[Federal Register Volume 81, Number 152 (Monday, August 8, 2016)]
[Rules and Regulations]
[Pages 52354-52363]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2016-18610]


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FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION

47 CFR Parts 1 and 4

[GN Docket No. 15-206; FCC 16-81]


Improving Outage Reporting for Submarine Cables and Enhanced 
Submarine Outage Data

AGENCY: Federal Communications Commission.

ACTION: Final rule.

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SUMMARY: In this document, the Federal Communications Commission 
(Commission or FCC) adopts final rules of a Report and Order requiring 
submarine cable licensees to report service outages through the network 
outage reporting systems (NORS). In doing so, the FCC seeks to improve 
overall submarine cable reliability and resiliency by enhancing the 
FCC's visibility into the operational status of submarine cables, which 
will permit the FCC to track and analyze outage trends. The Report and 
Order requires all submarine cable licensees to report service outages 
to the FCC, defined as a failure or significant degradation in the 
performance of a licensee's cable service regardless of whether the 
traffic can be re-routed to an alternate path. Licensees must report 
outages, including those caused by planned maintenance, of a portion of 
a submarine cable system for more than 30 minutes, or the failure or 
significant degradation of any fiber pair lasing for four hours or 
more. Lastly, the Report and Order will improve submarine cable 
deployment conditions and resiliency through better coordination of 
inter-agency permit review.

DATES: This rule contains information collection requirements that has 
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 for this rule.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Peter Shroyer, Attorney Advisor, 
Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau, (202) 418-1575 or 
[email protected].

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: This is a summary of the Commission's Report 
and Order in GN Docket No. 15-206, adopted on June 24, 2016, and 
released on July 12, 2016. The full text of this document is available 
for public inspection during regular business hours in the FCC 
Reference Center, Room CY-A257, 445 12th Street SW., Washington, DC 
20554, or online at http://transition.fcc.gov/Daily_Releases/Daily_Business/2016/db0712/FCC-16-81A1.pdf. In this Report and Order, 
the FCC adopts final rules requiring submarine cable licensees to 
report service outages through the network outage reporting systems 
(NORS). In doing so, the FCC seeks to improve overall submarine cable 
reliability and resiliency by enhancing the FCC's visibility into the 
operational status of submarine cables, which will permit the FCC to 
track and analyze outage trends. The Report and Order requires all 
submarine cable licensees to report service outages to the FCC, defined 
as a failure or significant degradation in the performance of a 
licensee's cable service regardless of whether the traffic can be re-
routed to an alternate path. Licensees must report outages, including 
those caused by planned maintenance, of a portion of a submarine cable 
system for more than 30 minutes, or the failure or

[[Page 52355]]

significant degradation of any fiber pair lasing for four hours or 
more. Lastly, the Report and Order will improve submarine cable 
deployment conditions and resiliency through better coordination of 
inter-agency permit review.

Synopsis

1. Report and Order

    1. This Report and Order serves the public interest and promotes 
the national and economic security of the nation by requiring submarine 
cable licensees to report to the Federal Communications Commission 
(``Commission'' or ``FCC'') when submarine (or ``undersea'') cable 
outages occur and communications over those facilities are disrupted. 
By moving--as we do today--from an ad hoc outage reporting system to 
one that will ensure the Commission has a dependable, holistic view of 
the operating status of submarine cables, we will be in a better 
position to examine the resiliency posture of submarine cable 
infrastructure and to ensure the reliability of the critical national 
security and economic communications that transit it. In this Report 
and Order, we:
     Require submarine cable licensees to report to the 
Commission service outages, defined as ``a failure or significant 
degradation in the performance of a licensee's cable service regardless 
of whether the traffic can be re-routed to an alternate path.''
     Specify that an outage requires reporting when there is:
    [cir] An outage, including those caused by planned maintenance, of 
a portion of a submarine cable system between submarine line terminal 
equipment (SLTE) at one end of the system and SLTE at another end of 
the system for more than 30 minutes; or
    [cir] The failure or significant degradation of any fiber pair, 
including losses due to terminal equipment issues, on a cable segment 
for four hours or more, regardless of the number of fiber pairs that 
comprise the total capacity of the cable segment.
     Define the reporting requirements to include a 
Notification within eight hours (to become four hours after three 
years) of the time of determining that a reportable outage has 
occurred; an Interim Report within 24 hours of receiving a Plan of Work 
(relating to repairs); and a Final Report within seven days of 
completing repair.
     Clarify the content required in the reports to allow for 
the fact that not all requested information may be known when the 
reports are due.
     Treat the information provided through this reporting 
system as confidential, consistent with section 4.2 of our rules for 
existing outage reporting.
     Provide that these requirements will become effective six 
months after OMB approval of these rules to provide ample time for 
implementation.
    2. Background. Submarine cables provide the conduit for the vast 
majority of voice, data and Internet connectivity between the mainland 
United States and consumers in Alaska, Hawaii, Guam, American Samoa, 
the Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands, 
as well as the connectivity between the United States and the rest of 
the world. Accordingly, the operation and maintenance of the 
approximately 60 undersea cables licensed in the United States are 
essential to the nation's economic stability, national security and 
other vital public interests. Presently, submarine cable licensees are 
not required to report on their cables' operational status. Rather, 
licensees provide such operational information to the Commission on a 
voluntary, ad hoc basis through the Commission's Undersea Cable 
Information System (UCIS). This ad hoc approach contrasts significantly 
with the Commission's part 4 outage reporting requirements for other 
communication services which require targeted information on the cause 
and effects of communications outages, establishes specific reporting 
triggers and thresholds, and provides deadlines for those reports to be 
made. Furthermore, the Network Outage Reporting System (NORS) 
established for part 4 data reporting has not previously provided the 
Commission with the necessary information to analyze undersea cable 
disruptions, as the system was designed for different types of 
infrastructure outage reporting, not submarine cable reporting, and 
lacks the data fields necessary to report on submarine cable 
infrastructure.
    3. We find that a mandatory outage reporting regime is necessary to 
provide the Commission with greater visibility into the availability 
and health of these networks to allow it to better track and analyze 
submarine cable resiliency, and suggest or take appropriate actions 
when the data so indicate, i.e., before there is a significant problem. 
The need for such reporting is only heightened when, as is the case 
with submarine cable infrastructure, the facilities are few, are vital 
to U.S. economic activity and national security, have unique 
vulnerabilities in their environment, and are exceptionally challenging 
to repair. Further, it is clear that UCIS has failed to become the 
comprehensive source of information about undersea cable outages it was 
intended to be: Few reports are filed; those that are filed are 
inconsistent from entity to entity; and the design of UCIS lacks the 
analytical capabilities necessary for the Commission to perform 
meaningful analysis.
    4. We recognize that redundancies (i.e., traffic re-route 
engineering) are already in place for many cables that prevent or at 
least mitigate service outages, but this argument misses the broader 
goal of the proposed mandatory reporting regime, which is that both the 
cables and the services provided over them must be protected. For the 
Commission to ensure the stability of submarine cable infrastructure, 
it must have greater visibility than what is currently provided through 
UCIS into the connectivity and capacity of all undersea cables landing 
in the United States. And, even though we recognize that the low number 
of reports filed in UCIS might be due to a low number of reportable 
outages, the record suggests otherwise. As mere examples, the outages 
discussed above are important evidence of how it is not only the number 
of outages, but rather, also the potential impact of the outages, as 
well as the deficit in the Commission's situational awareness of a 
major outage, that convince us that reporting needs to be mandatory and 
of the scope described herein. Accordingly, we adopt the mandatory 
reporting regime for undersea cable operators described below. This 
regime will replace UCIS in its entirety and we direct the Bureau to 
retire UCIS upon the effective date of these rules.
    5. Reporting Obligations. To effectively achieve undersea cable 
infrastructure assurance, consistent with part 4 traditionally, we will 
define reportable outages without regard to a licensee's or provider's 
re-routing of the traffic carried over a given cable, or some other 
measure requiring a complete loss of service. Accordingly, we define 
``outage'' as ``a failure or significant degradation in the performance 
of a licensee's cable service regardless of whether the traffic can be 
re-routed to an alternate path.''
    6. Though there are redundant configurations in some, but not all 
submarine cable infrastructure, we adopt our proposal to require a 
reporting obligation regardless of whether traffic is re-routed, and we 
use the broader term ``path'' to avoid analysis of whether the traffic 
was specifically re-routed to another cable. For the purpose of 
promoting and advancing the national security and public safety 
interests served by our

