Subject: [NEXTEL-1] CTIA Heralds Voluntary Outage Reporting

From: [email-masked]
Date: Fri, 13 Feb 2004 15:06:28 -0500

CTIA Heralds Voluntary Outage Reporting
BY SUSAN RUSH
FEBRUARY 13, 2004

The addition of government requirements usually causes industry to sit up and
take notice, and a move by the FCC to tighten the reigns on service outage
reporting was no different. CTIA has come out swinging, saying voluntary
reporting would bring better results than slapping mandatory reporting
constraints on wireless carriers.

The FCC has issued a notice of proposed rule making that would amend 10-year-old
requirements for reporting service disruptions. The newly proposed rule would,
for the first time, include wireless and satellite providers -- until now, only
wireline providers were covered under the reporting requirements. The FCC is
touting an electronic template that would be used by communications providers to
detail outages via the Internet. The FCC contends that the "proposed actions
would facilitate more reliable telecommunications throughout the United States
and promote homeland security."

"Both government and industry are well served by a system of voluntary
reporting," CTIA President and CEO Steve Largent said. "This approach fosters
better cooperation among carriers and is the most effective way to achieve
improvements in network reliability."

In a prepared statement, Commissioner Kathleen Abernathy said that in general,
she is hesitant to impose new regulatory burdens on service providers in
competitive markets, because a fully functioning market generally makes better
decisions than the government. But she went on to say that she recognizes that
there are critical public policy goals, such as protecting public safety, that
can make regulation imperative.
Largent supports keeping government agencies informed about network disruptions,
but said the wireless industry is already working with the Network Reliability
and Interoperability Council and the Department of Homeland Security to keep
information flowing about outages.

http://www.wirelessweek.com/index.asp?layout=newsat2direct&starting=3&pubdate=02/13/04

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