$//Amend pt. 63, service outage reports, AD 7-14-94, Rlsd 8-1-94$// $//FCC 94-189 $// For Record only FCC 94-189 Before the FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION Washington, D.C. 20554 In the Matter of ) ) Amendment of Part 63 of the Commission's ) CC Docket No. 91-273 Rules to Provide for Notification by ) Common Carriers of Service Disruptions ) Second Report and Order Adopted: July 14, 1994 Released: August 1, 1994 By the Commission: Commissioner Barrett issuing a separate statement. TABLE OF CONTENTS Topic Paragraph No. INTRODUCTION AND SUMMARY..........................1 BACKGROUND........................................5 COMMENTS AND DISCUSSION 30,000 Customer Threshold........................10 Reporting Times..................................12 Methods of Determining Thresholds for IXCs.......14 Methods of Determining Thresholds for LECs.......21 Special Facilities (911 and Major Airports)........................32 (NS/EP Facilities)..............................41 (TSP)........................................... 47 Reporting of Fire-related Incidents..............51 Contents of Reports..............................59 Thresholds/Best Practices as Standards...........64 Mandatory Mutual Aid.............................69 IITP Financing...................................74 Confidentiality..................................78 CAP Reporting....................................80 Lessee Reporting.................................81 Reporting to Affected Parties....................83 CONCLUSION........................................84 ORDERING CLAUSES..................................85 APPENDIX .........................................page 38 I. INTRODUCTION AND SUMMARY 1. By this action, the Commission amends Section 63.100 of its rules to expand the present telephone service outage reporting requirements. The reporting requirements provide the Commission with a systematic means for receiving prompt notice and allow the Commission to perform detailed analysis of significant telecommunications service outages. The amendments adopted here will improve the Commission's ability to monitor the reliability of the telephone networks locally, regionally and nationally. The Commission will also be able to determine whether carriers are aware of and are implementing recommended industry "best practices" applicable to outages experienced by their networks, the extent to which these best practices are effective in reducing telephone service outages and whether any additional best practices need to be formulated. 2. Common carriers that operate either transmission or switching facilities will hereafter be required to notify the Commission of service outages that potentially affect as few as 30,000 customers or that affect certain special facilities regardless of the number of potentially-affected customers. Our new rules will triple the number of central offices subject to our reporting requirements. Carriers will also have to report fire-related incidents in certain of their facilities if 1000 or more service lines are affected. Section 63.100, as amended, requires carriers to use blocked calls, where technically feasible, to determine whether criteria for reporting certain types of outages have been reached. Additionally, these amendments extend from 90 to 120 minutes the time period within which initial notification of outages potentially affecting 50,000 or more customers must be given to the Commission. This additional time will allow carriers to focus on restoring network service in the critical first hours following an outage. 3. The rules also require that final outage reports identify the underlying cause of an outage and evaluate the effectiveness of industry best practices to avoid outages. Finally, the rules require carriers to notify the management of any 911 facilities affected by an outage. 4. We refer to the Commission's Network Reliability Council the following issues: whether other entities, such as satellite and terrestrial wireless carriers, should report outages to 911 and other special facilities; whether and how a funding structure for the Internetwork Interoperability Test Plan should be designed; and whether customers of carriers are adequately informed of service outages. II. BACKGROUND 5. In the Report and Order, 7 FCC Rcd 2010 (1992), (Report and Order), the Commission added Section 63.100 to its rules requiring that local exchange or interexchange common carriers operating either transmission or switching facilities notify the Commission within 90 minutes if they experience service outages potentially affecting 50,000 or more customers and lasting 30 or more minutes. Additionally, the Commission referred to the Network Reliability Council (NRC) the questions of whether the reporting threshold should be lower than 50,000 customers, and whether a separate threshold for reporting outages affecting 911 services or major airports should be adopted. 6. On May 11, 1992, the NRC recommended to the Commission that the filing threshold for initial service disruption reports (due 90 minutes after commencement of an outage) remain at 50,000 customers. The NRC further recommended, however, that, for a six month trial period, the threshold for final service disruption reports (due 30 days after an outage) be lowered to 30,000 customers. The NRC stated that it would make further recommendations at the end of the six month period, based on experience with the lower reporting standard. During the pendency of its recommendations, the NRC requested that the industry voluntarily comply with the lower reporting threshold for final reports. The NRC further recommended that any outage affecting special offices and facilities be reported regardless of the number of customers affected. The NRC requested that the industry also voluntarily comply with this recommendation while it was under consideration by the Commission. 7. On December 29, 1992, the NRC forwarded to the Commission the final report of its Threshold Reporting Group (TRG). The report set forth the following final outage reporting recommendations: a) Carriers should report to the Commission within 90 minutes outages lasting 30 minutes or more and potentially affecting 50,000 or more customers, with a final report to be filed within 30 days, as required by the Report and Order. The Commission, however, should consider extending the 90 minute deadline for the initial reports to 120 minutes. b) Carriers should report certain special offices and facilities failures regardless of the number of customers affected and should follow the alternative procedures for reporting failures with national security or emergency preparedness (NS/EP) implications as described in the October 19, 1992 recommendations of the NRC. c) Carriers should notify the Commission within three days of any outage lasting 30 minutes or more and potentially affecting between 30,000 and 50,000 customers, and should submit a final report of such outages to the Commission within 30 days. d) Interexchange carriers should be permitted to use blocked calls to determine whether criteria for reporting an outage have been reached. e) For a period of one year, reports of outages potentially affecting 30,000 to 50,000 customers should not be kept confidential. This issue should be reexamined by the Commission at the end of that period and, if the Commission concludes that the reports should not be disclosed to the public in the future, that protection should be extended to the outage reports of all carriers. f) These reporting thresholds should be used to advance the public interest objectives of improving network reliability and enhancing Commission oversight capability and should not be viewed as standards for levying fines and forfeitures. 8. In May of 1993, the NRC adopted and forwarded to the Commission the final reports of its eight other study groups. The NRC's Fire Prevention Focus Team recommended, inter alia, that carriers report all fire-related incidents that affect service to 100 or more service lines for a period of 30 minutes or longer within 24 hours. This study group further suggested that the reports be submitted to the Exchange Carriers Standards Association, now called the Alliance for Telecommunications Industry Solutions (ATIS), for analysis. 9. In the Memorandum Opinion and Order and Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, 8 FCC Rcd 8517 (released December 1, 1993), (Notice), the Commission proposed to amend the outage reporting requirements established in the Report and Order. The Notice proposed to adopt most of the reporting recommendations of the NRC. The Notice, however, modified the NRC's reporting recommendations in several significant respects. First, the Notice proposed to require carriers to report fire-related incidents to the Commission instead of ATIS. The Notice also rejected any special determination regarding the confidentiality of reports, stating that the Commission would deal with confidentiality concerns through the procedures set forth in Section 0.459 of the Commission's rules, 47 C.F.R. 0.459. In addition, while not proposing establishment of performance levels on the basis of any recommendations of the NRC, the Notice invited comment on several of these recommendations and stated that additional rules might later become necessary to ensure that best practices recommended by the NRC were not ignored. Finally, the Notice proposed that final outage reports identify the underlying causes of an outage and discuss any applicable industry best practices recommended by the NRC. Sixteen comments and 14 reply comments were filed. III. COMMENTS AND DISCUSSION A. Issues 10. 30,000 Customer Threshold - Background and Comments: All parties commenting on this issue support establishing the 30,000 customer threshold for reporting outages generally, as proposed in the Notice. The commenters concur that this lower threshold will provide significantly more reliability information to the Commission and the industry than the current 50,000 threshold without imposing substantial additional costs on the carriers. TCA notes that the Commission can reassess this threshold after a year and consider lowering the standard still further if the threshold does not lead to the expected increase in information concerning network reliability. Similarly, AT&T notes that subcommittee T1A1.2 of ATIS Committee T1 is studying network integrity and reliability and is developing a method for quantifying the severity of service outages that may allow future refinements of the reporting criteria. NYNEX warns that any further lowering of the threshold will create an unacceptable administrative burden. 11. 30,000 Customer Threshold - Discussion: All parties essentially agree with the reasoning of the Notice on this issue, and we will adopt the change as proposed. Carriers have been filing reports voluntarily in accordance with the 30,000 customers threshold, and we have found that these reports provide the Commission with valuable additional information on network reliability. In particular, lowering the threshold triples the number of central offices that are subject to reporting. 12. Reporting Times - Background and Comments: All parties commenting on the issue of reporting times support the limits proposed in the Notice for filing initial and final reports: 120 minutes for outages that potentially affect 50,000 customers or special facilities, three days for 30,000 to 50,000 customers and for all reportable fire-related incidents, and 30 days for all final reports. Many commenters contend that the extended times for filing initial outage reports will allow more complete reports and will allow technicians to spend more time correcting the outages they are reporting. 