[[Page 52356]]

U.S.-based landings and connections as a whole, we need to assess 
outages across the total undersea cable environment serving the United 
States. For example, in some situations the redundant paths could be 
over-utilized due to an emerging problem, such as an expansive 
coastline area disruption affecting several independent submarine 
cables. Using such an approach would help us understand operability of 
submarine cables holistically to better safeguard reliability of this 
important part of the nation's communications system.
    7. We also modify our proposed definition to limit reportable 
events to failures or ``significant'' degradation in the performance of 
a communications provider's cable. As explained in the section below on 
outage reporting triggers, we are adjusting our metrics to require the 
reporting of only significantly degraded service and not all incidents 
of degraded service, which will better align our outage reporting rules 
for submarine cables with our current part 4 outage reporting 
requirements. Further, our adjustment to include ``significant'' 
degradation is consistent with our long established outage reporting 
requirement that an outage includes events where even ``some traffic 
might be getting through during a period of massive disruption'' (See, 
e.g., Amendment of Part 63 of the Commission's Rules to Provide for 
Notification by Common Carriers of Service Disruptions, CC Docket No. 
91 273, Report and Order, 7 FCC Rcd 2010, 2010, para. 11 (1992).
    8. Reportable Outage Metrics. We adopt a modified outage reporting 
metric to capture significant degradations and to simplify reporting in 
general. Under the originally proposed metric, events causing 
performance failures would not be reportable until all connectivity was 
lost. We therefore modify both proposed metrics, addressing the 
connectivity and capacity metrics to account for performance failures 
and events resulting from planned maintenance.
    9. Connectivity is an important metric but we are persuaded to 
modify it to exclude reporting that could be burdensome and of limited 
value. Accordingly, we adopt a modified version of the connectivity 
metric proposed by the Submarine Cable Coalition and require reporting 
when there is an outage, including those caused by planned maintenance, 
of a portion of a submarine cable system between SLTE at one end of the 
system and SLTE at another end of the system for more than 30 minutes. 
We are persuaded to make this modification in order to limit the 
burdens caused by reporting routine terminal equipment issues that can 
be corrected rapidly. While the Submarine Cable Coalition does not 
specifically define the term ``SLTE'' in its comments, it is commonly 
understood to be part of the ``dry plant'' comprised of ``signal 
processing equipment and optical multiplexing equipment that allows 
transmission over the submarine cable.'' Thus, we focus on issues 
resulting in outages that fall between the SLTE due to problems with 
the ``wet plant,'' including the submarine cable, repeaters, optical 
equalizer, and branching unit. We believe 30 minutes, not three hours, 
is an appropriate timeframe to trigger a reporting obligation for such 
failures because damage or repair to facilities between the SLTE likely 
indicates a long-term problem that will not be cleared quickly, so 
there is no benefit to further delaying reporting.
    10. Further, to simplify our original capacity metric (i.e., 
reporting required when fifty percent or more of the capacity of the 
submarine cable, in either the transmit or receive mode, is lost for at 
least 30 minutes), we adopt a modification of our original proposal. In 
doing so, we also seek to create a reporting backstop that is broader 
than the connectivity metric described above and designed to capture 
events that affect even a single fiber pair, yet provide a longer 
window before the event becomes reportable. We adopt a metric requiring 
a report for the failure or significant degradation of any fiber pair, 
including losses due to terminal equipment issues, on a cable segment 
for four hours or more, regardless of the number of fiber pairs that 
comprise the total capacity of the cable segment. Because issues may 
arise at the landing station that will affect submarine cable system 
operation, we include outages that are due to SLTE failures.
    11. Covered Entities. We adopt a requirement that all licensees, 
regardless of when the license was obtained, must comply with license 
conditions, including the outage reporting rules we now adopt. We agree 
with Docomo that there is no public policy reason to exempt submarine 
cable licensees from the obligation to report. All licensees are 
integral components in the provision of submarine cable infrastructure, 
and the Commission could not meet its goal of acquiring a comprehensive 
viewpoint of the operational status of all submarine cables if certain 
licensees were exempted. We believe with the flexibilities discussed 
below, pre-2002 licensees would be unlikely to have increased burden 
compared to post-2002 licensees. Most pre-2002 cables operate as a 
consortium. Consortium cables generally use construction and 
maintenance agreements (C&MA), which can be amended to incorporate new 
regulatory requirements as necessary. To the extent that extra 
flexibility or time is required to revise the C&MAs to ensure 
compliance with the outage reporting requirements adopted herein, we 
address that below.
    12. In light of concerns raised regarding the operations of 
consortiums or that of a cable with multiple licensees, we choose to 
permit, but not require, a Responsible Licensee designation. We have 
made this decision to add flexibility to the Responsible Licensee 
system due to the concerns expressed about how our rules could be 
complicated given the nature of consortiums, including their size, 
domestic/foreign composition, potential language barriers, and time 
zone challenges, as well as how compliance review will add to costs for 
reporting. Consortium members are in the best position to determine 
which member is best placed to comply and meet the reporting obligation 
for the consortium, such as a U.S. landing operator or a Network 
Operations Center (NOC) operator. We agree with Verizon that under this 
approach, licensees and non-licensees, including those operating with 
pre-2002 licensees, are free to negotiate and allocate the underlying 
risk and financial responsibility. Nonetheless, should a Responsible 
Licensee be designated, it must register with and keep the Commission 
updated as to its Responsible Licensee status pursuant to our rules. We 
will hold the Responsible Licensee responsible for reporting compliance 
once designated and registered with the Commission.
    13. If no Responsible Licensee is designated with the Commission or 
in effect at the time of an outage, each party experiencing a 
reportable outage can be held responsible for reporting and liable 
should the Commission need to pursue enforcement action. This is a 
departure from our proposal to hold all consortium members jointly and 
severally liable when a cable experiences an outage, in order to 
provide additional flexibility to covered providers. In this way we 
limit enforcement liability to those licensees experiencing an outage.
    14. Content of Notification. We require licensees to provide a 
preliminary notification in NORS (all reports described herein are to 
be filed in NORS in a system designed specifically for submarine cable 
outage reporting) once it has been determined that an undersea cable 
outage has

