Subject: [NEXTEL-1] SEPARATE STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN MICHAEL K. POWELL Re: New Part 4 of the Commission’s Rules Concerning Disruptions to Communications;

From: [email-masked]
Date: Thu, 05 Aug 2004 15:47:28 -0400

SEPARATE STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN MICHAEL K. POWELL

Re: New Part 4 of the Commission’s Rules Concerning Disruptions to
Communications;
ET Docket No. 04-35, Report and Order

The foundation of our homeland security agenda is a reliable
telecommunications infrastructure.  With support from the Department of
Homeland Security, today’s Report and Order helps to ensure that
foundation is properly laid.

With Americans depending on telecommunications for everything from
banking to paging, it is imperative that our systems run reliably.  Our
current outage reporting requirements focus on the wireline network.
Although these requirements have been successful in recognizing and
correcting certain causes of service disruptions, it would be imprudent
to focus solely on wireline networks as our telecommunications
infrastructure becomes increasingly diverse.  Today’s Order adopts a
technology neutral metric to be used across all telecommunications
networks.

By requiring mandatory outage reports of carriers we are facilitating a
prompt discovery of outages and  assuring that first responders,
government leaders and citizens will be able to quickly regain access to
the services they depend on.  Today’s Order applies a new common metric
of “user-minutes” potentially affected by an outage.  This new metric
will guarantee that all outages are reported and corrected.
Additionally, the rules adopted today revise our previous 911/E911
outage reporting criteria further protecting citizens in times of
crisis.
Simplifying the time calculation for filing reports and providing an
electronic template will help reduce the burden on carriers who must
file a report.  The streamlining of the reporting requirements strikes a
balance between the Commission’s need to be appraised of outages, while
at the same time minimizing burden on the industry.  The Order also
recognizes that much of the information provided in these reports will
contain sensitive homeland security information.  In order to prevent
this information from falling into hostile hands, the Commission has
created appropriate protections for this data.

Today’s Report and Order is yet another step the Commission is taking to
ensure the safety of America’s telecommunications networks.  In a world
becoming increasingly dependent on rapid communication via wireless,
cable and satellite we adopt these rules to make certain that
disruptions to these networks are minimal and rapidly corrected.

 http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DOC-250543A2.doc

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