13. Reporting Times - Discussion: We continue to encourage carriers to report outages as soon as possible. Nonetheless, the additional 30 minutes provided as an outside limit for filing initial reports in the event of a major outage will allow carriers experiencing an outage to devote additional time at the outset to the essential task of restoring network services. In addition, although we recognize that two hours will usually not provide sufficient time to complete an investigation, we expect that the additional time proposed in the Notice will result in far fewer cursory initial reports. To date, we have not penalized carriers that have missed the 90 minute filing period. We intend to enforce filing requirements more strictly in the future. The three days allowed for initial reports of outages at the 30,000 customers level will limit the burden of that new threshold significantly. Our experience with the process to date has been that outages in this range do not warrant immediate reporting as do large scale events. We, therefore, adopt these reporting times: initial reports shall be filed with the Commission within 120 minutes for outages affecting 50,000 or more customers; 3 days for outages affecting 30,000 to 50,000 customers; 3 days for reportable fire-related outages, as defined below, affecting fewer than 50,000 customers but at least 1000 lines. All final reports shall be filed with the Commission within 30 days. 14. Methods of Determining Thresholds for IXCs - Background: IXC switches, like LEC tandems, do not directly terminate specific subscriber lines, as do LEC central offices. IXCs, therefore, have used blocked calls as the basis for determining when reporting thresholds are reached. Because customers normally redial 3 times when their calling attempts are frustrated, IXCs divide the number of blocked calls by a factor of 3 to determine the number of affected customers. The Notice proposed to permit IXCs to continue to use blocked calls in this way to determine whether an outage meets a reporting threshold. 15. Methods of Determining Thresholds for IXCs - Comments: Only Pacific opposes allowing IXCs to use blocked calls to calculate the number of customers potentially affected by an outage. Pacific argues that the methods used by CAPs, LECs and IXCs for determining whether reporting thresholds have been reached should be the same because reports will be used to compare the reliability performance of different carriers and competition between these different carriers is increasing. Pacific states that it is unclear how an IXC should calculate actual blocked calls on a fiber cable or digital cross-connect system (DCS), and there is no way for an IXC to measure calls destined for its network but that are blocked in the originating LEC. Pacific contends that the impact of a failure as measured by its proposed trunk-based method may be greater than that that would be measured using the blocked-calls method. Pacific states that the blocked-calls method may distort the ability of the FCC to obtain an accurate measure of reliability. Pacific contends that its method calculates the impact of an outage by its effect on elements common to different types of networks and could, therefore, be applied easily to CAPs, LECs and IXCs. Specifically, Pacific suggests that carriers report when service is disrupted in an end office serving 30,000 lines or more, a tandem serving 3,000 trunks or more, a DCS system serving the equivalent of 4.5 DS3s (message trunks) or 45 DS3 (non-trunks) or a cable/facility carrying the equivalent of 125 T1s (message trunks) or 1,250 T1s (non-trunks). Where possible, carriers should examine failed network elements to determine the potential impact on customers using the formula: number of message trunks times 10 plus number of non-message trunk circuits = potential customers affected. 16. MCI and Bell Atlantic oppose Pacific's suggested reporting method. MCI states that LECs and IXCs are dissimilar, and a common methodology should not be applied to both. MCI rejects as irrelevant Pacific's argument that IXCs are not aware of outages in the LEC network that prevent IXC calls, since the LEC, not the IXC, would report such outages. Bell Atlantic states that Pacific's method would sacrifice a goal of the reporting requirement (knowledge of the impact of outages on customers) for administrative convenience. 17. Ameritech, AT&T, BellSouth, Bell Atlantic, GSA, Southwestern and Sprint agree that use of blocked-call counts by IXCs and LECs for tandem offices when calculating reporting thresholds will provide consistent, accurate data. AT&T argues that the Commission should require all carriers to use the blocked calls method. 18. In reply, Pacific concedes that IXC use of the blocked calls method would be acceptable for determining the number of potentially affected customers, provided LECs were allowed to use either the same blocked calls method or the historical usage method suggested as part of the TRG Guidelines for tandem offices. Pacific states that this would be preferable to the use of diverse methods under the Commission's proposal. Pacific asserts, however, that the blocked calls and historical methods would only determine probable impact on customers, whereas the method suggested by Pacific would calculate potential customer impact based on a specified number of network elements, not on estimates about probable use of those elements at the time of an outage. Pacific contends that its method would provide a uniform standard for all carriers. 19. Methods of Determining Thresholds for IXCs - Discussion: Among our primary objectives in requiring outage reporting are to become informed quickly of major disruptions and to gather, analyze, and share information useful to ensure network reliability. Carriers' networks differ not only in their capacities and functions, but also in the public interest consequences of failures. Because we were not certain that we had selected the proper methods for identifying reportable outages, we charged the Network Reliability Council with recommending changes. The Council represents diverse interests and its deliberations in several areas were contentious, particularly those involving reporting requirements. Its recommendations represent a consensus, and we are generally inclined to adopt its proposals, although we are not required to do so. 20. Pacific's proposal, while rigorous and objective, does not account for differences among the LECs and IXCs, and it is not endorsed by other commenters. Our experience and the experience of the NRC with the use of real-time blocked call counts in identifying reportable IXC outages has demonstrated that this method adequately serves the purposes of the rule. We will, therefore, adopt the blocked calls method for IXCs as described in proposed Section 63.100(g). To promote consistency in the event that reliability comparisons are made, we will require IXCs to use blocked calls, where technically feasible. Where use of real-time blocked call counts is not possible, we will allow IXCs to use historical data to estimate, in good faith, the probable number of customers affected by an outage in an IXC switch or facility. Where historical data are used to estimate the number of calls normally attempted during a comparable non-outage calling period, we note that IXCs should not divide the number of blocked calls by three to determine the number of customers potentially affected by an outage. 21. Methods of Determining Thresholds in LEC Tandems - Background: For the past two years LECs generally have been reporting outages to end offices where the number of lines served by that office exceeded the threshold number. LEC tandem offices aggregate traffic from end offices, and do not directly terminate specific lines. The TRG suggested to local exchange carriers that, under the two thresholds, they report tandem outages only if the outages occur at a time when the tandems normally process 30,000 or 50,000 calls per half hour. The Notice proposed, instead, that the number of customers potentially affected by a LEC tandem outage should equal the actual number of lines connected to switches directly homing on the tandem, regardless of the traffic usually passing through that tandem at any hour of the day. The Notice specifically requested comments on this issue. 22. Methods of Determining Thresholds in LEC Tandems - Comments: Only TCA explicitly supports the method proposed in the Notice for determining reportable LEC tandem outages. TCA prefers this method because it is simple to administer and errs, if at all, on the side of being over-inclusive. 23. Ameritech, Bell Atlantic, BellSouth, NYNEX, Sprint, and Southwestern oppose the line-counting method proposed in the Notice for determining LEC tandem outages. Bell Atlantic, among others, argues that this method will overstate substantially the impact of outages since tandems, though they normally serve 30,000 or more lines, rarely handle calling volumes of that magnitude. BellSouth and others note that many tandems are part of an architecture involving alternate tandems and routes, that some tandems also tend independent company switches and that CAPs may home on LEC tandems, making determination of the number of lines actually dependent upon any given tandem very difficult. Many of these commenters also challenge TCA's apparent view that some inaccuracy in reporting by virtue of over-inclusiveness or for the sake of administrative ease might be acceptable. 24. NYNEX supports the method for LEC tandems suggested in the TRG Guidelines on the grounds that it will promote accuracy and fairness. The TRG Guidelines suggest reporting total tandem outages lasting 30 minutes or more in offices with 5,000 or more trunks (assuming each trunk can carry 10 customer calls per half hour) if the failure occurs during the time when the tandem normally processes 50,000 or more calls per half hour. NYNEX asserts this method would yield the most accurate determination of affected customers. NYNEX states that rare distortions of historical calling volumes such as those produced by natural disasters should not cause the Commission to reject this otherwise highly reliable method. NYNEX further argues that the TRG Guidelines method is presently employed by LECs and has led to LEC reports for the majority of outages. 25. If the Guidelines method is not used, NYNEX recommends that LECs be allowed to use the blocked calls method approved for IXCs. NYNEX agrees that use of the same method by IXCs and LECs would promote competitive fairness. In the Notice, the Commission justified use of blocked calls by IXCs on the grounds that the proposed lower reporting threshold (30,000 customers) would detect any significant outages that might otherwise go unreported as a result of the use of that method. NYNEX notes that, since LECs, like IXCs, will be subject to the lower threshold, the blocked calls method will similarly make it likely that all significant LEC service disruptions will be reported. In addition, NYNEX observes that the Notice justified the use of blocked calls to determine the reporting threshold for IXCs, in part, on the basis that other IXCs were available to carry traffic. 26. For many of the foregoing reasons, Ameritech, AT&T, BellSouth, Bell Atlantic, GSA, Southwestern and Sprint all support use of blocked call counts by LECs as well as IXCs to calculate reporting thresholds. MCI agrees that, if a uniform reporting method were needed, LECs should be allowed to use the blocked calls method for outages in tandems, which are similar to IXC switches. Ameritech states that LECs could determine blocked calls as accurately as IXCs and, along with Bell Atlantic, suggests that LECs be allowed to use either blocked calls or good faith estimates of usage based on comparable historical data. 27. Methods of Determining Thresholds in LEC Tandems - Discussion: The alternatives discussed above for determining thresholds for reportable LEC tandem outages include the line-based method suggested in the Notice, the method developed by Pacific, the method suggested in the TRG Guidelines and favored by NYNEX, and the blocked-calls method. In determining the suitability of these methods for LECs and whether the preferable method(s) should be mandated, we recognize the need for consistency, simplicity and accuracy in carrier estimates of the number of customers potentially affected by an outage. We repeat, in this connection, that the purpose of setting numerical thresholds is to ensure the reporting of all "significant outages." The phrase "potentially affects ... customers," as used in our rules, is intended to provide for the reporting of outages in cases where the carrier "should reasonably expect that at least ... [the threshold number of customers] will be deprived of telephone service," even when customer impact cannot be determined with certainty. The number of customers potentially affected by an outage should, therefore, represent the most accurate estimate of the number that might actually have been affected. 