[[Page 52357]]

occurred. We find that having awareness of an outage, even without 
certain information about that outage, helps achieve our goal of 
improving situational awareness as to the operational status of 
undersea cable networks. Reporting via widely available electronic 
means is affordably feasible and quite often a normal part of 
operations. As proposed in the Notice, notifications must contain the 
name of the reporting entity; the name of the cable and a list of all 
licensees for that cable; whether the event is planned or unplanned; 
and contact information for the Commission. We recognize, however, that 
access to information about the root cause, approximate location, and 
estimated duration of an outage will often be unavailable in the period 
immediately following an operator's determination that there has been 
an undersea cable outage. Accordingly, we modify our original proposal 
from the Notice and require such information only if known at the time 
of the notification.
    15. We acknowledge that the root cause of an outage many times 
cannot be determined until after repair work is done, and only seldom 
is it known at the time of an outage. Accordingly, in their 
notifications licensees must provide a brief description of the event 
and need only include information on the root cause if known at the 
time. If the root cause is unknown, licensees should specify as such 
and provide further information where available in Interim or Final 
Reports.
    16. With respect to the location of an outage, licensees must 
provide the name of the nearest cable landing station if known, as well 
as its best estimate of the location of the event, expressed in either, 
nautical miles and the direction from the nearest cable landing 
station, or in approximate latitude and longitude coordinates. We have 
added ``the direction from'' the nearest cable landing station (e.g., 
15 nautical miles west of [the cable landing station]'' to improve 
clarity in reporting, if known. We acknowledge that undersea cables 
traverse vast distances, and it can be a complicated and time-consuming 
task to determine the location of an undersea cable outage. Though we 
only proposed that licensees report the ``approximate location'' of an 
outage, we clarify that we do not seek to divert time and attention 
away from service restoration efforts by requiring licensees to provide 
this information. As with root cause information, licensees must 
provide this information if known at the time of the notification, and 
if unknown, licensees should provide further detail where possible in 
subsequent reports.
    17. With respect to the duration of the event, licensees must 
provide their best estimate in the notification, but supplement with 
further information as it becomes available in their Interim or Final 
Reports. As with root cause and location information, our aim in 
including this information in the notification is to provide 
preliminary situational awareness in the immediate wake of an outage, 
which can be supplemented or corrected through later reports.
    18. Timeframe for Notification. Again, we recognize that the 
determination of root cause, approximate location, and duration of an 
outage typically takes much longer than 120 minutes after the 
determination that an outage has occurred. Moreover, we agree with 
commenters that licensees' primary objective in the wake of an outage 
should be to restore service, and that reporting obligations should be 
subordinate to that objective. As discussed above, we modify our 
original notification proposal to require licensees to provide root 
cause information, approximate location, and estimated duration of an 
outage only when available. The notification process is intended to be 
preliminary in nature and simply provide notice of, not necessarily 
detail about, an undersea cable outage, for purposes of situational 
awareness.
    19. We also emphasize that the timeframe for reporting starts upon 
``the time of determining that an event is reportable'' and not 
necessarily the moment that an event becomes reportable. Several 
commenters, in arguing that the Commission's proposed notification 
timeframe is infeasible, point to difficulties in receiving the initial 
notification. For example, AT&T asserts that ``most notifications of 
the occurrence of outages on consortium cables that AT&T receives from 
foreign consortium parties are not provided within two hours of the 
cable failure.'' Even if the foregoing complications arose preventing a 
licensee from knowing of an outage when it became reportable, the 
licensee would only be ``on the clock'' to report the event when it 
determines (i.e., has knowledge that) the event is reportable. This 
distinction should alleviate many of the concerns that licensees will 
need to implement new network monitoring processes.
    20. We continue to believe that licensees can report within the 
proposed two-hour timeframe from determining that an event is 
reportable, particularly as they need not provide substantive detail on 
the root cause, location, or duration of the outage if unavailable at 
that time; we believe that quick notification is an essential element 
in achieving the Commission's goal of developing comprehensive 
situational awareness of submarine cable infrastructure. We 
additionally note our view that many of the submarine cable operators 
have the technical capabilities to near-instantly detect outages and 
are standard within the industry.
    21. That said, given the support on the record for a longer 
notification timeframe and AT&T's statements that it will need time to 
implement these requirements with its consortium partners, we will 
initially, for a three year period from the effective date of these 
rules, require licensees to notify the Commission of an outage within 
eight hours of determining that an event is reportable. Three years 
after the effective date of these rules, licensees will be responsible 
for filing notifications within four hours of determining that an event 
is reportable. After three years, the Commission will open a proceeding 
to revisit. We find that allowing four hours from the time of 
determining an event is reportable, not when the event necessarily 
becomes reportable, is feasible, particularly as we have allowed for 
licensees to include approximations and best estimates in their 
filings. This phased-in approach will give licensees ample time to hone 
their reporting structure while still achieving the aforementioned goal 
of prompt situational awareness. A further elongated timeframe does not 
as adequately serve the Commission's goal of acquiring rapid 
situational awareness of submarine cable infrastructure.
    22. Content of Interim Report. We adopt modified Interim Report 
content requirements to address concerns that a root cause may not 
always be known in this adjusted timeframe. We require licensees to 
report on all of the elements described above in the original proposal, 
observing that many of these elements (name of the reporting licensee; 
the name of the cable and a list of all licensees for that cable; the 
date and time of onset of the outage; and a contact name, contact email 
address, and contact telephone number by which the Commission's 
technical staff may contact the reporting entity) will be auto-filled 
from the Notification and thus will likely require no additional work 
on the part of the reporting entity barring administrative changes. 
These fields remain important for basic factual references and we see 
no reason to exclude them from the Interim Report. We will also 
continue to require a brief description of the event, including root 
cause; nearest cable landing station; approximate location of the event

[[Page 52358]]

