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Home Page > Executive Branch > Code of Federal Regulations > Electronic Code
of Federal Regulations
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e-CFR Data is current as of October 1, 2007
Title 47: Telecommunication
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PART 4—DISRUPTIONS TO COMMUNICATIONS
___________________________________
Section Contents
General
§ 4.1 Scope, basis and purpose.
§ 4.2 Availability of reports filed under this part.
Reporting Requirements for Disruptions to Communications
§ 4.3 Communications providers covered by the requirements of this part.
§ 4.5 Definitions of outage, special offices and facilities, and 911
special facilities.
§ 4.7 Definitions of metrics used to determine the general
outage-reporting threshold criteria.
§ 4.9 Outage reporting requirements—threshold criteria.
§ 4.11 Notification and initial and final communications outage reports
that must be filed by communications providers.
§ 4.13 Reports by the National Communications System (NCS) and by special
offices and facilities, and related responsibilities of communications
providers.
___________________________________
Authority: 47 U.S.C. 151, 154(i), 154(j), 154(o), 218, 219, 230, 256, 301,
302(a), 303(f), 303(g), 303(j), 303(r), 403, 621(b)(3), and 621(d), unless
otherwise noted.
Source: 69 FR 70338 , Dec. 3, 2004, unless otherwise noted.
General
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§ 4.1 Scope, basis and purpose.
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In this part, the Federal Communications Commission is setting forth
requirements pertinent to the reporting of disruptions to communications and
to the reliability and security of communications infrastructures.
§ 4.2 Availability of reports filed under this part.
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Reports filed under this part will be presumed to be confidential. Public
access to reports filed under this part may be sought only pursuant to the
procedures set forth in 47 CFR §0.461. Notice of any requests for inspection
of outage reports will be provided pursuant to 47 CFR 0.461(d)(3).
Reporting Requirements for Disruptions to Communications
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§ 4.3 Communications providers covered by the requirements of this part.
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(a) Cable communications providers are cable service providers that also
provide circuit-switched telephony. Also included are affiliated and
non-affiliated entities that maintain or provide communications networks or
services used by the provider in offering telephony.
(b) Communications provider is an entity that provides for a fee to one or
more unaffiliated entities, by radio, wire, cable, satellite, and/or
lightguide: two-way voice and/or data communications, paging service, and/or
SS7 communications.
(c) IXC or LEC tandem facilities refer to tandem switches (or their
equivalents) and interoffice facilities used in the provision of
interexchange or local exchange communications.
(d) Satellite communications providers use space stations as a means of
providing the public with communications, such as telephony and paging. Also
included are affiliated and non-affiliated entities that maintain or provide
communications networks or services used by the provider in offering such
communications. “Satellite operators” refer to entities that operate space
stations but do not necessarily provide communications services directly to
end users.
(e) Signaling System 7 (SS7) is a signaling system used to control
telecommunications networks. It is frequently used to “set up,” process,
control, and terminate circuit-switched telecommunications, including but
not limited to domestic and international telephone calls (irrespective of
whether the call is wholly or in part wireless, wireline, local, long
distance, or is carried over cable or satellite infrastructure), SMS text
messaging services, 8XX number type services, local number portability, VoIP
signaling gateway services, 555 number type services, and most paging
services. For purposes of this rule part, SS7 refers to both the SS7
protocol and the packet networks through which signaling information is
transported and switched or routed. It includes future modifications to the
existing SS7 architecture that will provide the functional equivalency of
the SS7 services and network elements that exist as of August 4, 2004. SS7
communications providers are subject to the provisions of this part 4
regardless of whether or not they provide service directly to end users.
Also subject to part 4 of the Commission's rules are affiliated and
non-affiliated entities that maintain or provide communications networks or
services used by the SS7 provider in offering SS7 communications.
(f) Wireless service providers include Commercial Mobile Radio Service
communications providers that use cellular architecture and CMRS paging
providers. In particular, they include Cellular Radio Telephone Service
(part 22 of the Commission's Rules) providers; Personal Communications
Service (PCS) (part 24) providers; those Special Mobile Radio Service (part
90) providers that meet the definition of “covered CMRS” providers pursuant
to §§20.18(a), 52.21, and 52.31 of the Commission's rules, those private
paging (part 90) providers that are treated as CMRS providers ( see §20.9 of
this chapter); and narrowband PCS providers (part 24) of this chapter. Also
included are affiliated and non-affiliated entities that maintain or provide
communications networks or services used by the provider in offering such
communications.