28. We agree with Bell Atlantic and others that relying entirely on the number of lines or trunks served by an affected tandem would often tend to overstate the effect of an outage. This approach ignores the availability of alternative routing and the fact that tandems are designed to handle the expected peak periods of usage, which may not coincide with the outage period. We also note that these static methods for calculating the customer impact of LEC tandem outages, combined with certain architectures (a larger number of tandems, for example, that serve just under 30,000 lines) could diminish the number of tandem outages reported by a LEC even as the reliability of the LEC's network deteriorated. The outage reports that a carrier is required to submit for tandem outages should be related to the number of customers affected. 29. We believe, as we stated above, that blocked call counts have proven to be effective in keeping the Commission informed of significant IXC outages. This method also provides a representative means of tracking causes of service outages. It is now often possible to measure calls blocked in LEC tandems as well as IXC switches on a real time basis. Therefore, we will approve the same blocked calls method for determining thresholds in LEC tandem outages that we have approved for IXC outages. 30. To promote greater consistency, we will make the use of real- time blocked call counts in determining thresholds, where technically feasible, mandatory for LEC tandem outages. In the case of outages where real-time blocked call counts are not technologically feasible, we will allow threshold determination based on historical experience as suggested in the TRG Guidelines, with one exception. 31. When a historical measure of blocked calls is used, carriers may not use the historical data method described in the TRG Guidelines that would require reporting tandem outages only when they occur "during the time when the tandem normally processes > 50K [or 30K] calls per half hour." As interpreted in some of the outage reports recently filed with the FCC, this would greatly understate the effect of some outages. When blocked calls are calculated to determine the number of customers potentially affected by an outage, the number to be calculated is the number affected throughout the period of the outage, whether under a real- time count or as estimated using applicable historical data. Where historical data are used to estimate the number of calls normally attempted during a comparable non-outage calling period, the number estimated should not be divided in determining the number of customers potentially affected by an outage. 32. Special Facilities - (911 and Major Airports) Background: The Notice proposed requiring reports to the Commission of all outages lasting 30 or more minutes and affecting certain "special offices and facilities," regardless of the number of customers affected, because outages affecting these facilities could be of grave concern even where relatively few communications were interrupted. "Special offices and facilities" include 911 tandems and major airports as well as major military installations, key government facilities, and nuclear power plants. Under the proposal, carriers would report outages affecting 911 facilities and major airports directly to the FCC. Carriers have been voluntarily reporting 911 and major airport-affecting outages to the FCC for the last two years pursuant to recommendations of the Network Reliability Council. 33. Special Facilities - (911) Comments: Commenters generally support the proposed special facilities reporting requirements. Some, however, offer suggestions for restricting the scope of the requirements to eliminate reports they regard as unnecessary. Pacific states that 911-affecting outages are local in nature and that it is already required to report such outages to the California Public Utilities Commission. Therefore, Pacific argues, there is no reason for the FCC to collect information on outages that affect only 911. 34. NENA, an organization that supports the implementation of a universal emergency telephone number system, contends that all 911 outages are significant and ought to be reported. NENA denies Pacific's claim that 911 services are exclusively intrastate and argues that California's 911 reporting requirement shows that compliance with the federal rule will not create a significant additional burden. NENA recommends that the Commission adopt a more precise definition or listing of the types of emergency services embraced by the special facilities rule. NENA also suggests that the Commission consider requiring carriers to issue warnings of an outage to emergency communications officials. Because rerouting of 911 traffic is not always automatic, Public Service Answering Point (PSAP) officials must be aware of an actual or potential outage in order to implement rerouting procedures. NENA also argues that cellular and satellite carriers are as important to emergency services as CAPs and the Commission should either require them to report or clarify the reason for their distinct treatment under the reporting requirements. 35. Special Facilities - (911) Discussion: We reject suggestions that the reliability and efficiency of 911 systems are not of Commission interest. The Council's 911 Focus Report stated: "It is no exaggeration to say the American public depends on 9-1-1 service in its emergencies." The reliability of 911 service is integrally related to our responsibilities under Section 1 of the Act, which include "promoting safety of life and property through the use of wire and radio communication." Accordingly, the Commission will continue to collect data on 911 outages and will incorporate the proposed reporting requirement into our rules. However, the Commission staff has discovered that, as a result of the phrase "911 tandems" in the TRG Report and the examples of reportable 911 outages offered by the TRG in the attachments to its report, there is considerable carrier confusion about the proper criteria for reporting 911 outages. We will, therefore, revise our proposed rule to specifically require reports of 911 special facilities outages only when an outage disrupts more than 25% of the lines to any PSAP, without providing automatic rerouting to an alternative PSAP. We will also require carriers to indicate, when specifying the types of services affected by any reportable outage, when 911 is one of those services, to indicate whether or not more than 25% of the lines to any PSAP were disrupted and there was no automatic rerouting to an alternate PSAP. The Commission's staff is now examining, in the course of its routine follow-up investigations of 911 service outages, carrier practices relating to 911 services. We have found that carriers generally alert PSAP officials of outages affecting them. To ensure consistency in this regard, however, we will adopt NENA's proposal that we require notification of these officials. 36. We reject NENA's request regarding the definition of emergency services. The identification of 911 emergency services by the very number used to call them is specific and will be known to every carrier. 911 services are the only emergency services implicated in the special facilities reporting rule. Therefore, no revisions to the definition of emergency services are warranted at this time. 37. Finally, the record developed in this proceeding does not clearly establish whether satellite and terrestrial mobile carriers should be subject to the 911 outage reporting requirements. In the Notice at para. 26, the Commission reasoned that the potential for growth of CAPs in the provision of services to all special facilities, not just 911, and the increasing possibility that an outage of CAP facilities could reach the 30,000 potentially affected customers threshold justified the CAP's inclusion in the outage reporting requirement. Many satellite communications carriers, as NENA concedes, have little or nothing to do with the everyday business of telephony and thus need not be subject to the reporting requirements. Satellite carriers, however, have proposed a variety of new services using new technologies and frequency bands. In addition, the NRC's 911 Focus Team recognized "that there are major unresolved issues in providing 911 service for wireless and cellular customers" that it did not examine in its study. Therefore, we refer the question of whether to expand the 911 and other special facilities outage reporting requirements to include terrestrial wireless and satellite carriers. We ask that it report on whether these and other providers of telecommunications services should report special facility service outages affecting 911 facilities to the Commission pursuant to the provisions of Section 63.100. 38. Special Facilities - (Major Airports) Comments: Several commenters suggested that unnecessary reports of outages affecting major airports would be filed if the proposed requirement were not modified. Pacific states that it has no way of knowing if an outage affects air traffic control links unless an airport informs the LEC. Pacific suggests that major airports affected by an outage should be required to contact a designated agency and that this agency should handle any necessary reporting, with assistance from the service provider, so that carriers could avoid reporting outages affecting airports only in trivial ways, e.g., affecting only pay phones at airports. AT&T suggested that an airport outage report should only be required if 50% or more of the air traffic control links or other FAA communications links to any major airport are affected. AT&T notes that this is the present voluntary practice and has not been found inadequate. US West recommends that only mission-affecting outages be reported. MCI agrees with AT&T, since FAA communications links for major airports are fully redundant and loss of 50% of the links alone would not cause any loss of service. MCI states that such reporting would be consistent with the NRC Steering Committee's understanding. Bell Atlantic supports Pacific's position. Southwestern Bell finds the suggestions of AT&T, Pacific and US West all acceptable in this regard. 39. Special Facilities - (Major Airports) Discussion: Under the voluntary system of outage reporting that has been in place since June 1, 1992, the FCC has received reports of outages that affect major airports. Until recently, AT&T has had principal responsibility for air traffic control telecommunications at airports under its contract with the FAA. AT&T has interpreted the voluntary reporting guidelines to require reports for outages affecting major airports under the 50% criterion described above. In addition to outages affecting major airport tower communications, AT&T has reported Air Route Traffic Control Center (ARTCC) outages. The ARTCCs in the FAA system handle intertower traffic above 10,000 feet. AT&T, under its FAA contract, provided telecommunications services for 19 of the 21 centers. In addition to outages affecting 50% of the FAA ARTCC circuits, AT&T reported to the FCC: any outage that caused an ARTCC or major airport to lose its radar; any ARTCC or major airport outage that was likely to be publicized; any outage that caused a loss of both primary and backup facilities at any ARTCC or major airport; and any outage to an ARTCC or major airport that is deemed important by the FAA as indicated by FAA inquiry to the carrier management personnel assigned to the FAA region in which the outage occurred. All AT&T major airport-affecting outages appear to have been reported under these criteria. 