(either, in nautical miles and the direction from the nearest cable 
landing station or in latitude and longitude); and the best estimate of 
the duration of the event. These are the fields that will supply the 
Commission with necessary situational awareness about the status of the 
outage, particularly when the information is updated from that which we 
received in the Notification. We depart slightly from our original 
proposal, however, and will now only require the root cause description 
if known at the time. We are persuaded by commenters' arguments that 
the root cause may need extended analysis and sometimes may not be 
known until the repair is completed. We have again added ``the 
direction from'' the nearest cable landing station (e.g., ``15 nautical 
miles west of [the cable landing station]'' to improve clarity in 
reporting, if known. We emphasize that an approximate location of the 
event and best estimate of the duration of the event are all that is 
required; licensees will not be penalized for the later-determined 
accuracy of these interim responses if they are submitted in good 
faith. We also adopt our proposal that Interim Reports are not required 
for planned outages so long as the planned nature of the event was 
appropriately signaled in the Notification.
    23. Timeframe for Interim Report. We adopt a modified reporting 
timeframe for the Interim Report. Accordingly, we will require 
licensees to file an Interim Report, if required, within 24 hours of 
receipt of the Plan of Work, which we believe strikes the appropriate 
balance between allowing licensees sufficient time for necessary 
coordination to amply inform the Commission with useful and timely 
information.
    24. Final Report. In the Notice, we proposed to require licensees 
to file a Final Report seven days after the repair is completed. We 
proposed that the following elements be required in a Final Report: The 
name of the reporting entity; the name of the cable; whether the outage 
was planned or unplanned; the date and time of onset of the outage (for 
planned events, this is the start date and time of the repair); a brief 
description of the event; nearest cable landing station; approximate 
location of the event (either in nautical miles from the nearest cable 
landing station or in latitude and longitude); duration of the event; 
the restoration method; a contact name, contact email address, and 
contact telephone number by which the Commission's technical staff may 
contact the reporting entity.
    25. The two components of the Final Report that differ from the 
Notification and the Interim Report are (1) the duration of the event 
and (2) the restoration method. The Notice proposed that this type of 
Final Report, with the inclusion of these two additional elements, 
would enable the Commission to work directly with communication 
providers using a data-driven method on collaborative reliability 
improvement initiatives that will produce measurable results for 
undersea cables.
    26. Contents of Final Report. As with both the Notification and 
Interim Reports, we understand the commenters' concerns that particular 
information may not be known at the time the repairs have been 
completed given the complexities of undersea cable repairs. We also 
take into account that submarine cable licensees often work together in 
consortiums, and that although one member may know a certain element of 
the Final Report, the information may not make its way to other 
consortium members who are also experiencing an outage or disruption on 
the same cable. For these reasons, we adopt our proposals for the 
content reporting obligations for the Final Report, but with a 
modification for the ``brief description of the event.'' Here, in a 
Final Report, a licensee will need to provide the root cause in its 
brief description of the event only if known at the time of filing. 
Both Verizon and AT&T noted that in some cases, completion of the root 
cause analysis may not be known in the proposed timeframe, and in some 
instances, never be determined. Nonetheless, the Commission expects 
providers to conduct reasonable due diligence to ascertain the root 
cause of an event. We have also again added ``the direction from'' the 
nearest cable landing station (e.g., ``15 nautical miles west of [the 
cable landing station]'') to improve clarity in reporting, if known.
    27. After the submission of the Final Report, particular details of 
an event may become known or change as research is done and repairs are 
completed. In order for the Commission to obtain the most accurate 
information, previous Final Reports (and only Final Reports) must be 
supplemented after the Final Report if that information materially 
alters the previously reported material. Amendments to Final Reports 
should be made in good faith.
    28. The parallels of the Final Report content to our existing part 
4 rules, in conjunction with the NORS platform, create an efficient, 
streamlined and user-friendly system when implementing these new 
procedures. Furthermore, we believe that the contents of the Final 
Report would be easily compiled, as NORS interface automatically 
populates the fields where information required duplicates that of the 
Notification and Interim Report, so the reporting licensee would not 
have to reenter data unless it is to amend or edit a previously-
supplied response. We note that the Commission recently adopted a 
Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking which sought comment on applying 
a two-step reporting process to all covered services, which, if 
adopted, would apply to submarine cable outage reporting. Interested 
parties may file comments on this issue in the part 4 proceeding.
    29. Timeframe for Final Report. We adopt our proposal to require 
licensees to file a Final Report seven calendar days after the repair 
is completed. There is substantial record support for requiring 
submission of this critical information within a week following the 
repair completion. The Commission has a responsibility to ensure the 
reliability and security of the nation's communications infrastructure, 
and obtaining timely information on communications service disruptions 
is essential to that goal.
    30. We are not persuaded by the proposal to extend the deadline to 
a minimum of 45 days. We find that a majority of the information that 
must be included in a Final Report is readily available following the 
repair of the submarine cable. As mentioned above, the Commission is 
aware of the unique nature of submarine cable repairs, which is why the 
Final Report shall be amended, when necessary. Therefore, we decline to 
adopt Latam's proposal of a 45-day minimum for a Final Report deadline. 
The seven day requirement we adopt today provides the Commission 
critical network outage information within a reasonable time.
    31. Good Faith Requirements in Section 4.11. We adopt substantially 
the same wording codified in Section 4.11 of our rules for the 
submarine cable outage reporting system. We are cognizant of the 
complexities and uncertainties that may arise with outages resulting 
from a damaged cable. However, the good faith and attestation 
requirements will not be violated if the authorized personnel 
submitting a report does in fact submit all of the information known to 
them, in good faith, at the time of reporting. Also, as made clear 
above, licensees have the duty to amend their Final Reports, in good 
faith, if the licensee later learns that the reported information is 
inaccurate. Accordingly, consistent with support from the record, we 
will require a good faith requirement and an attestation consistent 
with Section 4.11.

[[Page 52359]]

