FCC Mulls Closer Look at 911 Reliability With Latest NORS Plan

The FCC is seeking to better assess emergency communications reliability by adding data fields to the network outage reporting and 911 reliability certification systems, the Public Safety Bureau said. On an FCBA CLE webinar, also Monday, T-Mobile officials raised some related cautions. North Carolina, meanwhile, hasn’t faced major challenges with emergency-call delivery amid the coronavirus but can't “let our guard down,” the state’s 911 Board Executive Director Pokey Harris said in a Thursday interview.

New data fields in NORS would help the FCC identify 911 special facilities including public safety answering points (PSAPs) facing outages, determine if “alternative measures to circuit diversity are effective in maintaining network reliability,” track year-to-year improvements in 911 reliability, and ensure compliance with existing reliability requirements, the bureau said. The National Emergency Number Association “welcomes efforts to improve our understanding of network outages and to take action to improve reliability and resiliency,” said NENA Director-Government Affairs Dan Henry. The group plans to submit comments, he said.

Comments are due Thursday on the FCC sharing NORS and disaster information reporting system read-only outage reports with state and federal agencies and with other public safety officials (see 2003310018). Recent hurricanes, floods, earthquakes and California power shutoffs showed “that while the commission has taken steps to improve network reliability, the state and local entities that play a really critical role in restoring disrupted communications really face an information gap,” said Public Safety Bureau attorney-adviser Brenda Villanueva on the FCBA webinar. The proposal would preserve data confidentiality, she said.

T-Mobile supports access, but "confidentiality is very important," said Principal Federal Regulatory Affairs Manager Eric Hagerson. An agency that receives a third-party data request should inform the FCC within 14 days, and carriers should be able to comment or object, he said. T-Mobile worries how far downstream a participating agency will share information, said Hagerson. “As that string becomes longer and longer ... the ability to ensure that the information is kept confidential becomes more and more difficult.” States should tell the FCC about any change in law or regulation that might affect their ability to maintain confidentiality, he said.

The carrier has concerns about making data public even on an aggregated and anonymized basis, Hagerson said. “What you could end up with is participating agencies, or downstream agencies more likely, misinterpreting the information. Or you could have two agencies trying to make the same information public, but they have different methods for anonymizing and aggregating and you actually end up with two different reports.” It’s harder to anonymize and aggregate a NORS report because each one is about a single carrier, he said.

COVID-19 can be a valid reason to seek more time to respond to FCC letters of inquiry about 911 outages, but be specific why, Comtech Senior Director-Legal and Regulatory Affairs Susan Ornstein advised. That certain staff, for example, is overwhelmed or prioritizing keeping up network reliability during the crisis, she said. The FCC has shown willingness to give extensions for COVID-19, “but you’ve got to provide a good reason,” agreed Kelley Drye attorney Brad Currier.

North Carolina

A top concern with the coronavirus for 911 is “how quickly one person being exposed can multiply to many” in the PSAP, said Harris, noting COVID-19 cases are rising in North Carolina. “I don't want us to become complacent.” With hurricane season coming, “we don't want folks to be so focused on COVID-19 that we don't prepare for the impact of inclement weather,” she added.

The state office was in daily contact with 911 centers in the first 10 days after the Emergency Operations Center activated, then reduced that to three days a week, Harris said. North Carolina was bracing for the pandemic reducing the centers' workforce up to 30%, but the worst it's been so far is about 1%, and it's now under 0.5%, she said.

The biggest challenge is sufficient cleaning supplies, with some bringing in homemade cleaning solutions to fill the gap, Harris said. To maintain social distancing, some 911 centers considered longer or staggered shifts and rotations, even providing food and a bed if needed, she said.

Overall call volume decreased across the state with stay-at-home orders, though calls about domestic violence and disturbances increased, Harris said. That's consistent with elsewhere. “People are concerned about calling for health reasons,” preferring to treat at home, Harris said. “They're not calling to get an ambulance.” Harris predicted call volume will return to normal levels when stay-at-home orders are lifted.

Editor's note: This is Part III in an occasional series about how the novel coronavirus is affecting 911. Part II focused on emergency calls in virus hot spots: 2004130032. Part I was on keeping call takers safe: 2003180033.