40. Pacific's suggestion, on the other hand, is untested. Moreover, NCS states that the national security/emergency preparedness (NS/EP) concerns that warrant the submission of reports on outages that affect government and military installations and nuclear power plants to the NCS do not apply to airports. US West's concerns seem to be addressed by AT&T's 50% criterion, which is designed to exclude outages that would not be mission-affecting. The 50% criterion should also help eliminate unnecessary reports the FCC has received from LECs contracted to provide service to small radar and radio facilities dispersed throughout each ARTCC area. These facilities are usually redundant and not considered crucial to major airport operations. Reports of outages at these facilities as "major airport-affecting" are usually discovered upon FCC follow-up to have been thought too insignificant to require additional investigation or reporting by the FAA, which operates its own extensive monitoring system. Moreover, MCI is completing construction of the LINCs system, which will be used in the future for FAA air traffic control telecommunications. Because this system will contain even greater redundancy than the current AT&T System, we conclude that AT&T's proposed standard, which MCI fully supports, is a sound approach. Therefore, we reject Pacific's and US West's suggestions and accept AT&T's proposal. We will apply the 50% criterion to our major airport-affecting outage reporting requirement. We will also require carriers to adopt the other standards, described above, that AT&T has used to determine reportable outages affecting major airports. 41. Special Facilities - (NS/EP Facilities) Background: The Notice proposed that any mission-affecting telecommunications outage at a nuclear power plant, a major military installation or a key government facility be reported by the affected facility to the NCS, which will: 1) forward an initial (120 minute) and final (30 day) written report of the outage to the Commission, supplying information required by  63.100 of the rules for all special facilities outages; 2) forward an edited version; or 3) retain the report at the NCS, depending on the degree to which notification of the outage might affect NS/EP concerns. Outages at nuclear power plants, major military installations and key government facilities have been reported voluntarily under these procedures to the FCC for the past 18 months. 42. Special Facilities - (NS/EP Facilities) Comments: Though most commenters agreed with our proposed procedures for reporting these special facilities outages through the NCS, several commenters suggested changes or clarifications. NYNEX asked the Commission to clarify whether initial special facilities reports made under the auspices of the NCS are to be made by NCS or the carrier. If by the NCS, NYNEX requests the carrier be required to consult with the NCS and, if not, the NCS should be required to report to the carrier that an outage has been reported so that the carrier can provide a final written report to the NCS for filing with the FCC. NYNEX suggests that the carrier be required to submit final report information within 20 days of the outage so that the NCS can meet the 30 day deadline. Pacific asks the Commission to clarify that all nuclear power plants are considered to be special facilities and that a member agency of the NCS will determine if there has been a mission-affecting outage. Pacific argues that the NCS should provide the carriers with a list of special offices and facilities or at least the criteria used to designate the facilities subject to this reporting requirement in order to assist LECs in reporting, diversity planning and reliability decisions. Pacific states that a 20 day limit for carriers to provide outage reports to the NCS is unnecessarily short since NCS will not amend those reports. Pacific suggests a 28 day limit. AT&T agrees that clarification regarding NCS/Carrier cooperation as requested by NYNEX would be helpful. UTC suggests that the NCS provide a report to the special facility affected by outage to allow the affected facility to inform carriers of service inadequacies or to change carriers. 43. In its comments, NCS accepts the arrangements and its role under the proposed rule for reporting special facilities outages insofar as they reflect its own current practice and that of the carriers. NCS suggests, however, that the Commission modify proposed Subsections 63.100(e)(2) and (3). NCS asks that Subsection (2) allow an oral report within 120 minutes with a written report to follow the next business day, because sometimes a full written report within 120 minutes will not be feasible. NCS contends that Subsection (3) of the current rule should permit the NCS to edit or hold back final reports, even if initial reports have been forwarded to the Commission, when NS/EP concerns are affected by elements of the final reports. NCS understands that, under the proposed rules, outages affecting nuclear power plants are to be reported through NCS as special facilities outages. NCS disagrees with Pacific's suggestion that a list of or the method of determining special facilities be given to the carriers. Such a list would be unnecessary and would contain classified information. NCS denies the need to provide a report to the affected special facility since the affected facility will be the entity reporting to the NCS and the facility has more information about the outage than the NCS. The NCS, with the assistance of the service provider, currently prepares the initial report to the Commission on the basis of the information provided by the facility. The NCS does not believe that firm rules need to be established to ensure carrier cooperation, since cooperation during the voluntary reporting period has been satisfactory. 44. Special Facilities - (NS/EP) Discussion: The NCS is comprised of various executive departments and agencies and operates under the direction of the Secretary of Defense to ensure the NS/EP needs of the federal government as well as state and local governments. Whether NS/EP concerns implicated in outages make it inappropriate for outage reports to be received and analyzed as other outage reports is a matter that must be decided on a case by case basis. The suggestions of the NCS for procedures to determine whether outage reports should be submitted to the FCC, where those suggestions are grounded in NS/EP concerns and do not prevent the FCC from fulfilling its duty to ensure network reliability, will, therefore, be adopted. 45. Subsection 63.100(e)(3) will be modified as requested. We reject Pacific's suggestion that a list of or the method for determining special facilities be given to the carriers. Additionally, Subsection 63.100(e)(2) will be modified as requested to provide additional time that may be required for consultations between the NCS, the affected facility and the implicated carrier. NCS, in consultation with the service provider, prepares the initial report to the FCC. Our proposed rules do not explicitly require a written initial report to be prepared by the carrier for submission to the NCS. This accords with present practice and allows time for the accommodation of NS/EP concerns that may otherwise be compromised. To ensure continued cooperation, we will modify the proposed rule to require carriers to consult with the NCS when outages to be reported by the NCS occur on their networks. If the NCS determines that a report to the FCC is appropriate, our proposed rules require the carrier to send to the NCS a written final report containing all information otherwise required in final reports to the FCC. But the proposed rules recognize that additional time may be needed by the NCS to review and edit the information received for inclusion in its final report to the FCC. We agree that it would be useful to specify that carriers are required to submit their final reports to the NCS within 28 days of the outage, leaving the NCS two days to determine the contents of final reports to the FCC. We will adopt the two day deadline because the NCS has not indicated that additional time is needed. 46. Nuclear power plants are special facilities and outages affecting them have significant NS/EP implications. Such outages will, therefore, be reported through the NCS. The determination as to whether an outage affecting telecommunications at a nuclear power plant is mission-affecting and should be reported to the NCS is made, as a matter of present practice, by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. For the reasons stated by NCS and summarized above, there is no need for the NCS to report an outage to the affected special facility. 47. Special Facilities - (TSP) Background: In the Report and Order, the Commission declined to add Telecommunication Service Priority System (TSP)-related information to the reporting requirement. TSP is the system used to authorize common carriers to provide or restore on a priority basis certain services designated as important for reasons of NS/EP. The issue was not revisited either by the NRC or in the Notice in determining which facilities would be designated "special" for purposes of reporting outages. 48. Special Facilities - (TSP) Comments: UTC suggests that the term "special offices and facilities" be defined to include circuits with TSP designations because outages affecting these circuits could have a major impact on the public. UTC contends that reports on outages affecting TSP circuits would provide a more complete reliability picture. UTC suggests that the NCS procedures be applied to TSP-assigned circuit outages. The NCS should relay outage reports to the affected special facility, even if the outage has not been reported to the FCC so that the facility can demand improved service or redundant circuits or opt for a second carrier. The FCC should also adopt a procedure whereby a facility can demand that a carrier file a report to the NCS within 30 days of an outage affecting service to a circuit qualifying for a TSP assignment. 49. Southwestern opposes UTC's suggestion that TSP outages be included in special facilities reporting. Southwestern states that the Commission already rejected a similar suggestion by UTC in the Report and Order and that it would be enormously time consuming to search through the hierarchy from facility level to circuit level to identify the outages that affected TSP circuits. AT&T asserts that the TSP system governs restoration priorities in national emergencies. In non-emergency situations the failure of an individual TSP circuit does not indicate that anything of public importance has occurred or even that users lack any communications capabilities. Pacific also disagrees with UTC's proposal that TSP circuits be included as special facilities, since minor outages on these circuits have no effect on national network reliability and significant TSP outages will be reported under the thresholds. MCI states that there are many TSP circuits not serving special facilities and that additional NCS follow up of TSP-affecting outages is unnecessary. NYNEX states that present TSP reporting procedures capture all needed information. NCS claims that public reports of TSP circuit outages could jeopardize the national interest. BellSouth points out that TSP circuits already have priority treatment and are routinely provisioned with backup facilities. Outage events affecting them are already subject to review by the TSP Oversight Committee which reports to the Commission and the NCS. 50. Special Facilities - (TSP) Discussion: None of the reasons offered by UTC justifies adding significantly to the reporting burdens of either the carriers or the NCS. Requiring reports of TSP-qualified circuit failures would substantially increase the costs of the TSP system. In the Report and Order, we rejected UTC's suggestion because of the costs of reporting actual TSP failures. The NCS is closely involved in the administration of the TSP system that is intended to provide for NS/EP telecommunications needs. For these reasons, we are especially concerned that in the view of NCS the public reporting of TSP circuit failures could jeopardize the national interest. We continue to believe, as we indicated in the Report and Order, that the better course is to leave the matter to the TSP System Oversight Committee for any necessary changes. 