States, Local 911 Stakeholders Urge FCC to Maintain State Autonomy

The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) said it agrees that some new FCC rules may be needed, “especially when service involves interstate transport,” but said those rules shouldn’t be to the detriment of state authority. In particular, the CPUC said it supports proposed rules for new IP-based 911 capabilities and services, but those rules shouldn’t “usurp state authority to determine whether to permit a service provider to operate in the state. Rather, compliance with the FCC’s rules could be a factor for the state to consider when a covered 911 network provider seeks to operate in the state.” The Washington Utilities and Transportation Commission (UTC) said the FCC should grant the CPUC’s petition for increased state access to the Network Outage Reporting System (NORS), saying direct state access to NORS and the Disaster Information Reporting System “would greatly improve the ability of state and local government officials to understand comprehensively the root causes and effects of major network outages, regardless of origin.” NARUC passed a resolution Feb. 17 urging the FCC to grant the CPUC petition (see 1502180058).

The Washington UTC said it supports FCC rules that impose firmer national 911 standards “as long as they do not disturb or work to undermine efforts at the state and local levels where 911 oversight has historically been conducted.” Multiple state and local entities shared 911 governance in Washington, including the UTC and the state E911 Coordination Office in the Washington Military Department’s Emergency Management Division, the UTC said. That shared governance structure has historically “worked well to assure safe and reliable 911 service in Washington but may face unique new challenges as next-generation 911 technologies are increasingly deployed,” the UTC said. FCC action to strengthen national standards should be “dedicated to measures that assist, or complement, state and local governance efforts, rather than act to supersede them,” the UTC said.

Several of Washington’s local 911 stakeholders also weighed in on the FCC’s rulemaking, with those filings mostly agreeing with the Washington UTC’s statements. The King County E911 Program said it agrees with the FCC and Washington UTC that “911 governance requires a strong partnership between the federal, state, and local levels.” King County, which includes Seattle, was significantly impacted by the April 2014 outage, with 666 911 calls to county public safety answering points (PSAP) failing that night because of the outage, King County E911 said. Washington was the state most significantly affected by the April 2014 outage. King County E911 said it also believes “nothing in the NPRM should impede state commission or local governmental authority over reliable 911 service.” The Grays Harbor Communications Center, E911, and Pacific County Communications separately said they agreed with the Washington UTC’s filing.

The Virginia State Corporation Commission (VSCC) urged the FCC to give state agencies “timely access to any 911 outage notification and information provided to the FCC” and said it “should be careful in crafting its NG911 regulations to not interfere with states’ statutory or regulatory authority to manage jurisdictional 911 emergency services.” The June 2012 derecho wind storm significantly impacted service on Verizon’s 911 network in Virginia, and the VSCC has since done significant work to mitigate future 911 outages in the state by working with Verizon to improve its 911 reliability and outage reporting, the VSCC said.

A coalition of Texas 911 entities -- the Texas 911 Alliance, the Texas Commission on State Emergency Communications and the Municipal Emergency Communication Districts Association -- said it believes some elements of the FCC’s proposed rulemaking constitute “unwarranted” micromanagement. The FCC can tailor its existing interconnection rules for ILECs to cover major changes to a 911 provider’s service by including “additional appropriate 9-1-1 specificity” for those providers, the Texas entities said. The groups also said the FCC’s proposed requirement that a local jurisdiction’s 911 Network Operations Center (NOC) Provider will be the sole covered 911 provider for that jurisdiction is “too limiting, and will likely not fulfill the Commission’s intent.” It’s “unwise to designate arbitrarily in advance the entity to serve in each jurisdiction as the 9-1-1 NOC Provider for all current and future deployment arrangements and 9-1-1 disruption situations, without considering the specific details of each jurisdiction,” the Texas entities said. The FCC should change its proposed rule to allow each jurisdiction to identify and document the appropriate 911 NOC Provider or multiple providers, the Texas entities said.

The Alaska Rural Coalition (ARC), which includes most of the state’s RLECs, said the FCC is aware that Alaska’s 911 system is “atypical” of the systems used in the continental U.S., but the group “remains concerned that the Commission may lump Alaska into a national framework that fails to consider the network challenges facing Alaska.” Most regulatory oversight of Alaska’s 911 system should remain deferred to the Regulatory Commission of Alaska, which is “best equipped to supervise network challenges,” ARC said. “Growth of E911 services has been slower in Alaska than other states due to infrastructure challenges. Transition from the provision of legacy 911 service to an enhanced 911 service has been a challenge for Alaska carriers.” Alaska’s boroughs are responsible for the cost of 911 call transport, so requiring ILECs to pay for the upgrade to E911 “is patently unfair and the lack of clarity risks the ability to upgrade,” ARC said, saying it “urges the Commission to affirmatively declare that external network costs ought to be allocated to the PSAP.”

The Boulder, (Colorado,) Regional Emergency Telephone Service Authority (BRETSA) urged the FCC to “not seek to expand its authority over 9-1-1.” The FCC’s interest in pursuing changes to PSAP operations “is not surprising, given that the Commission’s proceedings are dominated by providers and others who lack experience in overall public safety operations and budgeting,” BRETSA said. Only a handful of experienced public safety entities participate in FCC proceedings, while many more participate in state-level proceedings, BRETSA said. It’s therefore “more prudent” for states to continue to maintain their current levels of 911 jurisdiction, particularly since most 911 calls are intrastate calls, BRETSA said. “While nomadic VoIP service may not yet include automatic location information subjecting it to state jurisdiction, it is time for the Commission to impose requirements for development of such capability, just as it has required development and improvement of such capabilities for wireless and text-to-911 services,” BRETSA said. The FCC should instead create a federal-state joint board for 911 issues and require that new services simply be 911-compliant, BRETSA said.

The National Association of State 911 Administrators (NASNA) said it agrees with the FCC that a “stronger partnership” is needed between the states and the commission on 911 issues, but new rules must “complement and enhance state and local control over 911 services." New FCC rules should also be structured to empower states to “hold covered 911 service providers accountable for identifying issues quickly, resolving issues quickly, and communicating quickly and thoroughly in the event of a 911 system outage,” NASNA said.