FCC cites public-safety needs, proposes to revamp network-outage reporting process to include IP-based systems

In addition, O’Rielly said the reporting rules proposed in the further notice are an effort to give the FCC a role in cybersecurity.

“The notice also inquires into whether reports should include information about unintended changes to software or firmware or unintended modifications to databases,” O’Rielly said. “Once again, the commission is trying to edge its way in the realm of cybersecurity. The commission should not attempt to use reporting as a backdoor method to insert itself into the cyber debate.”

Pai also opposed the further notice of proposed rulemaking but also expressed opposition with much of the order, which he said varied markedly from the proposed rulemaking on the subject that the commission approved last year. Pai expressed particular concerns about aspects of the order that do not result in consumers losing connectivity, including situations where traffic can be rerouted around an outage to reach the same destination—known as a simplex event.

“Given the circuit’s design, a simplex event has no impact on the consumer,” Pai said. “The traffic carried by that circuit is automatically rerouted and—as the redacted record shows—a simplex event isn’t a signal of things to come. It doesn't mean that additional or cascading network failures will come that would impact a consumer. Moreover, in the 911 context, the FCC doesn't require any outage reporting at all when rerouting is available.

“But rather than harmonize our rules and eliminate the unnecessary simplex reporting obligation, the FCC doubles down on it. It expands the number of simplex events that trigger reporting obligations—a step that even the order concedes will result in hundreds upon hundreds of new reports each year. This is paperwork without a purpose.”