51. Reporting of Fire-related Incidents - Background: The Notice did not propose adoption of the NRC Fire Prevention Focus Team's recommendation that all fire-related incidents that affect service to 100 or more service lines for a period of 30 minutes or longer be reported within twenty four hours to ATIS for study. Instead, the Notice proposed a modified version of the Team's recommendation. The suggested changes include requirements that carriers experiencing such outages notify the Commission and file the initial report within three days. 52. Reporting of Fire-related Incidents - Comments: Numerous commenters oppose the proposed requirement. Ameritech and Pacific state that individual fire-related incidents should only be reported to ATIS, as recommended by the Fire Prevention Focus Team. They claim that the periodic analyses that ATIS would be required to forward to the Commission will be adequate to serve the Commission's needs and that significant fire-related outages will be reported in any event directly to the Commission under the numerical reporting thresholds. Pacific states that if ATIS analyses show a need for reports to be submitted directly to the Commission, the Commission can revisit the issue. AT&T agrees with the Fire Team's recommendation, stating that the Commission must not overburden itself or industry by micromanaging. AT&T argues that the numerous comments opposing the reporting of fire-related incidents show that various issues need to be resolved before a practical and useful reporting requirement can be adopted. AT&T suggests that the Network Reliability Steering Committee study the issues and develop appropriate limitations on the scope of fire- reporting. In the meantime, AT&T argues that the NRC recommendation for reporting to ATIS should be adopted. Bell Atlantic and BellSouth agree that the Fire Team's recommendation should be followed because ATIS is in the best position to analyze the information received in fire-related reports. NYNEX agrees that an initial fire-incident report should be submitted to ATIS but suggests that final reports should be sent by the carrier to the Commission and should reflect ATIS' analysis. In its reply comments, NYNEX argues, instead, that the Fire Team's recommendation is preferable because ATIS is better able to handle the administrative burden than the Commission and because avoiding the appearance of the incident on the public record will prevent unjustified reliability concerns and encourage the free flow of ideas. MCI states that the industry is already voluntarily reporting fire-related incidents to ATIS and a requirement to that effect would be superfluous. 53. Bell Atlantic also objects that the NRC's definition of "fire-related incident" is overly broad in that it would include short circuits that caused some smoke as well as small outages caused by fires entirely outside carrier control in adjacent property. Such reports would not meaningfully contribute to determining the role that fires play in network outages but would prove burdensome, and the explanations of a fire's cause would often be secondhand. Bell Atlantic suggests defining "fire-related incident" to include only outages in which visible flames in a central office or controlled environmental vault are the root cause or triggering event leading to the outage. Sprint states that under the present definition the number of outage reports received by the Commission would be drastically increased and suggests that the issue of a narrower definition for reporting fires to the Commission be referred to an industry group. Sprint would redefine "fire-related incident" to include only fires at central offices, POPs, regenerator sites, satellite earth stations and other network "nodes." BellSouth and GSA would include, in a similar redefinition, fires occurring in central offices, repeater stations and controlled environmental vaults and exclude reports of damage to external equipment by fires the prevention of which is not within the control of the carrier. Southwestern Bell would include tandems in the list of facilities covered by the rule. 54. US West would require reports of fire-related incidents only in switching and interoffice facilities, since fires external to such facilities may often not be technically or economically preventable. Rochester suggests reporting only fire-related incidents affecting 10,000 lines and occurring in central offices, repeater stations, controlled environmental vaults and similar facilities, so that only information about fires that affect service significantly is generated. BellSouth contends, along with NYNEX, that, since virtually all fire-related incidents will affect at least 100 lines, this 100-line nominal threshold can be dropped from the rule for administrative simplicity. NYNEX acknowledges that fire reporting under the rule as presently proposed will cover areas over which carriers have no control, but states that the data the reports provide will be of value because network equipment resides on customer locations and trends that develop with regard to this equipment's reliability should be known. NYNEX also believes that smoke incidents can produce acid that affects reliability, so that limiting reporting to visible flames as Bell Atlantic suggests is not advisable. 55. Reporting of Fire-related Incidents - Discussion: In its final recommendations to the Commission, the NRC's Fire Prevention Team determined that, although fire-related outages rarely occur, "on those few occasions when a fire has struck a critical communications facility, the result has been devastating." The Team also estimated that service-affecting fires could be reduced by as much as 25%, depending upon the information received under its reporting recommendation. The Team also estimated that 20 to 30 service-affecting fire-related outages per year would be reported to ATIS under its recommended reporting standard. Only the accuracy of the last of these statements is disputed in the comments. 56. We note that since the beginning of voluntary reporting at the 30,000-affected customers threshold only three fire-related incidents have been reported, but those incidents potentially affected nearly a million customers. We believe that, in view of the absence of significant and varied fire-related data at the 30,000 customer threshold level and the potential seriousness of fire-related incidents when they do occur, a much lower threshold for reporting fire-related incidents is necessary. We agree that, even if this standard results in reports of incidents over which carriers have no control, data provided in such reports may be of value because network equipment resides on customer locations and this equipment's reliability should be known. 57. We also note that smoke damage associated with fire in central offices is more severe than thermal damage in most instances. We believe, however, that the suggestions for limiting the number of reportable incidents have merit. We agree that use of a legally mandated 100-lines threshold may lead to an inordinate number of unnecessary reports. 58. Therefore, we will modify the requirement for reporting fire- related incidents to include only those that affect 1,000 or more lines and otherwise adopt the rule as proposed. Specifically, we will require that all fire-related incidents that affect fewer than 50,000 customers but at least 1000 or more lines be reported to the Commission within 3 days, with final reports due in 30 days. We do not intend by this rule that the industry abandon the Fire Prevention Focus Team's recommendation for voluntary reporting of fire-related events to ATIS, with periodic analyses forwarded to the FCC. Rather, we expect our fire reporting rule will facilitate analyses by ATIS. 59. Contents of Reports - Background: The Notice proposed that each final outage report to the Commission specifically detail the root cause of the outage and list and evaluate the effectiveness and application in the immediate case of any best practices or industry standards identified by the Council as helpful in eliminating or ameliorating outages of the reported type. 60. Contents of Reports - Comments: Sprint states that in some instances a root cause analysis may take longer than thirty days, especially if tests performed by outside vendors are necessary. Sprint proposes that carriers be allowed to file supplementary reports after the thirty day limit when necessary to complete the investigation of root causes. Most other commenters supported the root cause reporting requirement without modification. Many commenters, however, state that best practice analysis should not be required. NYNEX points out that there are 277 NRC best practices and claims that their use does not really measure a carrier's commitment to providing reliable service, especially since technology may make the current best practices obsolete. NYNEX feels that carriers should not have to explain why they did not follow a practice because business judgements involving risk assessments and cost comparisons made prior to an outage may be subject to unfair criticism in hindsight. NYNEX claims that the factual analysis in reports will adequately allow for an assessment of reliability trends without best practice discussion. Southwestern Bell and BellSouth ask the Commission to state on the record that a failure to follow a voluntary industry practice or standard need not be discussed in final outage reports. Ameritech and US West, citing specific examples, claim that the cost of employing best practices in many cases may constitute "gold- plating." US West contends that if carriers are to report best practices, they should be allowed to show that in particular circumstances the costs of a best practice outweigh the benefits. TCG claims that both root cause analysis and analysis of relevant best practices in public documents could prove harmful to competition or even be used by terrorists. 61. TCA, GSA and UTC agree with the proposed best practices reporting requirement, claiming that these analyses will allow the Commission to identify and promote development of solutions for recurring problems. TCA points out that inclusion of best practices analysis does not impose absolute requirements on carriers. TCA claims that best practice analysis would not be a burden in the case of a reliable carrier because there would be few outage reports, and in the case of a unreliable carrier with many outage reports the absence of best practice procedures should be explained. 62. Contents of Reports - Discussion: We believe the public interest in avoiding or mitigating the effects of telephone service outages is best served by adopting the root cause and best practices analysis modifications to our rules. However, we agree that carriers should be allowed to file supplementary reports after the thirty day limit when necessary to identify root causes. This does not affect our requirement that "all available information," will be included in the 30 day reports. 63. While we understand that a carrier's adoption of the NRC's best practices will not enhance reliability in all circumstances, they do represent the consensus of the industry regarding the best procedures to follow in a wide variety of outages. Where a carrier has not implemented a seemingly applicable best practice, the Commission recognizes that the carrier may, nevertheless, have acted reasonably and that the implementation of best practices may be subject to economic constraints. Our interest in knowing the carrier's reasons for not employing industry best practices does not constitute an accusation. We believe, however, that best practice identification and analysis strongly encourages carriers and their on-location technical personnel to become familiar with and implement those practices that are appropriate. Reports containing such identification and analyses will allow the Commission and the telecommunications industry to monitor the success of the NRC's recommendations and assess the need for modifications and further recommendations. Finally, the Commission's confidentiality rules and the procedure discussed above for reporting outages involving NS/EP will protect against the dangers of disclosure mentioned by TCG. We will, therefore, adopt the proposed requirements that carriers in their final reports identify their use of or failure to use best practices with respect to the facilities or procedures identified in their reports as the cause of an outage. Carriers should analyze the effectiveness of any best practices relevant to the reported outage. 