    32. Confidentiality of Submarine Outage Reports and Data. We adopt 
our proposal that undersea cable reporting information is to be treated 
as presumptively confidential consistent with Section 4.2 of the 
Commission's rules governing outage reporting. Maintaining the 
confidentiality of submarine cable outage data is critical to 
safeguarding weaknesses or damage to our national communications 
infrastructure that could potentially facilitate enemies targeting our 
nation's key resources. The Communications Act of 1934 charges the 
Commission with promoting ``the safety of life and property through the 
use of wire and radio communication.'' (47 U.S.C. 151). Releasing 
detailed and sensitive information regarding submarine cable outages 
and disruptions would contradict this core mission of the Commission. 
We will, however, share information with DHS as is customary with our 
part 4 outage reports. This model is consistent with the Commission's 
past precedent for outage reporting and we do not see a need to depart 
here from that practice solely for submarine cable outage reporting.
    33. We also note that the Commission recently adopted a Further 
Notice of Proposed Rulemaking addressing many of these same issues and 
has not yet decided if or how it will change its outage report 
information sharing practices more broadly. Interested parties may file 
comments on this issue in the part 4 proceeding. We believe that a 
broader proceeding is a better context for making decisions on how 
outage information should be shared more generally, and allow for 
submarine cable outage information sharing to be considered in that 
context. We also observe that initiating this program in a manner that 
is consistent with the confidentiality in other part 4 reporting would 
allow for reevaluation at a later date of a different approach.
    34. Implementation. These rules will become effective six (6) 
months after OMB approval of this information collection, representing 
a balance between industry's needs to adequately prepare for these 
reporting requirements and the Commission's need to obtain timely 
situational awareness of the operational status of the nation's 
submarine cable infrastructure. As the incident in the CNMI has shown, 
the Commission cannot continue to wait for licensees to take advantage 
of the current voluntary approach. Yet, we find that a six month 
extension is warranted to allow those providers who did not previously 
report such outages to develop processes for doing so. We also 
recognize that consortium members may need additional time to determine 
reporting structures. We do not believe extending the rule 
implementation date beyond six months from OMB approval is warranted 
because of the significant adjustments to the proposed rules to add in 
flexibility and clarify responsibilities.
    35. Interagency Coordination. In the Notice, we directed the 
International Bureau, in coordination with the Public Safety and 
Homeland Security Bureau, to ``reach out to relevant government 
agencies, under its existing delegated authority,'' to ``develop and 
improve interagency coordination processes and best practices vis-
[agrave]-vis submarine cable deployment activities and related permits 
and authorizations to increase transparency and information sharing 
among the government agencies, cable licensees, and other 
stakeholders.'' We note that the Bureaus have met with several of the 
stakeholders since the Submarine Cable Outage Notice was adopted and 
that work on this matter is ongoing. We agree with commenters' that 
interagency coordination is very important to protect submarine cable 
infrastructure. To this end, the International Bureau, in coordination 
with the Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau, will continue to 
lead interagency coordination efforts to help increase transparency and 
information sharing among the government agencies, cable licensees, and 
other stakeholders and promote improved interagency coordination 
processes to mitigate threats to undersea cables and facilitate new 
projects to improve geographic diversity.
    36. Potential Costs of Compliance. The record makes clear that 
there are additional costs, beyond the Notice's initial $8,000 cost 
estimate (premised upon the costs of filing the three versions of 
outage reports for 50 events) that should be factored into our total 
estimate of the costs of the regulations we enact today. Our finding 
that this cost figure should be adjusted, however, is not a result of 
the Notice failing to account for costs; instead the Notice 
affirmatively sought comment on items such as implementation costs, the 
extent to which the information required is not available in the normal 
course of business, and the costs of inter-licensee negotiations that 
are unique to consortium submarine cables.
    37. As an initial matter, we note that many of the proposals that 
commenters claimed would inflate the costs have been revised or 
clarified in an effort to reduce burdens in response to the record. For 
example, we limited the reporting on issues related to terminal-
equipment to those events lasting four hours, and thus presumably 
eliminated many of the ``mundane'' events from the reporting 
requirement, thereby reducing compliance costs. We extended the 
proposed reporting timeframes for the Notification and the Interim 
Report while clarifying that reports are due within a set period from 
when the licensee determines that the event is reportable, not from 
when the event itself becomes reportable. In this way, we alleviate the 
concerns of those that claim they would have to update their entire 
network monitoring system in order to comply. We also allowed for best 
estimate reporting on many of the fields that commenters indicated 
would be costly to identify with precision on a timely basis. We have 
taken the Responsible Licensee system, which was explicitly designed to 
mitigate burdens by having only one licensee per submarine cable report 
on behalf of other licensees on that cable, and allowed licensees not 
to use that system if they find it burdensome.
    38. Thus, while we acknowledge that $8,000 figure may not represent 
the total cost of compliance and that upward adjustments should be 
made, the record on industry costs does not speak with specificity or 
even generalities to the requirements we have enacted given our record-
based modifications. Accordingly, we instead recognize the OMB-approved 
2014 UCIS collection of $305,000. We note that the costs associated 
with UCIS also included costs beyond those which we now require. UCIS 
asked licensees to provide four categories of information for each 
submarine cable with a cable landing in the United States: (1) A 
terrestrial route map; (2) a location spreadsheet; (3) a general 
description of restoration plans in the event of an incident; and (4) 
system restoration messages. As we described in the Notice, ``the first 
three categories are static insofar as the route, the geographic 
coordinates (i.e., location), and restoration plans change 
infrequently. Information provided in the fourth category is dynamic, 
insofar as such messages should be updated after an incident and during 
the repair process.'' It is the fourth category of reporting system 
restoration messages that is directly analogous to the outage reporting 
requirements we enact.
    39. The costs of UCIS associated with the three ``static'' 
categories represented $183,000 of the $305,000 total, with the system 
restoration messages accounting for $122,000 in reporting costs 
annually for the industry. This $122,000 annual cost estimate was 
derived from use of two conservative assumptions. First, that a single 
set of outage reports would involve as many as 40 hours, rather than

[[Page 52360]]

