Providers Seek Flexibility in 911 Outage Reporting

(see 2106290046). PSAP notifications should be triggered by “reportable outages,” said T-Mobile. It said requiring originating service providers to notify PSAPs about commercial outages would “increase the volume of notifications received by PSAPs significantly” and “not provide information that could be used by PSAPs to mitigate the impact.” T-Mobile said providers should be given more than 30 minutes to send “actionable information." AT&T, Verizon and Lumen agreed. Keep the “as soon as possible” standard to prevent over-notification, AT&T said. The proposed timing “would risk confusion and miscommunication between service providers and PSAPS,” Verizon said. Lumen said the timing should be “more flexible to avoid publicizing unvetted facts that may confuse the public.” The National Emergency Number Association said to prioritize electronic notifications because voice communication “comes with significant limitations surrounding sharing, recording, analysis, and continuity.” ATIS said providers won’t know the root cause or extent of an outage within 30 minutes and “additional burden to the industry and potential confusion would outweigh the benefits.” CTIA said it would be “extremely difficult for that provider to verify the other material information the proposal requests within that timeframe.” The Competitive Carriers Association agreed and said carriers “risk supplying PSAPs with incomplete or inaccurate information.” APCO disagreed and said notifications “should occur as quickly as possible.” Requiring notification no later than 15 minutes from discovery “would provide a stronger incentive for service providers to automate their notifications,” it said. Lumen opposed including geographic information systems data instead of descriptions of areas affected. USTelecom said smaller providers would “have no way of immediately providing this type of information” because they don't collect it in real-time.