(g) Wireline communications providers offer terrestrial communications
through direct connectivity, predominantly by wire, coaxial cable, or
optical fiber, between the serving central office (as defined in the
appendix to part 36 of this chapter) and end user location(s). Also included
are affiliated and non-affiliated entities that maintain or provide
communications networks or services used by the provider in offering such
communications.
(h) Exclusion of equipment manufacturers or vendors . Excluded from the
requirements of this part 4 are those equipment manufacturers or vendors
that do not maintain or provide communications networks or services used by
communications providers in offering communications.
§ 4.5 Definitions of outage, special offices and facilities, and 911 special
facilities.
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(a) Outage is defined as a significant degradation in the ability of an end
user to establish and maintain a channel of communications as a result of
failure or degradation in the performance of a communications provider's
network.
(b) Special offices and facilities are defined as major military
installations, key government facilities, nuclear power plants, and those
airports that are listed as current primary (PR), commercial service (CM),
and reliever (RL) airports in the FAA's National Plan of Integrated Airports
Systems (NPIAS) (as issued at least one calendar year prior to the outage).
The member agencies of the National Communications System (NCS) will
determine which of their locations are “major military installations” and
“key government facilities.” 911 special facilities are addressed separately
in paragraph (e) of this section.
(c) All outages that potentially affect communications for at least 30
minutes with any airport that qualifies as a “special office and facility”
pursuant to the preceding paragraph shall be reported in accordance with the
provisions of §§4.11 and 4.13.
(d) A mission-affecting outage is defined as an outage that is deemed
critical to national security/emergency preparedness (NS/EP) operations of
the affected facility by the National Communications System member agency
operating the affected facility.
(e) An outage that potentially affects a 911 special facility occurs
whenever:
(1) There is a loss of communications to PSAP(s) potentially affecting at
least 900,000 user-minutes and: The failure is neither at the PSAP(s) nor on
the premises of the PSAP(s); no reroute for all end users was available; and
the outage lasts 30 minutes or more; or
(2) There is a loss of 911 call processing capabilities in one or more E–911
tandems/selective routers for at least 30 minutes duration; or
(3) One or more end-office or MSC switches or host/remote clusters is
isolated from 911 service for at least 30 minutes and potentially affects at
least 900,000 user-minutes; or
(4) There is a loss of ANI/ALI (associated name and location information)
and/or a failure of location determination equipment, including Phase II
equipment, for at least 30 minutes and potentially affecting at least
900,000 user-minutes (provided that the ANI/ALI or location determination
equipment was then currently deployed and in use, and the failure is neither
at the PSAP(s) or on the premises of the PSAP(s)).
§ 4.7 Definitions of metrics used to determine the general outage-reporting
threshold criteria.
top
(a) Administrative numbers are defined as the telephone numbers used by
communications providers to perform internal administrative or operational
functions necessary to maintain reasonable quality of service standards.
(b) Assigned numbers are defined as the telephone numbers working in the
Public Switched Telephone Network under an agreement such as a contract or
tariff at the request of specific end users or customers for their use. This
excludes numbers that are not yet working but have a service order pending.
(c) Assigned telephone number minutes are defined as the mathematical result
of multiplying the duration of an outage, expressed in minutes, by the sum
of the number of assigned numbers (defined in paragraph (b) of this section)
potentially affected by the outage and the number of administrative numbers
(defined in paragraph (a) of this section) potentially affected by the
outage. “Assigned telephone number minutes” can alternatively be calculated
as the mathematical result of multiplying the duration of an outage,
expressed in minutes, by the number of working telephone numbers potentially
affected by the outage, where working telephone numbers are defined as the
telephone numbers, including DID numbers, working immediately prior to the
outage.
(d) DS3 minutes are defined as the mathematical result of multiplying the
duration of an outage, expressed in minutes, by the number of previously
operating DS3 circuits that were affected by the outage.
(e) User minutes are defined as:
(1) Assigned telephone number minutes (as defined in paragraph (c) of this
section), for telephony and for those paging networks in which each
individual user is assigned a telephone number;
(2) The mathematical result of multiplying the duration of an outage,
expressed in minutes, by the number of end users potentially affected by the
outage, for all other forms of communications.