only the two hours that we estimate above. Second, that all 61 cables 
licensed in 2014 would experience an outage every year. (We used the 
number of licensed cables, rather than the number of cable licensees, 
because it is common for multiple licensees to operate on a single 
cable, and past experience indicates that consortia (or multiple 
licensees operating on a single cable) generally designate only one 
licensee to prepare and file the report.) We then used an estimated 
labor rate of $50 rather than $80 per hour, to be consistent with the 
2014 OMB Supporting Statement's UCIS cost estimate. Thus, 40 x 61 x $50 
= $122,000. If we increased this figure by 25 percent (to account for 
moving from 40 to 50 hours reporting per licensee per year), we would 
arrive at a total of approximately $152,500 for an analogous reporting 
requirement. We find this to be a credible annual burden estimate based 
on the record and analogous UCIS processes, as confirmed by industry. 
Moreover, even if expected costs were to include all four elements of 
the UCIS collection at a total cost of $335,500, we would still, as 
discussed below, consider this a minimal cost in comparison to the 
potential benefits from our improved ability to monitor outages on 
cables that are so vital to both our economy and national security.
    40. Public Interest Benefits. We continue to find that the relative 
concentration of submarine cables serving as conduits for traffic to 
and from the United States render the Commission's situational 
awareness and ability to facilitate communications alternatives not 
only beneficial, but vital to the public interest. These submarine 
cables are the primary conduit for connectivity between the contiguous 
United States and Alaska, Hawaii, American Samoa, Guam, the Northern 
Marianas, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. They also carry 95 
percent of U.S. international communications, with the potential for 
significant impacts on national security and the economy. In some 
circumstances, the public welfare cost of outage of such communications 
could be extremely high, as lives and tremendous financial interests 
are at stake. It is precisely because there is a very substantial 
public interest in the submarine cables that the Commission has 
authority to license the use of submarine cables and to condition the 
use of those lines. Simply put, there is too much riding on these 
cables for the Commission to be less than fully aware about the status 
of these crucial lines of communication.
    41. We find that the anticipated benefits of the rules that we 
adopt today clearly outweigh the costs to providers, even with the 
adjustments made above. When the Commission adopted its original part 4 
rules, it observed that previous outage reports required of wireline 
carriers enabled it to initiate investigations and, when appropriate, 
take corrective action with respect to certain carriers. The Commission 
explained that, ``[e]nsuring that the United States has reliable 
communications requires us to obtain information about communications 
disruptions and their causes to prevent future disruptions that could 
otherwise occur from similar causes, as well as to facilitate the use 
of alternative communications facilities while the disrupted facilities 
are being restored.'' This situation was borne out when the Commission 
was hampered in its ability to respond to the CNMI outage due to 
delayed situational awareness. Based on the record, we conclude that it 
is entirely appropriate and in the public interest for this agency to 
systematize, coordinate, review and analyze outage reports from various 
sources across the industry because this will help ensure that best 
practices will be identified and shared and recurring problems can be 
eliminated or mitigated. The Commission's improved situational 
awareness will help ensure that licensees are consistently and 
appropriately acting to ensure the availability of submarine cable 
service, which has direct benefits to public safety and the national 
defense.
    42. Legal Authority. We find that the Commission in fact possesses 
ample authority to regulate reporting as to the restoration and repair 
of undersea cables and effects on the related facilities licensed by 
the Commission. NASCA appears to misunderstand our recitation and 
reliance on legal authority. The Commission is instituting a uniform 
and tailored system of accountability designed to ensure that the 
licenses granted to submarine cable licensees are used to supply ``just 
and reasonable . . . service in the operation and use of cables so 
licensed[,]'' and we have explained why our role is critical here where 
the communications facilities at issue bear on national security and 
the economy and why the existing voluntary regime fails to adequately 
inform that role. In other words, the reporting requirements are 
designed to inform our understanding of whether the facilities that the 
Commission has licensed are working. Although our intent is to defer to 
licensees to institute the necessary repairs to their facilities and 
consider them to have adequate incentive to do so such that our direct 
involvement seems unwarranted at this time, it could be that enhancing 
our situational awareness will have the added benefit of improving 
licensees' broader understanding of outage events. The main goal of our 
requirements, however, is to help ensure that submarine cable service 
will be reasonably available.
    43. As explained above, availability of service is essential given 
that submarine cables carry at least 95 percent of international 
communications traffic in and out of the United States and are the 
primary means of connectivity for numerous U.S. states and territories. 
As a result, submarine cable connectivity plays a vital role in the 
nation's security and economy. Accordingly, we conclude that that the 
Cable Landing License Act and Executive Order provide the Commission 
with ample authority to adopt the outage reporting requirements and 
compliance obligations as proposed in the Notice and as adopted today, 
and it is critical that we exercise it.
    44. Procedural Matters. Regulatory Flexibility Act. Pursuant to the 
Regulatory Flexibility Act of 1980, as amended, the Commission's Final 
Regulatory Flexibility Analysis (FRFA) relating to this Report and 
Order.
    45. Paperwork Reduction Act. This document contains new information 
collection requirements subject to the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995 
(PRA), Public Law 104-13. It will be submitted to the Office of 
Management and Budget (OMB) for review under Section 3507(d) of the 
PRA. OMB, the general public, and other Federal agencies are invited to 
comment on the new or modified information collection requirements 
contained in this proceeding.
    46. In addition, we note 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 the new rules adopted herein, 
which require submarine cable licensees to report when they experience 
outages of certain durations and causes, on small business concerns and 
find that the rules adopted here minimize the information collection 
burden on such entities.
    47. Congressional Review Act. The Commission will send a copy of 
this Report & Order to Congress and the Government Accountability 
Office

[[Page 52361]]

pursuant to the Congressional Review Act, see 5 U.S.C. 801(a)(1)(A).
    48. Final Regulatory Flexibility Analysis. We adopt measures to 
improve the utility and effectiveness of the current scheme for 
receiving information on submarine cable outages, with the ultimate 
goal of enhancing both our overall understanding of submarine cable 
system status and our knowledge regarding specific outages disruptions 
and restoration efforts. At present, the Commission receives 
information regarding the operational status of submarine cables on an 
ad hoc and voluntary basis. We adopt the rules herein with the goal of 
improving the efficiency and utility of the reporting process for 
outages and repairs of the submarine cable network, which is a vital 
feature of the national and international communications 
infrastructure.
    49. The operational status of submarine cables carries commercial, 
economic, social, financial, and national security implications. It is 
vital that the United States maintain a robust and secure 
communications network that can continue to provide service in spite of 
significant equipment or system failure, and submarine cables are an 
integral part of that network.
    50. Description and Estimate of the Number of Small Entities to 
Which the Proposed Rules Will Apply. The rules adopted in the Report 
and Order apply only to entities licensed to construct and operate 
submarine cables under the Cable Landing License Act. The Report and 
Order requires only submarine cable licensees affected by a service 
outage to file outage reports with the Commission describing the outage 
and restoration. The entities that the Report and Order requires to 
file reports are a mixture of both large and small entities. The 
Commission has not developed a small business size standard directed 
specifically toward these entities. However, as described below, these 
entities fit into larger categories for which the SBA has developed 
size standards that provide these facilities or services.
    51. Facilities-based Carriers. Facilities-based providers of 
international telecommunications services would fall into the larger 
category of interexchange carriers. 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.
    52. Wired Telecommunications Carriers. This industry comprises 
establishments primarily engaged in operating and/or providing access 
to transmission facilities and infrastructure that they own and/or 
lease for the transmission of voice, data, text, sound, and video using 
wired telecommunications networks. Transmission facilities may be based 
on a single technology or a combination of technologies. Establishments 
in this industry use the wired telecommunications network facilities 
that they operate to provide a variety of services, such as wired 
telephony services, including VoIP services; wired (cable) audio and 
video programming distribution; and wired broadband Internet services. 
By exception, establishments providing satellite television 
distribution services using facilities and infrastructure that they 
operate are included in this industry.'' In this category, the SBA 
deems a wired telecommunications carrier to be small if it has 1,500 or 
fewer employees. Census data for 2007 shows 3,188 firms in this 
category. Of these, 3,144 had fewer than 1,000 employees. On this 
basis, the Commission estimates that a substantial majority of the 
providers of wired telecommunications carriers are small.
    53. In the 2009 annual traffic and revenue report, 38 facilities-
based and facilities-resale carriers reported approximately $5.8 
billion in revenues from international message telephone service 
(IMTS). Of these, three reported IMTS revenues of more than $1 billion, 
eight reported IMTS revenues of more than $100 million, 10 reported 
IMTS revenues of more than $50 million, 20 reported IMTS revenues of 
more than $10 million, 25 reported IMTS revenues of more than $5 
million, and 30 reported IMTS revenues of more than $1 million. Based 
solely on their IMTS revenues the majority of these carriers would be 
considered non-small entities under the SBA definition.
    54. The 2009 traffic and revenue report also shows that 45 
facilities-based and facilities-resale carriers (including 14 who also 
reported IMTS revenues) reported $683 million for international private 
line services; of which four reported private line revenues of more 
than $50 million, 12 reported private line revenues of more than $10 
million, 30 reported revenues of more than $1 million, 34 reported 
private line revenues of more than $500,000; 41 reported revenues of 
more than $100,000, while 2 reported revenues of less than $10,000.
    55. The 2009 traffic and revenue report also shows that seven 
carriers (including one that reported both IMTS and private line 
revenues, one that reported IMTS revenues and three that reported 
private line revenues) reported $50 million for international 
miscellaneous services, of which two reported miscellaneous services 
revenues of more than $1 million, one reported revenues of more than 
$500,000, two reported revenues of more than $200,000, one reported 
revenues of more than $50,000, while one reported revenues of less than 
$20,000. Based on its miscellaneous services revenue, this one carrier 
with revenues of less than $20,000 would be considered a small business 
under the SBA definition. Based on their private line revenues, most of 
these entities would be considered non-small entities under the SBA 
definition.
    56. Providers of International Telecommunications Transmission 
Facilities. According to the 2012 Circuit-Status Report, 61 U.S. 
international facility-based carriers filed information pursuant to 
Section 43.82. Some of these providers would fall within the category 
of Inter-exchange Carriers, some would fall within the category of 
Wired Telecommunications Carriers, while others may fall into the 
category of All Other Telecommunications.
    57. All Other Telecommunications. This industry comprises 
establishments primarily engaged in providing specialized 
telecommunications services, such as satellite tracking, communications 
telemetry, and radar station operation. This industry also includes 
establishments primarily engaged in providing satellite terminal 
stations and associated facilities connected with one or more 
terrestrial systems and capable of transmitting telecommunications to, 
and receiving telecommunications from, satellite systems. 
Establishments providing Internet services or voice over Internet 
protocol (VoIP) services via client-supplied telecommunications 
connections are also included in this industry. The SBA has developed a 
small business size standard for All Other Telecommunications, which 
consists of all such firms with annual receipts of $ 32.5 million or 
less. For this category, Census Bureau data for 2007 show that there 
were 2,383 firms that operated for the entire year, and of those firms, 
a total of 2,346 had annual receipts less than $25 million. 
Consequently, we conclude that the majority of All Other 
Telecommunications firms can be considered small.
    58. Operators of Undersea Cable Systems. The Report and Order 
adopts reporting requirements for submarine cable facilities in the 
event of an outage. Neither the Commission nor the SBA

