Genachowski Aide Cancels Broadband Outage Meeting with Industry
FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski’s staff cancelled a meeting with industry that was supposed to have been convened to discuss the pending broadband outage reporting order (CD Nov 7 p2), commission and telecom officials told us Monday. Nearly 30 executives from industry -- including executives from USTelecom, CTIA, NCTA and the VON Coalition -- were to have sat down with Genachowski’s special assistant, Josh Gottheimer, Tuesday to lay out their concerns about the order. It was canceled because of a “scheduling conflict,” Gottheimer said in an email Monday.
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Industry officials are still scheduled to meet with Public Safety Bureau staff on Thursday, telecom officials told us. Industry is worried that the FCC is using the broadband outage reporting proceeding as an opportunity to expand its authority in growing cyber-security regulation, the officials said.
On the other side of the issue are some state groups that believe the outage requirements should be extended to ISPs and VoIP services providers, Steve Traylor, National Association of Telecommunications Officers and Advisors executive director, told us. Outage reporting must be mandatory, said state groups like NATOA, the National League of Cities, and the National Association of Counties, in a recent joint letter to the FCC. Corrective action and long-term planning can’t be implemented without accurate outage reporting, the letter said.
The New York Public Service Commission proposed that the FCC consider modifications to the definitions of the significant outages subject to reporting requirements, according to a recent filing. The FCC should consider the need for state and local authorities to directly access outage information without the intermediary involvement of the Department of Homeland Security, Traylor said. State and local entities are often the first line of defense for public safety and emergency situations, and delay in acquiring outage data can have serious consequences, said the Massachusetts Department of Homeland Security. But the information collected should be classified as presumptively confidential, NYPSC said.
The NYPSC outage reporting requirement doesn’t apply to the cable TV companies providing interconnected VoIP in the state, but the companies voluntarily provide notification of network outages. States like Florida also don’t regulate VoIP services. The Florida Public Service Commission doesn’t have a position on the extended outage reporting requirement, a spokeswoman said.