads. Historic carried 
load data or the number of lost MTP messages on a historical basis 
shall be for the same day(s) of the week and the same time(s) of day as 
the outage, and for a time interval not older than 90 days preceding 
the onset of the outage. In situations where, for whatever reason, 
real-time and historic data are unavailable to the provider, even after 
a detailed investigation, the provider must determine the carried load 
based on data obtained in the time interval between the onset of the 
outage and the due date for the final report; this data must cover the 
same day of the week and the same time of day as the outage. If this 
cannot be done, for whatever reason, the outage must be reported. 
Justification that such data accurately estimates the traffic that 
would have been carried at the time of the outage had the outage not 
occurred must be available on request. Finally, whenever a pair of STPs 
serving any communications provider becomes isolated from a pair of 
interconnected STPs that serve any other communications provider, for 
at least 30 minutes duration, each of these communications providers 
shall submit electronically a Notification to the Commission within 120 
minutes of discovering such outage. Not later than 72 hours after 
discovering the outage, the provider(s) shall submit electronically an 
Initial Communications Outage Report to the Commission. Not later than 
thirty days after discovering the outage, the provider(s) shall submit 
electronically a Final Communications Outage Report to the Commission. 
The Notification and the Initial and Final reports shall comply with 
all of the requirements of Sec.  4.11.
    (e) Wireless. All wireless service providers shall submit 
electronically a Notification to the Commission within 120 minutes of 
discovering that they have experienced on any facilities that they own, 
operate, lease, or otherwise utilize, an outage of at least 30 minutes 
duration:
    (1) Of a Mobile Switching Center (MSC);
    (2) That potentially affects at least 900,000 user minutes of 
either telephony and associated data (2nd generation or lower) service 
or paging service;
    (3) That affects at least 1,350 DS3 minutes;
    (4) That potentially affects any special offices and facilities (in 
accordance with paragraphs (a) through (d) of Sec.  4.5) other than 
airports through direct service facility agreements; or
    (5) That potentially affects a 911 special facility (as defined in 
(e) of Sec.  4.5), in which case they also shall notify, as soon as 
possible by telephone or other electronic means, any official who has 
been designated by the management of the affected 911 facility as the 
provider's contact person for communications outages at that facility, 
and they shall convey to that person all available information that may 
be useful to the management of the affected facility in mitigating the 
effects of the outage on callers to that facility. (DS3 minutes and 
user minutes are defined in paragraphs (d) and (e) of Sec.  4.7.) In 
determining the number of users potentially affected by a failure of a 
switch, a concentration ratio of 8 shall be applied. For providers of 
paging service solely, however, the following outage criteria shall 
apply instead of those in paragraphs (b)(1) through (b)(3) of this 
section. Notification must be submitted if the failure of a switch for 
at least 30 minutes duration potentially affects at least 900,000 user-
minutes. Not later than 72 hours after discovering the outage, the 
provider shall submit electronically an Initial Communications Outage 
Report to the Commission. Not later than thirty days after discovering 
the outage, the provider shall submit electronically a Final 
Communications Outage Report to the Commission. The Notification and 
the Initial and Final reports shall comply with all of the requirements 
of Sec.  4.11.

[[Page 70341]]

    (f) Wireline. All wireline communications providers shall submit 
electronically a Notification to the Commission within 120 minutes of 
discovering that they have experienced on any facilities that they own, 
operate, lease, or otherwise utilize, an outage of at least 30 minutes 
duration that:
    (1) Potentially affects at least 900,000 user minutes of either 
telephony or paging;
    (2) Affects at least 1,350 DS3 minutes;
    (3) Potentially affects any special offices and facilities (in 
accordance with paragraphs (a) through (d) of Sec.  4.5); or
    (4) Potentially affects a 911 special facility (as defined in 
paragraph (e) of Sec.  4.5), in which case they also shall notify, as 
soon as possible by telephone or other electronic means, any official 
who has been designated by the management of the affected 911 facility 
as the provider's contact person for communications outages at that 
facility, and the provider shall convey to that person all available 
information that may be useful to the management of the affected 
facility in mitigating the effects of the outage on efforts to 
communicate with that facility. (DS3 minutes and user minutes are 
defined in paragraphs (d) and (e) of Sec.  4.7.) Not later than 72 
hours after discovering the outage, the provider shall submit 
electronically an Initial Communications Outage Report to the 
Commission. Not later than thirty days after discovering the outage, 
the provider shall submit electronically a Final Communications Outage 
Report to the Commission. The Notification and the Initial and Final 
reports shall comply with all of the requirements of Sec.  4.11.


Sec.  4.11  Notification and initial and final communications outage 
reports that must be filed by communications providers.

