FCC Increases Scrutiny on VoIP 911 Outages

Acknowledging the increasing use of VoIP telephone services to make 911 emergency calls, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) this week established a requirement for providers to report certain network outages. Previously, only wired and wireless carriers have been required to provide outage reports that might affect 911 services. “The new rules will help ensure that the country’s critical communications infrastructure remains available in times of crisis,” the FCC said in a press release. Almost one-third of the nation’s 87 million residential telephone subscriptions are based on VoIP connections, the FCC noted, potentially resulting in 75 million calls to 911 each year. The commission noted several VoIP outages over the past two years, none required to be reported to the FCC. Both the Association of Public-Safety Communications Officials (APCO) and National Emergency Number Association (NENA) applauded the FCC’s action. However, both also said they hoped the FCC would eventually extend the outage reporting requirements to broadband providers. APCO also said the FCC should take steps to provide real-time outage reports to affected public safety answering points (PSAP) so they could better handle 911 calls. The Report and Order approved by the FCC sets reporting criteria and thresholds, outlines the reporting process and what information to be reported, and and provides confidentiality for the report information. Download (pdf) a press release on the action here. Update: The FCC released the full Report & Order (pdf) on Feb. 21st.

In its Report & Order, the FCC noted the success of its wireline 9-1-1 outage reporting requirements, and how it had reduced the number of incidents over the years.