(f) Working telephone numbers are defined to be the sum of all telephone
numbers that can originate, or terminate telecommunications. This includes,
for example, all working telephone numbers on the customer's side of a PBX,
or Centrex, or similar arrangement.
§ 4.9 Outage reporting requirements—threshold criteria.
top
(a) Cable. All cable communications providers shall submit electronically a
Notification to the Commission within 120 minutes of discovering that they
have experienced on any facilities that they own, operate, lease, or
otherwise utilize, an outage of at least 30 minutes duration that:
(1) Potentially affects at least 900,000 user minutes of telephony service;
(2) Affects at least 1,350 DS3 minutes;
(3) Potentially affects any special offices and facilities (in accordance
with paragraphs (a) through (d) of §4.5); or
(4) Potentially affects a 911 special facility (as defined in paragraph (e)
of §4.5), in which case they also shall notify, as soon as possible by
telephone or other electronic means, any official who has been designated by
the management of the affected 911 facility as the provider's contact person
for communications outages at that facility, and they shall convey to that
person all available information that may be useful to the management of the
affected facility in mitigating the effects of the outage on callers to that
facility. (DS3 minutes and user minutes are defined in paragraphs (d) and
(e) of §4.7.) Not later than 72 hours after discovering the outage, the
provider shall submit electronically an Initial Communications Outage Report
to the Commission. Not later than thirty days after discovering the outage,
the provider shall submit electronically a Final Communications Outage
Report to the Commission. The Notification and the Initial and Final reports
shall comply with all of the requirements of §4.11.
(b) IXC or LEC tandem facilities. In the case of IXC or LEC tandem
facilities, providers must, if technically possible, use real-time blocked
calls to determine whether criteria for reporting an outage have been
reached. Providers must report IXC and LEC tandem outages of at least 30
minutes duration in which at least 90,000 calls are blocked or at least
1,350 DS3-minutes are lost. For interoffice facilities which handle traffic
in both directions and for which blocked call information is available in
one direction only, the total number of blocked calls shall be estimated as
twice the number of blocked calls determined for the available direction.
Providers may use historic carried call load data for the same day(s) of the
week and the same time(s) of day as the outage, and for a time interval not
older than 90 days preceding the onset of the outage, to estimate blocked
calls whenever it is not possible to obtain real-time blocked call counts.
When using historic data, providers must report incidents where at least
30,000 calls would have been carried during a time interval with the same
duration of the outage. (DS3 minutes are defined in paragraph (d) of §4.7.)
In situations where, for whatever reason, real-time and historic carried
call load data are unavailable to the provider, even after a detailed
investigation, the provider must determine the carried call load based on
data obtained in the time interval between the onset of the outage and the
due date for the final report; this data must cover the same day of the
week, the same time of day, and the same duration as the outage.
Justification that such data accurately estimates the traffic that would
have been carried at the time of the outage had the outage not occurred must
be available on request. If carried call load data cannot be obtained
through any of the methods described, for whatever reason, then the provider
shall report the outage.
(c) Satellite. (1) All satellite operators shall submit electronically a
Notification to the Commission within 120 minutes of discovering that they
have experienced on any facilities that they own, operate, lease, or
otherwise utilize, of an outage of at least 30 minutes duration that
manifests itself as a failure of any of the following key system elements:
One or more satellite transponders, satellite beams, inter-satellite links,
or entire satellites. In addition, all Mobile-Satellite Service (“MSS”)
satellite operators shall submit electronically a Notification to the
Commission within 120 minutes of discovering that they have experienced on
any facilities that they own, operate, lease, or otherwise utilize, of an
outage of at least 30 minutes duration that manifests itself as a failure of
any gateway earth station, except in the case where other earth stations at
the gateway location are used to continue gateway operations within 30
minutes of the onset of the failure.
