On July 30, APCO filed comments with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in response to proposed rules for how and when service providers must notify emergency communications centers (ECCs) of network disruptions that impact 9-1-1 service. At APCO’s suggestion, the FCC sought comment on whether the current outage reporting thresholds should be lowered so that notifications are required for smaller, yet potentially-significant outages, and requested information on the ability of service providers to provide graphical information about outages such as maps of the affected areas. APCO reiterated that ECCs need timely, actionable outage information in order to mitigate the impacts of an outage, and that service providers should establish a two-way contact information database to improve communications with ECCs. Ensuring that ECCs have actionable outage information is a top legislative and regulatory priority for APCO.
