California Commissioners Mull Backup Power and More Disaster Rules for Communications

The California Public Utilities Commission will weigh more disaster relief rules for communications providers in response to problems during recent public safety power shutoffs (PSPS), CPUC President Marybel Batjer said at a Wednesday hearing livestreamed from San Francisco. Many local officials and telco customers couldn’t attend the hearing due to another power shutoff Wednesday, the sixth in two months, she said. Commissioner Cliff Rechtschaffen dismissed carriers’ arguments they couldn’t anticipate extended power shutoffs.

“Failures in the communications infrastructure network occurred at a significant scale,” said Batjer, citing FCC disaster information reporting system (DIRS) data. Outages are "not a mere inconvenience -- it's endangering our lives.” The problems were unexpected considering previous assurances providers gave CPUC, state legislators and the FCC, she said. The CPUC hasn’t received adequate data responses from the companies, she said.

“We really must do better,” so the CPUC is launching a second phase of its disaster relief proceeding to “adopt rules to further address communications network outages during emergency events to keep the network functioning,” Batjer said. Phase two will cover “developing measures for resilient and dependable communications networks to further address communications outages during emergency events” and “to enable a system that promotes transparent communication between industry and first responders across the government and the public in a timely manner during disastrous events,” said Administrative Law Judge Colin Rizzo.

It’s “no longer a viable excuse” for some carriers to say they couldn’t expect the length and scale of outages, said Rechtschaffen. “We now know the shutoffs can extend over great distances and many counties, and we have to be prepared for that." Logistical and environmental permitting barriers “are eminently solvable with the right level of focus,” he said.

Local governments report a “severe lack of coordination” on preparedness and response, said Commissioner Martha Guzman Aceves. Carriers must be aware of both their own infrastructure and critical infrastructure of the counties they serve, she said. A wastewater system in Lake County nearly faced catastrophe due to its reliance on AT&T’s network, she noted.

"The importance of this proceeding cannot be overstated,” said Commissioner Genevieve Shiroma. She said she experienced a wildfire firsthand, and communications were “essential to know what roadways were open and safe to get back to our house.”

Reporting Woes

State public safety officials at the hearing demanded more from communications providers. Providers need more backup power and redundancy to avoid outages; until then, local agencies need better information about disrupted networks, said California Office of Emergency Services (Cal OES) 9-1-1 Program Management Division Chief Paul Troxel. Current outage reporting systems "have many gaps,” with Cal OES lacking a reliable way to report detailed information to local agencies, he said.

Data received by Cal OES from DIRS and the California Utilities Emergency Association (CUEA) is "inconsistent and at times the number of outages varied significantly,” Troxel said. At one point, DIRS said nearly 224,000 wireline customers were out of service, while CUEA's report showed about 57,000. DIRS showed 133 cellsites out one day in a county, while CUEA reported nine, he said. "DIRS does not provide everything needed to support response operations," he said. He said it's voluntary, the FCC considers confidential detailed reports by carriers, reported data is 12-24 hours old by the time it's public, and aggregated data isn't specific enough for the local level.

The communications industry “must be prepared to maintain service before, during and after an emergency," said California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (Cal Fire) Assistant Chief Mike Wilson, adding it’s “a matter of life and death." Californians rely on phone and internet communications for emergency alerts, to contact friends and families, and to reach public safety for help, he said.

Industry pledged improvements while defending their response efforts and noting challenges. Verizon will provide more-detailed outage information going forward, said Rudy Reyes, Verizon associate general counsel-Western region. T-Mobile and AT&T officials committed to the same, though they said stating the number of sites out may not reflect what customers are experiencing.

Other providers didn’t commit the same, though Shiroma and other commissioners indicated they want such pledges. Comcast “responded as well as we could in a unique situation,” said John Gauder, senior vice president-California region. Expedited data requests are "resource intensive" when Frontier Communications is focused on emergency response, said Senior Vice President-Regulatory Affairs Allison Ellis.

The commission should require backup power standards including at least 72 hours of onsite power for wireless facilities, said CPUC Public Advocates Office Director Elizabeth Echols. Wireless carriers didn’t support a requirement, though Verizon and AT&T officials supported technical workshops to develop standards.

Industry Responds

Communications companies pointed at power companies while defending their own preparations in Monday letters emailed to the service list in docket R.18-03-011 responding to Batjer’s Nov. 13 letter criticizing telecom response (see 1911130061).