    Notification and Initial and Final Communications Outage Reports 
shall be submitted by a person authorized by the communications 
provider to submit such reports to the Commission. The person 
submitting the Final report to the Commission shall also be authorized 
by the provider to legally bind the provider to the truth, 
completeness, and accuracy of the information contained in the report. 
Each Final report shall be attested by the person submitting the report 
that he/she has read the report prior to submitting it and on oath 
deposes and states that the information contained therein is true, 
correct, and accurate to the best of his/her knowledge and belief and 
that the communications provider on oath deposes and states that this 
information is true, complete, and accurate. The Notification shall 
provide: the name of the reporting entity; the date and time of onset 
of the outage; a brief description of the problem; service affects; the 
geographic area affected by the outage; and a contact name and contact 
telephone number by which the Commission's technical staff may contact 
the reporting entity. The Initial and Final Reports shall contain the 
information required in this part 4. The Initial report shall contain 
all pertinent information then available on the outage and shall be 
submitted in good faith. The Final report shall contain all pertinent 
information on the outage, including any information that was not 
contained in, or that has changed from that provided in, the Initial 
report. The Notification and the Initial and Final Communications 
Outage Reports are to be submitted electronically to the Commission.
    ``Submitted electronically'' refers to submission of the 
information using Commission-approved Web-based outage report 
templates. If there are technical impediments to using the Web-based 
system during the Notification stage, then a written Notification to 
the Commission by email, FAX, or courier may be used; such Notification 
shall contain the information required. All hand-deliverd Notifications 
and Initial and Final Communications Outage Reports, shall be addressed 
to the Federal Communications Commission, The Office of Secretary, 
Attention: Edmond J. Thomas, Chief, Office of Engineering & Technology, 
236 Massachusetts Ave., NE., Suite 110, Washington, DC 20002. 
Electronic filing shall be effectuated in accordance with procedures 
that are specified by the Commission by public notice.


Sec.  4.13  Reports by the National Communications System (NCS) and by 
special offices and facilities, and related responsibilities of 
communications providers.

    Reports by the National Communications System (NCS) and by special 
offices and facilities (other than 911 special offices and facilities) 
of outages potentially affecting them (see paragraphs (a) through (d) 
of Sec.  4.5) shall be made according to the following procedures:
    (a) When there is a mission-affecting outage, the affected facility 
will report the outage to the NCS and call the communications provider 
in order to determine if the outage is expected to last 30 minutes. If 
the outage is not expected to, and does not, last 30 minutes, it will 
not be reported to the Commission. If it is expected to last 30 minutes 
or does last 30 minutes, the NCS, on the advice of the affected special 
facility and in the exercise of its judgment, will either:
    (1) Forward a report of the outage to the Commission, supplying the 
information for initial reports affecting special facilities specified 
in this section of the Commission's Rules;
    (2) Forward a report of the outage to the Commission, designating 
the outage as one affecting ``special facilities,'' but reporting it at 
a level of detail that precludes identification of the particular 
facility involved; or
    (3) Hold the report at the NCS due to the critical nature of the 
application.
    (b) If there is to be a report to the Commission, an electronic, 
written, or oral report will be given by the NCS within 120 minutes of 
an outage to the Commission's Duty Officer, on duty 24 hours a day in 
the FCC's Communications and Crisis Management Center in Washington, 
DC. Notification may be served at such other facility designated by the 
Commission by public notice or (at the time of the emergency) by public 
announcement only if there is a telephone outage or similar emergency 
in Washington, DC. If the report is oral, it is to be followed by an 
electronic or written report not later than the next business day. 
Those providers whose service failures are in any way responsible for 
the outage must consult and cooperate in good faith with NCS upon its 
request for information.
    (c) Additionally, if there is to be a report to the Commission, the 
communications provider will provide a written report to the NCS, 
supplying the information for final reports for special facilities 
required by this section of the Commission's rules. The communications 
provider's final report to the NCS will be filed within 28 days after 
the outage, allowing the NCS to then file the report with the 
Commission within 30 days after the outage. If the outage is reportable 
as described in paragraph (b) of this section, and the NCS determines 
that the final report can be presented to the Commission without 
jeopardizing matters of national security or emergency preparedness, 
the NCS will forward the report as provided in either paragraphs (a)(1) 
or (a)(2) of this section to the Commission.

[[Page 70342]]

PART 63--EXTENSION OF LINES, NEW LINES, AND DISCONTINUANCE, 
REDUCTION, OUTAGE AND IMPAIRMENT OF SERVICE BY COMMON CARRIERS; AND 
GRANTS OF RECOGNIZED PRIVATE OPERATING AGENCY STATUS

0
5. The authority citation for part 63 continues to read as follows:

    Authority: Sections 1, 4(i), 4(j), 10, 11, 201-205, 214, 218, 
403 and 651 of the Communications Act of 1934, as amended, 47 U.S.C. 
151, 154(i), 154(j), 160, 161, 201-205, 214, 218, 403, and 571, 
unless otherwise noted.

0
6. Section 63.100 is revised to read as follows:


Sec.  63.100  Notification of service outage.

    The requirements for communications providers concerning 
communications disruptions and the filing of outage reports are set 
forth in part 4 of this chapter.

[FR Doc. 04-26167 Filed 12-2-04; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 6712-01-P