FCC requires IP-based providers to offer backup-power options to ensure 911 availability
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FCC requires IP-based providers to offer backup-power options to ensure 911 availability
FCC commissioners yesterday approved rules that require communications carriers to educate customers about the transition from legacy copper networks to modern fiber networks and offer affordable backup-power options, which bureau officials say will safeguard residential 911 communications during power outages.
Although fiber networks are not subject to all of the legacy regulations of copper networks, carriers still need to make the same level of functionality is available as new services are offered to consumers, FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler said.
“Fiber brings great cost savings, great efficiencies and great opportunities for new services to carriers, but it does not bring the opportunity to walk away from the responsibilities that govern the relationship between those who build and those who use the facilities,” Wheeler said during the meeting, which was webcast.
“It’s a simple responsibility that we have that—as technology marches forward—consumers have the appropriate information about those changes, and the consumers have options to deal with the effect of those changes.”
Four commissioners voted to approve the 911-related measure, with Republican Commissioner Michael O’Rielly concurring.
A key difference between IP-based phone service and traditional copper telephony service is that the legacy systems transmits power directly to the telephone, so it continues to work during a commercial power outage. That is not the case with IP-based services, which are disabled when no power is available. This circumstance would prevent that communication link from being used to call 911 during a power outage, unless a backup power source is available.
To alleviate that problem, the report and order requires carriers to offer current and future customers utilizing cost-conscious backup power options, although customers are not required to purchase them. Under the order, carriers would have to offer an 8-hour backup option when the item becomes effective and a 24-hour backup option within three years.
“The goal is certainty to both carriers and consumers, so that service transitions may proceed in a timely manner that respects the enduring values of competition, consumer protection, universal access and public safety and national security,” David Simpson, chief of FCC’s public-safety and homeland-security bureau, said during the meeting.
How best to shift from copper networks using legacy technologies to fiber, coaxial cable and wireless networks using IP-based technologies has been an ongoing discussion for years. During yesterday’s meeting, the FCC approved several measures that are designed to clarify rules that will apply during this transition period, addressing a host of items regarding consumer protections and competitive issues associated with the retirement of legacy copper networks.
All: While I applaud the
All: While I applaud the FCC’s interest in this area, I can only partially support their Rulemaking. It seems to me that they have strained out the gnats and swallowed the camel, so to speak.
It is OK to require the carriers to offer an 8-hour backup package, and I am certain that at least some folks will take advantage of it. A better method would have been to require establishment of standards for maximum backup power requirements, and let third parties design and build solutions (including solar solutions) to back up the endpoints. That’s a minor point, however, and not the focus of my concern.
Consider: How good is it for a person to back up a fiber endpoint if the intermediate electronics between that endpoint and the CO / core node is not backed up for at least that amount? The answer is that it is actually worse than nothing, because the endpoint backup will give the endpoint user an unjustified sense of security. Further, because that intermediate point is not required to have the same or longer backup time, this false sense of security can extend not to just one end user but to dozens or hundreds in an entire geographic area. As far as I can tell, this FCC Proceeding does nothing to address these intermediate-electronics points.
I have no ability to lobby for more; I’m just one person. I do wish that NENA, APCO, and NPSTC would pick this up and run with it.
What would I do if I could establish laws and regulations? My plan would be something like this:
a. Carriers and ISPs are required to pass to local jurisdictional authorities the carrier / ISP designation, location, power requirements (voltage / current / kVA), and ability to receive external power for each intermediate electronics point in their jurisdiction. The jurisdictions are required to sign an NDA with each of the carriers and ISPs, and each carrier / ISP is required to honor it and provide the information in a complete and accurate form within 45 days, and to update it within 10 working days of making a change in the deployment.
2. The carriers / ISPs are required to develop for their operation a backup power system that can operate for not less than 60 days (yes, DAYS). This should be a combination of solar power and mechanical generator backup. The mechanical generator should produce and be clearly marked to produce -48 VDC or some other DC voltage rather than 120 VAC or similar, to reduce the risk of theft.
c. Jurisdictions are empowered to require landowners where these points are located to lease additional space to the carrier / ISP to implement the backup power solution at the same rate as they are paying today. If the installation involves previously-unleased land, the property owner shall receive per-square-foot payment equal to what the land is worth on the market at that location.
d. The carriers / ISPs shall implement the backup-power solution over the course of 60 months, and provide twice-yearly reports to the jurisdiction and the FCC the status of their implementation by location (so that jurisdictions will know where telephone service is most likely to be out, and plan either roving patrols or similar in those areas).
e. (Some equitable plan has to be established to pay for this, and I don’t know the possibilities or ramifications of same. A portion should come out of the carriers’ hides, but not necessarily all of it. This would have been a great use for the Universal Service Fund, but that’s probably a leap too far. I am pretty confident that if the nation decides this is necessary it will find a way to pay for it.)
f. The carriers / ISPs are required to monitor their backup systems continuously, and to test both the solar and the mechanical backup at intervals not exceeding one month, and to inspect the systems at intervals not exceeding six months. Uncleared failures shall be reported within 4 hours to the jurisdiction in question (so they can adjust their plans as required). The jurisdiction shall establish a procedure for receiving the reports and ensuring that they get to the authorities in question. The carriers / ISPs and representatives of jurisdictions shall develop a common reporting format used throughout the nation.
g. The EPA and state / local environmental-protection agencies are told the following using whatever level of language is required to ensure that they get the message correctly the first time (if that’s horsey-ducky language, so be it):
1. The reliable operation of the nation’s emergency backup power sources is a critical national interest and supersedes environmental considerations (because the nation will not sacrifice human life to improve environmental protection).
2. The periodic testing of emergency backup power sources is necessary for the reliable operation of those sources and supersedes any environmental considerations, provided the emergency backup power source is in good repair (e.g. not missing a muffler or other essential hardware).
3. Because the reliable operation of emergency backup power sources is a critical national interest, any environmental requirement(s) that can affect the reliability of these sources to properly function during or after an incident of ANY kind Is hereby revoked with prejudice.
I really do wish someone somewhere who had some clout would pick up this ball and run with it. The inevitable alternative will be an extended outage occurring in a jurisdiction and that jurisdiction finding out to their horror that the reason their 911 traffic has decreased is not because their people are OK but because THEY CAN’T CALL 911, and then having to bury tens or hundreds of their people (many of them having obtained the backed-up endpoints) who could have been saved if they could have reached 911.
Is anyone else concerned about this?
One of the great difficulties
One of the great difficulties of offering telephone service that can withstand power outages, is that the design of modern IP based telephone systems consists of numerous pole and curbside mounted fiber-to copper transitions and support systems that are necessarily small-low cost battery powered. At best, these can only provide a few hours of backup-even if the homeowner has unlimited power to their CPE. A truely reliable system would require carriers to provide a wireline connection from these poletop and curbside locations to facilities equipped with backup generation, that can keep going for a days if needed. This was no issue back in the twisted pair days, where there were relatively few Central offices and those had generators and big batteries. A few modern systems have proposed using the legacy copper plant to provide power to the new fiber/Ip based plant. This requires the Carrier to keep two plants going, but sure fills the need of reliable power failure resistant service!
GBH
my concern here is what
my concern here is what happens here to our suddenlink cable system. when the power goes out, your phone modem stays working on its battery backup but the cable node shuts down due to lack of power.
until the cable and phone companies are required to and are forced to put backup power on there nodes, all the backup power in the world is useless at the end user