[[Page 52362]]

has developed a size standard specifically for operators of undersea 
cables. Such entities would fall within the large category of Wired 
Telecommunications Carriers.
    59. Operators of Non-Common Carrier International Transmission 
Facilities. Carriers that provide common carrier international 
transmission facilities over submarine cables are not required to 
report on outages, though the Report and Order seeks comment on whether 
such carriers should be required to provide outage reports. Neither the 
Commission nor the SBA has developed a small business size standard 
specifically for providers of non-common carrier terrestrial 
facilities. The operators of such terrestrial facilities would fall 
within the larger category of Wired Telecommunications Carriers.
    60. Incumbent Local Exchange Carriers. Because some of the 
international terrestrial facilities that are used to provide 
international telecommunications services may be owned by incumbent 
local exchange carriers, we have included small incumbent local 
exchange carriers in this present RFA analysis, to the extent that such 
local exchange carriers may operate such international facilities. 
(Local exchange carriers along the U.S.-border with Mexico or Canada 
may have local facilities that cross the border.) Neither the 
Commission nor the SBA has developed a small business size standard 
specifically for incumbent local exchange carriers. The appropriate 
size standard under SBA rules is for the category Wired 
Telecommunications Carriers.
    61. Description of Projecting Reporting, Recordkeeping, and Other 
Compliance Requirements. The Report and Order adopts outage reporting 
requirements for all submarine cable licensees. An outage occurs when a 
licensee experiences an event in which (1) An outage related to damages 
or replacements of a portion of submarine cable system between the 
submarine line terminal equipment (SLTE) at one end of the system and 
the SLTE at another end of the system for more than 30 minutes; or (2) 
there is a loss of any fiber pair, including losses due to terminal 
equipment, on a cable segment for four hours or more, regardless of the 
number of fiber pairs that comprise the total capacity of the cable 
segment. After a triggering event, the reporting requirement consists 
of three filings, the Notification, an Interim Report for unplanned 
outages, and the Final Report, which provide the Commission important 
data to improve the Commission's situational awareness on the 
operational status of submarine cables. The production and transmission 
of these reports to the Commission may require the use of professionals 
such as attorneys, engineers, or accountants. However, we conclude that 
such reports will be based on information already within the reporting 
entity's possession, and therefore these should be considered routine 
reports.
    62. Steps Taken to Minimize Significant Economic Impact on Small 
Entities, and Significant Alternatives Considered. The RFA requires an 
agency to describe any significant, specifically small business, 
alternatives that it has considered in reaching its proposed approach, 
which may include the following four alternatives (among others): ``(1) 
the establishment of differing compliance or reporting requirements or 
timetables that take into account the resources available to small 
entities; (2) the clarification, consolidation, or simplification of 
compliance and reporting requirements under the rule for small 
entities; (3) the use of performance, rather than design, standards; 
and (4) an exemption from coverage or the rule, or any part thereof, 
for small entities.''
    63. Ordering Clauses. Accordingly, IT IS ORDERED pursuant to 
sections 1, 4(i), 4(j), 4(o), of the Communications Act of 1934, as 
amended, 47 U.S.C. 151, 154(i), (j), and (o), and pursuant to the Cable 
Landing License Act of 1921, 47 U.S.C. 34-39 and 3 U.S.C. 301 that this 
Report and Order in GN Docket No. 15-206 IS ADOPTED.
    64. IT IS FURTHER ORDERED that parts 1 and 4 of the Commission's 
rules ARE AMENDED.
    65. IT IS FURTHER ORDERED that this Report and Order SHALL BE 
effective six months after approval of the Office of Management and 
Budget under the Paperwork Reduction Act.
    66. IT IS FURTHER ORDERED that the Commission's Consumer and 
Governmental Affairs Bureau, Reference Information Center, SHALL SEND a 
copy of this Report and Order, including the Final Regulatory 
Flexibility Analysis, to the Chief Counsel for Advocacy of the Small 
Business Administration.

List of Subjects in 47 CFR Parts 1 and 4

    Telecommunications, Communications equipment, Reporting and 
recordkeeping requirements.

Federal Communications Commission.
Gloria J. Miles,
Federal Register Liaison Officer, Office of the Secretary.

Final Rules

    For the reasons discussed in the preamble, the Federal 
Communications Commission amends 47 CFR parts 1 and 4 as follows:

PART 1--PRACTICE AND PROCEDURE

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

    Authority:  47 U.S.C. 151, 154(i), 155, 157, 225, 303(r), 309, 
1403, 1404, 1451, and 1452.


