Today:  District of Columbia Outage Reporting, FCC Instructions For Filing of 4G LTE Coverage Data, Hurricane Updates

District of Columbia Outage Reporting

The PSC released a Notice of Second Proposed Rulemaking of its intent to amend its outage reporting regulations.  The proposed amendments would require telecommunications service providers reporting telecommunications service outages to identify the most specific location of the service outage and the geographic area affected by the service outage available when the initial report is filed and the actual location of the service outage in the telecommunications service provider's network and the geographic area affected in the final report.  A previous NOPR seeking to amend these rules was published in January 2017.  Comments and reply comments may be submitted no later than October 16, 2017 and October 30, 2017, respectively.

FCC Instructions For Filing Of 4G LTE Coverage Data

The FCC released a Public Notice providing instructions for filing 4G Long Term Evolution (LTE) coverage data pursuant to the Mobility Fund-II Challenge Process Order.  Filers must collect and submit the data using the process and format described in the attached Instructions no later than 90 days after the FCC publishes notice that the Office of Management and Budget has approved the one-time information collection request.  Provider-specific information submitted as part of the data collection will be treated as confidential.  Data must be filed by any entity that (a) previously reported LTE coverage on FCC Form 477 and (b) has qualified 4G LTE coverage based on the specification established in the FCC’s Order of download speeds of 5 Mbps at the cell edge with 80% probability and a 30% cell loading factor.  Entities that previously reported LTE coverage on FCC Form 477 but do not have qualified 4G LTE coverage as described above must respond and certify that their coverage does not qualify. 

Hurricane Updates

The FCC also issued its latest status report of communications services in geographic areas impacted by Hurricane Maria as of September 24, 2017, at 11:00 AM EDT.  The report incorporates network outage data submitted by communications providers to the FCC’s Disaster Information Reporting System (DIRS) which is currently activated for all counties in Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.  The FCC reported that:

• The two PSAPs in Puerto Rico are functioning normally.  In the Virgin Islands, the St. Croix 9-1-1 Call Center has been reported as completely down and FEMA has reported significant damage to the building. The St. Thomas 9-1-1 Call Center is unable to retrieve Phase I and Phase II location information for wireless callers and Automatic Number Identification (ANI)/ALI for VoIP Callers;
• Overall, 92.5% of cell sites are out of service in Puerto Rico with all counties having greater than 75% of their cell sites out of service.  37 out of the 78 counties in Puerto Rico have 100% of their cell sites out of service.  In the Virgin Islands, overall, 61.3% of cell sites are out of service.
• Since there are widespread power outages in Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands, the FCC has received reports that large percentages of consumers are without either cable services or wireline service.  One company reported that 100% of its consumers are out of service due to lack of commercial power.  There are at least 18 switches that are out of service due to either SS7 or toll isolation.
• No TV or radio states are reported out of service in DIRS.  Based on informal reports, the FCC believes two TV stations and 22 radio states are on the air. 

The FCC also extended the EAS Test Reporting System (ETRS) filing deadline for Emergency Alert System test System participants affected by the hurricanes.  This applies to participants in Florida, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands, as well as in portions of Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas, whose ability to participate in the Nationwide EAS Test or submit the ETRS filings required on September 27, 2017.  EAS Participants affected by the Hurricanes, have until November 13, 2017, to file corrections to Form One and may also file Form Two at the same time as Form Three.  Affected EAS Participants taking advantage of this extension should describe their particular circumstances in Form Three.  For unaffected EAS Participants, the previously announced deadlines remain in effect.

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The Regulatory Mix, TMI’s daily blog of telecom related regulatory activities, is a snapshot of PUC, FCC, legislative, and occasionally court issues that our regulatory monitoring team uncovers each day. Depending on their significance, some items may be the subject of a TMI Briefing.