T-Mobile "made every effort to respond robustly to the recent PSPS events," but their "scale, scope and length seemed to exceed the reasonable expectations of most,” wrote T-Mobile Senior Vice President-Field Engineering Technology David Gallacher. They showed “the need for adequate, timely and precise notice of what circuits will be shut down and when those shutdowns will occur so that we can effectively deploy our resources to maintain the integrity of the network,” he said.

Charter Communications depends “on commercial power and is unable to provide a redundant and long-term power source if PG&E … or other utilities de-energize their systems for public safety purposes for an extended period of time,” said Senior Vice President-Operations Debi Picciolo. Some notices from power providers “were lacking and insufficient in details,” she added.

Comcast’s network “fundamentally relies on commercial power to operate,” said Gauder. “Although we have deployed battery backup at thousands of key points in our network in California, the batteries are only capable of sustaining operations for a matter of hours -- not days. For longer electrical outages, Comcast relies on generators for backup power, but only where we can be sure that it is safe to do so, prioritizing those network locations that support critical communications infrastructure (e.g., wireless backhaul), first responders, and vital community resources.” Generators “themselves may pose a serious fire risk and can ignite a wildfire,” he noted.

Widespread and lengthy power outages make it hard to keep the entire network running, wrote Cox Communications Region Manager Sam Attish.

FCC, CPUC Roles

Even before the FCC publicly reported communications outage details during a later PSPS round, the agency got word of some outages. During that earlier period before the regulator’s disaster reporting system was activated, a few cellsites total in a few California counties weren’t working on Sept. 18 and 24 and Oct. 9-11. Between 194 and 533 cellsites weren't in service Oct. 9-11 in 30 northern California counties.

Numbers depended on the day and ranged as high as 4.9 percent of cellsites in the area not online Oct. 10. On that day, almost 196,500 wireline and cable subscribers lacked service, according to Public Safety Bureau figures.

Our Freedom of Information Act requests, for FCC data during the entire wildfire season in the state as well as for consumer and other complaints, are pending. We also filed to the CPUC a California Public Records Act request Nov. 8, seeking records of all complaints about communications outages related to the recent wildfires and power shutoffs. The CPUC wrote us Monday to say it needs two more weeks to determine if it can respond.

One retired California consumer who suffered an AT&T outage emailed us that he’s concerned that “without a 'landline' there is NO emergency service for anything; medical, police, fire.” Charles Pratto, 81 and living in Pinole, California, said he and his wife, Mary, also 81, suffered AT&T outages from Oct. 9 at 10 p.m. to Oct. 10 at 3 p.m., and another Oct. 26 at 8 p.m. to Oct. 28 at about noon. AT&T contacted Pratto after he complained to the CPUC Nov. 1, he said. “I was told by AT&T Engineering that there is NO Landline Service with AT&T U-Verse” due to the general power outage, he said. “It became obvious after these conversations AT&T was not going to do anything until” the CPUC, FCC or legislators required telephone service to work in an emergency, he said.

Also this week, at the NARUC conference, Anterix executives argued that electric utility smart grids can quickly react to wildfire threats in California and elsewhere by turning off power lines to avert sparking a fire in windy and other conditions. The company wants utilities to use its 900 MHz spectrum in private LTE networks that power companies would run. “Principally, the intended use in the utility industry will be for fixed wireless,” said CEO Morgan O’Brien in an interview in San Antonio. “We have several dozen in the pipeline” with utilities, he said of potential deals for deployment.

The company’s executives are optimistic the FCC will OK its request to use its airwaves licenses for such purposes. “We’ve seen great support” at the agency “as part of the 5G initiative,” said President Rob Schwartz. “We are the low-band element of that” Facilitate America's Superiority in 5G Technology from Chairman Ajit Pai, the executive added. The agency declined comment.

The FCC and CPUC share blame for wireless communications outages during the Kincade Fire, The (San Jose) Mercury News and East Bay Times editorial boards wrote Nov. 8. “Wireless carriers say they have backup power at hundreds of their sites and for fleets of mobile sites they can deploy, but that it can be difficult to service backup batteries and generators or deploy mobile sites during wildfires,” and “the competitive marketplace should drive the issue, not government regulation,” the editorial said. “Hogwash. That’s only led to the outages residents faced during the Kincade Fire. And future wildfires or earthquakes are inevitable.”

Editor's note: This is Part IV of an occasional series about the California wildfire power and communications outages. Part III revealed pressure on the FCC to mandate backup power for cellsites (see 1911060057). Part II examined how municipalities are affected (see 1910300013). Part I looked at battery backup and a federal court case (see 1910110008).