0
2. Section 1.767 is amended by adding paragraph (g)(15), revising 
paragraph (n), and adding paragraph (o) to read as follows:


Sec.  1.767   Cable landing licenses.

* * * * *
    (g) * * *
    (15) Licensees shall file submarine cable outage reports as 
required in 47 CFR part 4.
* * * * *
    (n)(1) With the exception of submarine cable outage reports, and 
subject to the availability of electronic forms, all applications and 
notifications described in this section must be filed electronically 
through the International Bureau Filing System (IBFS). A list of forms 
that are available for electronic filing can be found on the IBFS 
homepage. For information on electronic filing requirements, see part 
1, subpart Y, and the IBFS homepage at http://www.fcc.gov/ibfs. See 
also sections 63.20 and 63.53 of this chapter.
    (2) Submarine cable outage reports must be filed as set forth in 
part 4 of this Title.
    (o) Outage Reporting. Licensees of a cable landing license granted 
prior to March 15, 2002 shall file submarine cable outage reports as 
required in part 4 of this Title.
* * * * *

PART 4--DISRUPTIONS TO COMMUNICATIONS

0
3. The authority citation for part 4 is revised to read as follows:

    Authority:  47 U.S.C. 34-39, 151, 154, 155, 157, 201, 251, 307, 
316, 615a-1, 1302(a), and 1302(b); 5 U.S.C. 301, and Executive Order 
no. 10530.


0
4. Section 4.1 is revised to read as follows:


Sec.  4.1  Scope, basis, and purpose.

    (a) In this part, the Federal Communications Commission is setting

[[Page 52363]]

forth requirements pertinent to the reporting of disruptions to 
communications and to the reliability and security of communications 
infrastructures.
    (b) The definitions, criteria, and reporting requirements set forth 
in Sections 4.2 through 4.13 of this part are applicable to the 
communications providers defined in Section 4.3 of this part.
    (c) The definitions, criteria, and reporting requirements set forth 
in Section 4.15 of this part are applicable to submarine cable 
providers who have been licensed pursuant to 47 U.S.C. 34-39.

0
5. Section 4.15 is added to read as follows:


Sec.  4.15  Submarine cable outage reporting.

    (a) Definitions. (1) For purposes of this section, ``outage'' is 
defined as a failure or significant degradation in the performance of a 
licensee's cable service regardless of whether the traffic can be re-
routed to an alternate path.
    (2) An ``outage'' requires reporting under this section when there 
is:
    (i) An outage, including those caused by planned maintenance, of a 
portion of submarine cable system between submarine line terminal 
equipment (SLTE) at one end of the system and SLTE at another end of 
the system for more than 30 minutes; or
    (ii) The loss of any fiber pair, including losses due to terminal 
equipment, on a cable segment for four hours or more, regardless of the 
number of fiber pairs that comprise the total capacity of the cable 
segment.
    (b) Outage reporting. (1) For each outage that requires reporting 
under this section, the licensee (or Responsible Licensee as designated 
by a Consortium) shall provide the Commission with a Notification, 
Interim Report (subject to the limitations on planned outages in 
Section 4.15(b)(2)(iii)), and a Final Outage Report.
    (i) For a submarine cable that is jointly owned and operated by 
multiple licensees, the licensees of that cable may designate a 
Responsible Licensee that files outage reports under this rule on 
behalf of all licensees on the affected cable.
    (ii) Licensees opting to designate a Responsible Licensee must 
jointly notify the Chief of the Public Safety and Homeland Security 
Bureau's Cybersecurity and Communications Reliability Division of this 
decision in writing. Such notification shall include the name of the 
submarine cable at issue; and contact information for all licensees on 
the submarine cable at issue, including the Responsible Licensee.
    (2) Notification, Interim, and Final Outage Reports shall be 
submitted by a person authorized by the licensee to submit such reports 
to the Commission.
    (i) The person submitting the Final Outage Report to the Commission 
shall also be authorized by the licensee 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 licensee on oath deposes and states 
that this information is true, complete, and accurate.
    (ii) The Notification is due within 480 minutes (8 hours) of the 
time of determining that an event is reportable for the first three 
years from the effective date of these rules. After three years from 
the effective date of the rules, Notifications shall be due within 240 
minutes (4 hours). The Notification shall be submitted in good faith. 
Licensees shall provide: The name of the reporting entity; the name of 
the cable and a list of all licensees for that cable; the date and time 
of onset of the outage, if known (for planned events, this is the 
estimated start time/date of the repair); a brief description of the 
event, including root cause if known; nearest cable landing station; 
best estimate of approximate location of the event, if known (expressed 
in either nautical miles and the direction from the nearest cable 
landing station or in latitude and longitude coordinates); best 
estimate of the duration of the event, if known; whether the event is 
planned or unplanned; and a contact name, contact email address, and 
contact telephone number by which the Commission's technical staff may 
contact the reporting entity.
    (iii) The Interim Report is due within 24 hours of receiving the 
Plan of Work. The Interim Report shall be submitted in good faith. 
Licensees shall provide: The name of the reporting entity; the name of 
the cable; a brief description of the event, including root cause, if 
known; the date and time of onset of the outage; nearest cable landing 
station; approximate location of the event (expressed in either 
nautical miles and the direction from the nearest cable landing station 
or in latitude and longitude); best estimate of when the cable is 
scheduled to be repaired, including approximate arrival time and date 
of the repair ship, if applicable; a contact name, contact email 
address, and contact telephone number by which the Commission's 
technical staff may contact the reporting entity. The Interim report is 
not required where the licensee has reported in the Notification that 
the outage at issue is a planned outage.
    (iv) The Final Outage Report is due seven (7) days after the repair 
is completed. The Final Outage Report shall be submitted in food faith. 
Licensees shall provide: The name of the reporting entity; the name of 
the cable; whether the outage was planned or unplanned; the date and 
time of onset of the outage (for planned events, this is the start date 
and time of the repair); a brief description of the event, including 
the root cause if known; nearest cable landing station; approximate 
location of the event (expressed either expressed in either nautical 
miles and the direction from the nearest cable landing station or in 
latitude and longitude coordinates); duration of the event, as defined 
in paragraph (a)(2) of this section; the restoration method; and a 
contact name, contact email address, and contact telephone number by 
which the Commission's technical staff may contact the reporting 
entity. If any required information is unknown at the time of 
submission of the Final Report but later becomes known, licensees 
should amend their report to reflect this knowledge. The Final Report 
must also contain an attestation as described in paragraph (b)(2)(i) of 
this section.
    (v) The Notification, Interim Report, and Final 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 to the Chief, Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau is 
permitted; such Notification shall contain the information required. 
Electronic filing shall be effectuated in accordance with procedures 
that are specified by the Commission by public notice.
    (c) Confidentiality. 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 0.461. 
Notice of any requests for inspection of outage reports will be 
provided pursuant to 47 CFR 0.461(d)(3).

[FR Doc. 2016-18610 Filed 8-5-16; 8:45 am]
 BILLING CODE 6712-01-P