64. Thresholds/Best Practices as Standards - Background: Although the Notice did not propose using either the number of reported outages or best practice implementation as standards for assessing penalties for poor carrier reliability, it did reserve the right to take any action within the Commission's authority to ensure efficient telecommunications service and indicated that additional rulemakings were likely if it appeared that carriers were not observing appropriate best practices. 65. Thresholds/Best Practices as Standards - Comments: All parties who addressed the issue opposed present use of either the numerical thresholds or best practices as standards for assessing penalties. AT&T claims that using reporting thresholds as a basis for levying forfeitures would discourage reporting, as noted in the Report to the Nation. AT&T states that the Commission already has sufficient enforcement authority to deal with unacceptable levels of service quality. Ameritech argues that best practices were intended to stimulate creativity in carrier determinations about reliability, not to be made mandatory, and that the Commission should not readily conclude that failure to follow a best practice constitutes a case of malfeasance. BellSouth claims that use of best practices as de facto legal standards will prevent the industry from reaching consensus about them in the future. US West and Pacific argue that best practices should not be mandated because carriers must have flexibility in responding to reliability concerns. 66. Sprint agrees and states that due process requires the Commission to undertake a rulemaking to establish clear rules and definite standards before enforcement actions are taken against carriers for inadequate reliability performance. Rochester states that use of best practices as standards for forfeitures would only lead to accusations among carriers, vendors, contractors and manufacturers as parties attempted to exculpate themselves and that many reported outages under the proposed rule will be minor and could not fairly be used to show that a carrier was providing unsafe or inadequate services even where best practices were not followed. Southwestern Bell asks the Commission to clarify that a failure to follow a voluntary industry practice or standard does not impose liability. 67. TCA, while agreeing that minimum performance levels are not presently warranted, asserts that the Commission should monitor reports to identify carriers with inferior reliability records or carriers who do not observe best practices and take remedial action including adoption of enforcement orders against particular carriers. If general network reliability concerns increase, the Commission should then initiate a rulemaking to develop mandatory minimum standards. 68. Thresholds/Best Practices as Standards - Discussion: One reason for including best practice analysis in our reporting requirement, as indicated above, is to assist the Commission and the industry in investigating the effectiveness of the best practices recommended by the NRC. While we do not adopt best practices identified by the NRC as legal requirements at this time, we expect that carriers will continue to implement rapidly the NRC's best practices, recognizing that particular circumstances must be taken into account. It is premature at this time to determine whether and how we might require reliability measures to be taken by an individual carrier with an inferior reliability record. As we stated in the Notice, however, we reserve the right to take any action within our authority to ensure efficient telecommunications service. We recognize, as stated above, that the NRC's best practices are not a uniformly appropriate set of instructions for enhancing reliability in all circumstances. Nonetheless, we emphasize that we are prepared, if necessary, to propose additional regulations to ensure reliability. 69. Mandatory Mutual Aid - Background: The NRC's Mutual Aid and Restoration Focus Team developed a compendium, described in the Notice, that outlined the various types of agreements, both formal and informal, that exist for mutual aid among carriers, other industry members and customers. The Team's report also discussed the advantages and disadvantages of each of the various types of agreements according to different circumstances, provided contact lists, considered strategies for public education on finding alternative service during an outage, and suggested other ways to facilitate mutual aid when called for. This document is periodically updated by the National Communications System. 70. Mandatory Mutual Aid - Comments: TCA proposes that the Commission seek comment on mutual aid and restoration requirements. TCA states that the ability to minimize the effect of outages through mutual aid between carriers and vendors increases as the number of providers increases but rivalry may prevent full cooperation. Alternatively, TCA asks the Commission to specify that it is an unreasonable practice in violation of 201(b) of the Act not to participate in mutual aid and restoration agreements. TCA also suggests that the Commission establish a deadline for carriers to certify that they have taken such steps. 71. AT&T, Southwestern Bell and BellSouth disagree, arguing that mutual aid agreements should be left to the private efforts of carriers, and declaring that present voluntary cooperation during emergencies is excellent, as shown by the report of the NRC's Mutual Aid Focus Team. Pacific argues that there is no need for the Commission to declare that failure to enter into specified types of agreements is a violation of Section 201(b) of the Act. Pacific contends that the Network Operations Forum (NOF) of ATIS has provided a comprehensive framework for mutual aid and restoration, including information sharing guidelines, software validation guidelines, Signalling System 7 (SS7) baseline security guidelines, database maintenance, power routines, link diversity validation, emergency communication, and planned network maintenance notification. MCI states that TCA's proposal for requiring mutual aid would deny carriers necessary flexibility. 72. Mandatory Mutual Aid - Discussion: Carriers have consistently maintained, both in this record and in proceedings of the Network Reliability Council, that a strong spirit of cooperation, evidenced by formal and informal mutual aid arrangements, exists throughout the industry. After studying the full variety of telecommunications mutual aid arrangements, the NRC Mutual Aid and Restoration Team determined that there was extensive vendor-with-carrier and carrier-with-carrier cooperation both prior to and during emergencies and that "commitment to prompt notification, cooperative interaction and the provision of technical and material assistance during emergencies is general throughout the industry." We have found no evidence to the contrary. Although virtually all aspects of telecommunications service and equipment provision are becoming more competitive, the evidence before us suggests that carriers provide assistance to each other when requested to do so. This assistance has taken different forms. Major interexchange carriers experiencing significant service disruptions have assisted customers in obtaining access to other interexchange carriers, and have informed each other that they are doing so. The Commission publishes consumer bulletins that inform customers how to access different interexchange carriers. Finally, carriers have begun to implement a number of the measures proposed by TCA. The Regional Bell Operating Companies, Cincinnati Bell Telephone Company, Southern New England Telephone Company, the GTE Telephone Operating Companies, Sprint/United Telephone Companies, and Bellcore NS/EP recently have entered into the Local Exchange Carrier Mutual Aid Agreement. The carriers provide more than 92 percent of the access lines in the United States. The agreement is designed to resolve, in advance, issues relating to the sharing of equipment, people, supplies, and network capacity among carriers in times of emergency. 73. Because we are aware of no incidents of carriers refusing cooperation, we see no need at this time to mandate mutual aid agreements or to specify the circumstances in which a refusal of aid would be unreasonable. We believe such determinations should be made on the basis of a complete record developed through a complaint filed pursuant to Section 208 of the Act. We understand that current carrier practice is to provide assistance when requested; that understanding will be our point of departure in considering any such complaint. 74. IITP Financing - Background: Following the September 12, 1991 inter-industry meeting on network reliability hosted by the Commission, the Internetwork Interoperability Test Plan Ad Hoc Committee was established by the Network Operations Forum of the Alliance for Telecommunications Industry Solutions and is administered by Bellcore. The Committee has developed interoperability internetwork test scripts and interconnected multiple carrier and supplier laboratories to cooperatively execute those test scripts. The recommendations of the NRC's SS7 Focus Team, summarized for comment in the Notice, stated that "there must be increased commitment of personnel and resources across the industry for the Internetwork Interoperability Test Plan (IITP)." 75. IITP Financing - Comments: In its comments, Bell Atlantic states that the costs for IITP testing, presently assumed entirely by several LECs, should be shared more generally. It asks the Commission to provide an industry-wide mechanism such as that established by the NRC for funding the NRC Symposium or the ATIS Steering Committee to do this. BellSouth agrees. Pacific agrees that costs for IITP testing should be shared more equitably across the industry, but believes, along with AT&T, that funding can be resolved within the industry and that no Commission action is necessary. MCI argues that industry-wide funding for IITP is not necessary for fairness reasons, since LECs recover their IITP costs through the interexchange access rates and says that the costs of industry-wide funding would greatly exceed benefits. 76. IITP Financing - Discussion: In its recommendation to the Commission, the NRC's SS7 Focus Team stated that an unfair placement of the burden for IITP on a small number of LECs "has complicated and delayed the scheduling and execution of tests." This is of serious concern. The IITP was proposed as a response to concerns that interconnected signalling networks using different equipment and rapidly evolving software may be more vulnerable to telephone service outages due to unexpected interactions. The IITP provides the ability to test different networks using different equipment, lowering the risk of unintended interactions. In addition to prophylactic applications, the IITP can be used after an event to diagnose an incident. For example, the IITP was used to diagnose a service outage caused by switches of different manufacture interpreting a remote make-busy feature in different ways. The feature that caused the outage has been modified to resolve the immediate problem, but the incident illustrates the point that unintended, service disabling events are possible in an environment in which multiple service and equipment providers are attempting to meet a broad range of customer service requirements. The IITP provides a way to minimize these risks. 