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
According to recent FCC data, almost 50% of residential telephone connections—57 million—are legacy wireline, so it is critical to ensure that proper education campaigns are in place when a transition to IP-based technology occurs, Commissioner Mignon Clyburn said. There is precedent for such an educational program, as Clyburn cited the government’s efforts—via radio, newspaper notices and in-home assistance– during the analog to digital television broadcast transition.
“All this work was done for an estimated 16 to 19 million households that did not subscribe to pay TV, because the number one goal was for no one to be left behind,” Clyburn said. “There is no budget from Congress, no mandate to ensure that they understand and get prepared for the change in their telephone services, which arguably is more critical than television … because it could mean life or death, if you cannot dial 911.”
FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai supported the order, based on it reflecting that consumers have the freedom to choose whether to purchase the carrier-installed battery backup for their landlines.
“I support today’s order, because it adopts that consumer-driven approach and recognizes that no one-
size-fits-all solution will work when it comes to disaster preparedness,” Pai said. “As the order puts it, ‘consumers may desire different amounts of backup power—or none at all—depending on their individual
circumstances.’ That’s exactly right. Enabling consumers to make their own choices allows them to do
what’s best for them and their families.”
O’Reilly did not oppose the measure but expressed concerns that the order adds burden to carriers to offer a backup-power option without certainty that consumers will choose to purchase it.
“I worry that this items adds burdens for little benefit,” O’Reilly said. “I think back to an example on record: one provider that tried to promote its VoIP service by advertising the availability of backup power in the wake of a hurricane that caused significant outages saw little to no uptake as a result, and landline losses continued at a steady pace, despite the lack of backup power with alternative services.”
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