Telecom carriers generally panned a petition by pulver.com and Ev...
Telecom carriers generally panned a petition by pulver.com and Evslin Consulting asking the FCC to require carriers to set up alternative communications services after natural disasters. The proposal suggested the FCC either activate a voice mail service for each…
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customer or port phone numbers to service providers outside the impacted area or rate center. In April 27 comments to the FCC, Sprint Nextel said granting the petition would impose “costly obligations on carriers” in a move that “appears to be premised on the notion that the Commission is unable to act quickly in a disaster” to help carriers restore communications. FCC action in Katrina’s wake proved it can act quickly to help restore communications, Sprint Nextel said. Verizon said the petition should be rejected because it “would require substantial network and systems upgrades with little or no benefit to customers affected by a disaster.” Verizon said “natural disasters and other crises require relief from regulatory requirements, not the imposition of new ones.” It would be better if the FCC granted petitions filed by Verizon and other carriers for “special temporary authority and related waivers to allow for comprehensive disaster and response planning.” AT&T said it “strongly supports” regulatory steps by the FCC to promote disaster recovery but decried the pulver-Evslin petition as “locking carriers into an emergency response plan that does not take account of the particular facts giving rise to a service outage.” BellSouth said the proposed rules could “undermine the essential ingredient of disaster planning and response -- flexibility.” After a disaster, communications providers “must be able to adapt quickly to changing circumstances,” BellSouth said. The National Telecom Co-op Assn. urged the FCC to decline to open a rulemaking on the petition “because the Commission already has enough regulatory authority and has exercised that authority sufficient to address long-term telephone outages.” The VON Coalition, which backs the petition, said the proposals “could provide a technically feasible and reasonable means of ensuring that American citizens remain connected during emergencies.” The coalition said IP technology could be particularly useful in providing solutions advocated by pulver and Evslin.