77. We agree with Pacific and AT&T that the funding problem should be resolved within the industry. The NRC is the best mechanism for resolving any IITP funding problem that may exist, either by means of specific recommendations to the industry or, if such a solution is not possible, by means of a recommendation to the FCC. We refer this question to the NRC. 78. Confidentiality - Background and Comments: In the Notice, the Commission indicated that it would continue to follow the procedures set forth in Section 0.459 of the Rules, 47 C.F.R.  0.459, in deciding requests for confidentiality for material in outage reports and that it does not anticipate, as a general matter, that carriers will be able to demonstrate a basis for keeping outage reports confidential. NYNEX asks the Commission to clarify that no presumption against a legitimate request will exist. TCG agrees with NYNEX, stating that public disclosure of certain kinds of network information could prove harmful to competition and would inhibit carriers from providing detailed information. Sprint states that as long as the Commission's procedures for confidentiality in Section 0.459 of the Rules are available, outage reports can be given public treatment. 79. Confidentiality - Discussion: We did not intend in the Notice to modify our interpretation of or to provide for a unique application of our confidentiality rules in cases where carriers request confidentiality for outage reports. We have had very few such requests and see no reason that such requests should become more common under the amendments established in the present order. We will continue to apply Section 0.459 as we have in the past. 80. CAP Reporting - Background, Comments and Discussion: All who offered comments on the issue approved our decision, in the reconsideration portion of the Notice, to include CAPs in the reporting requirement. USTA, however, requests that the text of our proposed rules clearly reflect the Commission's decision to require CAPs to report outages. There was no opposition in the reply comments to this request. In the interests of making our rules clear, we will add the phrase "or competitive access provider" to the text of the rules to show clearly that such carriers are included in the reporting requirements. As an additional editorial change to clarify reporting requirements, we will specifically state that an outage includes not only a failure of the carrier's network, but also a degradation in the performance of the network where a customer's ability to establish or maintain a channel of communications is compromised. 81. Lessee Reporting - Background and Comments: The proposed rules would require common carrier lessees, as well as owners and operators, of facilities in which an outage occurs to report outages. AT&T states that lessees should not be required to report outages because the owner or operator of affected facilities is in the best position to determine root cause, analyze best practices and mitigate outages. AT&T argues that lessee reporting would cause confusion, leaving some outages unreported and causing duplicate reporting of others. AT&T states that the lessee must already notify the owner or operator of facilities affected by an outage and provide assistance in completing reports. 82. Lessee Reporting - Discussion: We agree that some duplication of reports will occur as a result of our inclusion of lessees in the reporting requirement. We see no reason, however, to conclude that other outages would go unreported. Under the present rules, which do not mention lessees, some outages have been reported late and some may have gone unreported by reason of differing understandings between facilities owners and lessees as to the application of the requirement. Occasional duplicate outage reports from different carriers involved in the same outage does not seem to be a burden. Therefore, we will include lessees in our reporting requirement. 83. Reporting to Affected Parties - Background, Comments and Discussion: The Notice proposed to require the submission of outage reports only to the FCC. NYC, however, suggests that "regulators and other interested parties must be apprised immediately of major service disruptions" because, for some businesses, even short disruptions can be severely damaging. Requiring carriers to report outages to affected parties such as businesses could produce insurmountable difficulties in many cases. State regulators, of course, who wish to be apprised of outages within their jurisdictions may establish such requirements themselves. We refer to the Council the issue of whether there are any affected parties other than 911 PSAP officials who may need to be separately notified of outage conditions, and, if so, how that notice should be made. IV. CONCLUSION 84. Consistent with the Commission's objective to encourage the development of a competitive, innovative and excellent American communications system and in response to the recommendations submitted by the Network Reliability Council to the Commission, we are today amending Section 63.100 of our Rules to require reporting of: 1) outages potentially affecting 30,000 or more customers and lasting 30 or more minutes; 2) outages lasting 30 or more minutes and affecting certain special facilities regardless of the number of customers affected; and 3) fire-related incidents affecting 1000 or more lines and continuing for 30 or more minutes. We are requiring carriers to include in their outage reports an analysis of the root cause of the incident and evaluate the effectiveness and application of best practices identified by the Council. We also amend the time in which outages affecting 50,000 or more customers are initially reported to the Commission. In addition, we are requiring carriers to notify the management of any 911 facilities affected by a reportable outage. We are amending certain language of Section 63.100 to make clear that competitive access providers are to report outages, as provided in the Memorandum Opinion and Order and Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, released December 1, 1993 in this Docket. The information we receive will facilitate our monitoring of the quality of service being provided and enable us to take swift remedial action as required. Finally, we are asking the Network Reliability Council to collect and analyze data and report to the Commission on: 1) whether special facilities outage reporting should be expanded to include satellite, cellular, and other wireless carriers; 2) whether and how a funding structure for the Internetwork Interoperability Test Plan should be designed and; 3) whether and how customers of carriers should be informed of service outages. V. ORDERING CLAUSES 85. Accordingly, pursuant to Sections 1, 4(i), and 201 of the Communications Act of 1934, as amended, 47 U.S.C.  151, 154 and 201, Section 63.100 of the Commission's Rules, 47 C.F.R.  63.100, IS AMENDED as set forth in the Appendix hereof, effective 30 days after publication in the Federal Register. 86. It is Further Ordered, that, the Secretary shall cause a summary of this Order to be published in the Federal Register which shall include a statement describing how members of the public may obtain the complete text of this Commission decision. The Secretary shall also provide a copy of this Order to each state utility commission. FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION William F. Caton Acting Secretary APPENDIX Part 63 of the Commission's Rules and Regulations (chapter 1 of title 47 of the Code of Federal regulations, Part 63) is amended as follows: 1. The authority citation for part 63 remains as follows: AUTHORITY: Sections 1, 4(i), 4(j), 201-205, 218 and 403 of the Communications Act of 1934, as amended, 47 U.S.C. Secs. 151, 154(i), 154(j), 201-205, 218, and 403, unless otherwise noted. 2. 63.100 is amended by deleting the present 63.100 in its entirety and substituting the following: * * * * *  63.100 NOTIFICATION OF SERVICE OUTAGE (a) As used in this section: (1) "outage" is defined as a significant degradation in the ability of a customer to establish and maintain a channel of communications as a result of failure or degradation in the performance of a carrier's network. (2) "customer" is defined as a user purchasing telecommunications service from a common carrier. (3) "special offices and facilities" are defined as major airports, major military installations, key government facilities, nuclear power plants and 911 public service answering points (PSAPs). (4) An outage which "potentially affects" a 911 "special facility" is defined as an outage which disrupts more than 25% of the lines to any PSAP without providing automatic rerouting to an alternative PSAP. (5) "major airports" are defined as those airports described by the Federal Aviation Administration as large or medium hubs. The member agencies of the National Communications System (NCS) will determine which of their locations are "major military installations" and "key government facilities." (6) An outage which "potentially affects" a major airport is defined as an outage that disrupts 50% or more of the air traffic control links or other FAA communications links to any major airport, any outage that has caused an ARTCC or major airport to lose its radar, any ARTCC or major airport outage that is likely to be of media interest, any outage that causes a loss of both primary and backup facilities at any ARTCC or major airport, and any outage to an ARTCC or major airport that is deemed important by the FAA as indicated by FAA inquiry to the carrier management personnel. (7) 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. (b) Any local exchange or interexchange common carrier or competitive access provider that operates transmission or switching facilities and provides access service or interstate or international telecommunications service, that experiences an outage which potentially affects 50,000 or more of its customers on any facilities which it owns, operates or leases, must notify the Commission if such outage continues for 30 or more minutes. Satellite carriers and cellular carriers are exempt from this reporting requirement. Notification must be served on the Commission's Monitoring Watch Officer, on duty 24 hours a day in the FCC headquarters building in Washington, D.C., or on a secondary basis it may be served on the Commission's Watch Officer on duty at the FCC's facility at Grand Island, Nebraska. The notification must be by facsimile or other record means delivered within 120 minutes of the carrier's first knowledge that the service outage potentially affects 50,000 or more customers, if the outage continues for 30 or more minutes. Notification shall identify a contact person who can provide further information, the telephone number at which the contact person can be reached, and what information is known at the time about the service outage including: the date and estimated time (local time at the location of the outage) of commencement of the outage; the geographic area affected; the estimated number of customers affected; the types of services affected (e.g. interexchange, local, cellular); the duration of the outage, i.e. time elapsed from the estimated commencement of the outage until restoration of full service; the estimated number of blocked calls during the outage; the apparent or known cause of the incident, including the name and type of equipment involved and the specific part of the network affected; methods used to restore service; and the steps taken to prevent recurrences of the outage. Carriers must indicate, when specifying the types of services affected by any reportable outage, when 911 is one of those services, whether more than 25% of the lines to any PSAP were disrupted and there was no automatic rerouting to an alternate PSAP. The report shall be captioned Initial Service Disruption Report. Lack of any of the above information shall not delay the filing of this report. Not later than thirty days after the outage, the carrier shall file with the Chief, Common Carrier Bureau, a Final Service Disruption Report providing all available information on the service