States Seek to Renew 11-Year Push for NORS Access at NARUC

The FCC should end more than a decade of indecision about giving states access to the network outage reporting system (NORS), said current and former state commissioners in interviews last week. NARUC will vote at its annual meeting Thursday-Friday and Nov. 9-11 on proposed resolutions asking the FCC to grant a 2009 California Public Utilities Commission petition to share NORS information and urging state legislatures to authorize commissions to reduce intrastate inmate calling service (ICS) rates to cost-based prices. NARUC will consider the resolutions just days after a presidential election that might change control of the FCC in 2021.

The NORS proposal echoes a 2015 NARUC resolution that similarly asked the FCC to approve the CPUC’s 2009 request to share information. The FCC pointed us to the agency’s Feb. 28 NPRM, approved 3-2, that proposed sharing communications outage information with other federal and state agencies (see 2002280069). Industry groups including USTelecom, CTIA and the Alliance for Telecommunications Industry Solutions raised confidentiality concerns in April filings (see 2005010029).

“Electric outages in Puerto Rico are almost a weekly occurrence,” at times affecting 911 and other critical facilities, even though the territory isn’t currently in a disaster, said Puerto Rico Public Service Regulatory Board Associate Member Alexandra Fernandez-Navarro in an interview. Shared NORS information would inform the territory regulator in its role as facilitator between providers and customers during outages, said the NARUC Telecom Committee member, who also supports sharing disaster information reporting system data with states.

Between hurricanes Irma and Maria, Fernandez-Navarro spoke to the FCC about sharing outage information and was surprised to learn it didn’t provide that to any state. After Maria, the Puerto Rico board had to make its own order to get information from companies about restoration, but providers complained it was onerous to create two different reports daily, she said. Fernandez-Navarro sympathizes: “When you’re in the middle of an emergency, you don’t have a lot of personnel assigned to reporting.” She also understands competitive confidentiality concerns but said states could sign nondisclosure agreements with the FCC. Territory law requires the board to protect confidential information, and the board would divulge only aggregated information without naming individual companies, she said.

Sharing outage information with states “wasn’t a pressing issue until recent times, when we have had so many climatic and different kinds of emergencies,” with many taking place in nontypical parts of the country, said Fernandez-Navarro. It’s even more critical in the COVID-19 pandemic, she said. “You have to have measures in place to ensure that service is restored properly, even in regular times.”

“Making sure people are able to communicate really can be a matter of life and death,” said Santa Clara University law professor Catherine Sandoval. Software-driven outages are increasing, said the former CPUC commissioner. “We need to understand why failures are happening and to be transparent ... with regulators, including states, and then figure out what needs to happen in order to prevent them.” States bring more local knowledge to outage investigations, and PUCs work closely with state emergency offices, she said. The FCC sometimes treats an issue as “small or minor because they don’t see a big national impact, but it has a huge local impact,” she said.

Sandoval supported NARUC’s similar 2015 resolution when she was with the CPUC. NARUC will probably adopt the fresh resolution, but “the question is will the federal government be receptive to it?” she said. It might hinge on former Vice President Joe Biden defeating President Donald Trump in the election. “I would imagine that a Biden administration would be more receptive,” though sharing with states shouldn’t be political, and Sandoval doesn’t understand why the Trump administration hasn’t been more receptive, she said. Industry often pushes for the FCC to “decide everything,” excluding states to “minimize regulation and minimize access to information that would foster regulation,” noted Sandoval. Providers aren’t “entitled to confidentiality from state regulators,” which have primary jurisdiction over the health and welfare of their people, she said. Companies “have licenses to operate in states, and they are providing service to states.”

The draft resolution would include proper confidentiality precautions, said Telecom Committee member Chris Nelson of the South Dakota PUC. “It takes an existing taxpayer resource and allows state governments to utilize it to do what we’re supposed to do.” South Dakota faces fewer natural disasters than some other states, but that could change, Nelson said. Iowa “had an unexpected derecho come in and take out large swaths of infrastructure” in August. Why it has taken more than 10 years to address the CPUC petition is “a great question for the FCC,” he said.

"While transparency among stakeholders is an important consideration for network outage reporting, it must be carefully balanced against security concerns," a USTelecom spokesperson emailed Friday. "The resolution appropriately highlights these security concerns, and we look forward to continued conversations around how to best ensure the protection of this sensitive information.”

Prison Rates

The ICS draft resolution would follow up on the FCC and NARUC urging governors last month to act on ICS intrastate rates (see 2009220051). “We welcome NARUC’s continued support for our efforts to implore states to do their part to curb the too-often exorbitant rates and fees charged for inmates to make intrastate phone calls,” an FCC spokesperson said Friday.

Fernandez-Navarro supported reducing ICS rates, which she said are “outrageous” in Puerto Rico. People in jail don’t need “an additional punishment," she said. “We have jurisdiction” to address intrastate ICS rates, but the territory must wait for someone to file a complaint, she said.

Nelson is keeping an “open mind” but wants to better understand implications of the prison rate resolution, he said. Sheriffs who run county jails tell the South Dakota commissioner “they use a lot of that revenue for purchasing things for the prisoners to utilize while they are in the county jail,” he said.

NARUC’s broadband task force will meet Thursday. Nelson, its chair, said its five subgroups will report on their research and may have some initial recommendations. He hopes to set a “firm timeline” for writing a final document, including recommendations for NARUC resolutions, he said.