outage, including any information not contained in its Initial Service Disruption Report and detailing specifically the root cause of the outage and listing and evaluating the effectiveness and application in the immediate case of any best practices or industry standards identified by the Network Reliability Council to eliminate or ameliorate outages of the reported type. (c) Any local exchange or interexchange common carrier or competitive access provider that operates transmission or switching facilities and provides access service or interstate or international telecommunications service, that experiences an outage which potentially affects at least 30,000 and less than 50,000 of its customers on any facilities which it owns, operates or leases, must notify the Commission if such outage continues for 30 or more minutes. Satellite carriers and cellular carriers are exempt from this reporting requirement. Notification must be served on the Commission's Monitoring Watch Officer, on duty 24 hours a day in the FCC headquarters building in Washington, D.C., or on a secondary basis it may be served on the Commission's Watch Officer on duty at the FCC's facility at Grand Island, Nebraska. The notification must be by facsimile or other record means delivered within 3 days of the carrier's first knowledge that the service outage potentially affects at least 30,000 but less than 50,000 customers, if the outage continues for 30 or more minutes. Notification shall identify the carrier and a contact person who can provide further information, the telephone number at which the contact person can be reached, and what information is known at the time about the service outage including: the date and estimated time (local time at the location of the outage) of commencement of the outage; the geographic area affected; the estimated number of customers affected; the types of services affected (e.g. interexchange, local, cellular); the duration of the outage, i.e. time elapsed from the estimated commencement of the outage until restoration of full service; the estimated number of blocked calls during the outage; the apparent or known cause of the incident, including the name and type of equipment involved and the specific part of the network affected; methods used to restore service; and the steps taken to prevent recurrences of the outage. Carriers must indicate, when specifying the types of services affected by any reportable outage, when 911 is one of those services whether more than 25% of the lines to any PSAP were disrupted and there was no automatic rerouting to an alternate PSAP. The report shall be captioned Initial Service Disruption Report. Lack of any of the above information shall not delay the filing of this report. Not later than thirty days after the outage, the carrier shall file with the Chief, Common Carrier Bureau, a Final Service Disruption Report providing all available information on the service outage, including any information not contained in its Initial Service Disruption Report and detailing specifically the root cause of the outage and listing and evaluating the effectiveness and application in the immediate case of any best practices or industry standards identified by the Network Reliability Council to eliminate or ameliorate outages of the reported type. (d) Any local exchange or interexchange carrier or competitive access provider that operates transmission or switching facilities and provides access service or interstate or international telecommunications service that experiences a fire-related incident in any facilities which it owns, operates or leases that impacts 1000 or more service lines must notify the Commission if the incident continues for a period of 30 minutes or longer. Satellite carriers and cellular carriers are exempt from this reporting requirement. Notification must be served on the Commission's Monitoring Watch Officer, on duty 24 hours a day in the FCC headquarters building in Washington, D.C., or on a secondary basis it may be served on the Commission's Watch Officer on duty at the FCC's facility at Grand Island, Nebraska. The notification must be by facsimile or other recorded means delivered within 3 days of the carrier's first knowledge that the incident is fire-related, impacting 1000 or more lines for thirty or more minutes. Notification shall identify the carrier and a contact person who can provide further information, the telephone number at which the contact person can be reached, and what information is known at the time about the service outage including: the date and estimated time (local time at the location of the outage) of commencement of the outage; the geographic area affected; the estimated number of customers affected; the types of services affected (e.g. interexchange, local, cellular); the duration of the outage, i.e. time elapsed from the estimated commencement of the outage until restoration of full service; the estimated number of blocked calls during the outage; the apparent or known cause of the incident, including the name and type of equipment involved and the specific part of the network affected; methods used to restore service; and the steps taken to prevent recurrences of the outage. Carriers must indicate, when specifying the types of services affected by any reportable outage, when 911 is one of those services whether more than 25% of the lines to any PSAP were disrupted and there was no automatic rerouting to an alternate PSAP. The report shall be captioned Initial Service Disruption Report. Lack of any of the above information shall not delay the filing of this report. Not later than thirty days after the incident, the carrier shall file with the Chief, Common Carrier Bureau, a Final Report providing all available information on the incident, including any information not contained in its Initial Report and detailing specifically the root cause of the incident and listing and evaluating the effectiveness and application in the immediate case of any best practices or industry standards identified by the Network Reliability Council to eliminate or ameliorate incidents of the reported type. (e) Any local exchange or interexchange common carrier or competitive access provider that operates transmission or switching facilities and provides access service or interstate or international telecommunications service, that experiences an outage on any facilities which it owns, operates or leases which potentially affects special offices and facilities must notify the Commission if such outage continues for 30 or more minutes regardless of the number of customers affected. Satellite carriers and cellular carriers are exempt from this reporting requirement. Notification must be served on the Commission's Monitoring Watch Officer, on duty 24 hours a day in the FCC headquarters building in Washington, D.C., or on a secondary basis it may be served on the Commission's Watch Officer on duty at the FCC's facility at Grand Island, Nebraska. The notification must be by facsimile or other record means delivered within 120 minutes of the carrier's first knowledge that the service outage potentially affects a special facility, if the outage continues for 30 or more minutes. Notification shall identify a contact person who can provide further information, the telephone number at which the contact person can be reached, and what information is known at the time about the service outage including: the date and estimated time (local time at the location of the outage) of commencement of the outage; the geographic area affected; the estimated number of customers affected; the types of services affected (e.g. 911 emergency services, major airports); the duration of the outage, i.e. time elapsed from the estimated commencement of the outage until restoration of full service; the estimated number of blocked calls during the outage; the apparent or known cause of the incident, including the name and type of equipment involved and the specific part of the network affected; methods used to restore service; and the steps taken to prevent recurrences of the outage. Carriers must indicate, when specifying the types of services affected by any reportable outage, when 911 is one of those services whether more than 25% of the lines to any PSAP were disrupted and there was no automatic rerouting to an alternate PSAP. The report shall be captioned Initial Service Disruption Report. Lack of any of the above information shall not delay the filing of this report. Not later than thirty days after the outage, the carrier shall file with the Chief, Common Carrier Bureau, a Final Service Disruption Report providing all available information on the service outage, including any information not contained in its Initial Service Disruption Report and detailing specifically the root cause of the outage and listing and evaluating the effectiveness and application in the immediate case of any best practices or industry standards identified by the Network Reliability Council to eliminate or ameliorate outages of the reported type. Under this rule, carriers are not required to report outages affecting nuclear power plants, major military installations and key government facilities to the Commission. Reports at these facilities will be made according to the following procedures: (1) When there is a mission-affecting outage, the affected facility will report the outage to the National Communications System (NCS) and call the service 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 FCC. If it is expected to last 30 minutes or does last 30 minutes, the NCS, on the advice of the affected special facility, will either: (A) 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; (B) 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 (C) hold the report at the NCS due to the critical nature of the application. (2) If there is to be a report to the Commission, a written or oral report will be given by the NCS within 120 minutes of an outage to the Commission's Monitoring Watch Officer, on duty 24 hours a day in the FCC headquarters building in Washington, D.C., or on a secondary basis it may be served on the Commission's Watch Officer on duty at the FCC's facility at Grand Island, Nebraska. If the report is oral, it is to be followed by a written report the next business day. Those carriers whose service failures are in any way responsible for the outage must consult with NCS upon its request for information. (3) If there is to be a report to the Commission, the service 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 service 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 above, 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 (e)(1)(A) or (e)(1)(B) of this section to the Commission. (f) If an outage is determined to have affected a 911 facility so as to be reportable as a special facilities outage, the carrier whose duty it is to report the outage to the FCC shall as soon as possible by telephone or other electronic means notify any official who has been designated by the management of the affected 911 facility as the official to be contacted by the carrier in case of a telecommunications outage at that facility. The carrier shall convey all available information to the designated official that will be useful to the management of the affected facility in mitigating the affects of the outage on callers to that facility. (g) In the case of LEC end offices, carriers will use the number of lines terminating at the office for determining whether the criteria for reporting an outage has been reached. In the case of IXC or LEC tandem facilities, 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 150,000 calls are blocked during a period of 30 or more minutes for purposes of complying with the required 50,000 potentially affected customers threshold and must report such 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, carriers must report incidents where more than 50,000 calls are blocked during a period of 30 or more minutes for purposes of complying with the required 50,000 potentially affected customers threshold and 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.