(2) All satellite communications providers shall submit electronically a
Notification to the Commission within 120 minutes of discovering that they
have experienced on any facilities that they own, operate, lease, or
otherwise utilize, an outage of at least 30 minutes duration that manifests
itself as:
(i) A loss of complete accessibility to at least one satellite or
transponder;
(ii) A loss of a satellite communications link that potentially affects at
least 900,000 user-minutes (as defined in §4.7(d)) of either telephony
service or paging service;
(iii) Potentially affecting any special offices and facilities (in
accordance with paragraphs (a) through (d) of §4.5) other than airports; or
(iv) Potentially affecting a 911 special facility (as defined in (e) of
§4.5), in which case they also shall notify, as soon as possible by
telephone or other electronic means, any official who has been designated by
the management of the affected 911 facility as the provider's contact person
for communications outages at that facility, and they shall convey to that
person all available information that may be useful to the management of the
affected facility in mitigating the effects of the outage on callers to that
facility.
(3) Not later than 72 hours after discovering the outage, the operator
and/or provider shall submit electronically an Initial Communications Outage
Report to the Commission. Not later than thirty days after discovering the
outage, the operator and/or provider shall submit electronically a Final
Communications Outage Report to the Commission.
(4) The Notification and the Initial and Final reports shall comply with all
of the requirements of §4.11.
(5) Excluded from these outage-reporting requirements are those satellites,
satellite beams, inter-satellite links, MSS gateway earth stations,
satellite networks, and transponders that are used exclusively for
intra-corporate or intra-organizational private telecommunications networks,
for the one-way distribution of video or audio programming, or for other
non-covered services (that is, when they are never used to carry common
carrier voice or paging communications).
(d) Signaling system 7. Signaling System 7 (SS7) providers shall submit
electronically a Notification to the Commission within 120 minutes of
discovering that they have experienced on any facilities that they own,
operate, lease, or otherwise utilize an outage of at least 30 minutes
duration that is manifested as the generation of at least 90,000 blocked
calls based on real-time traffic data or at least 30,000 lost calls based on
historic carried loads. In cases where a third-party SS7 provider cannot
directly estimate the number of blocked calls, the third-party SS7 provider
shall use 500,000 real-time lost MTP messages as a surrogate for 90,000
real-time blocked calls, or 167,000 lost MTP messages on a historical basis
as a surrogate for 30,000 lost calls based on historic carried loads.
Historic carried load data or the number of lost MTP messages on a
historical basis shall be for the same day(s) of the week and the same
time(s) of day as the outage, and for a time interval not older than 90 days
preceding the onset of the outage. In situations where, for whatever reason,
real-time and historic data are unavailable to the provider, even after a
detailed investigation, the provider must determine the carried load based
on data obtained in the time interval between the onset of the outage and
the due date for the final report; this data must cover the same day of the
week and the same time of day as the outage. If this cannot be done, for
whatever reason, the outage must be reported. Justification that such data
accurately estimates the traffic that would have been carried at the time of
the outage had the outage not occurred must be available on request.
Finally, whenever a pair of STPs serving any communications provider becomes
isolated from a pair of interconnected STPs that serve any other
communications provider, for at least 30 minutes duration, each of these
communications providers shall submit electronically a Notification to the
Commission within 120 minutes of discovering such outage. Not later than 72
hours after discovering the outage, the provider(s) shall submit
electronically an Initial Communications Outage Report to the Commission.
Not later than thirty days after discovering the outage, the provider(s)
shall submit electronically a Final Communications Outage Report to the
Commission. The Notification and the Initial and Final reports shall comply
with all of the requirements of §4.11.
(e) Wireless. All wireless service providers shall submit electronically a
Notification to the Commission within 120 minutes of discovering that they
have experienced on any facilities that they own, operate, lease, or
otherwise utilize, an outage of at least 30 minutes duration:
(1) Of a Mobile Switching Center (MSC);
(2) That potentially affects at least 900,000 user minutes of either
telephony and associated data (2nd generation or lower) service or paging
service;
(3) That affects at least 1,350 DS3 minutes;
(4) That potentially affects any special offices and facilities (in
accordance with paragraphs (a) through (d) of §4.5) other than airports
through direct service facility agreements; or
(5) That potentially affects a 911 special facility (as defined in (e) of
§4.5), in which case they also shall notify, as soon as possible by
telephone or other electronic means, any official who has been designated by
the management of the affected 911 facility as the provider's contact person
for communications outages at that facility, and they shall convey to that
person all available information that may be useful to the management of the
affected facility in mitigating the effects of the outage on callers to that
facility. (DS3 minutes and user minutes are defined in paragraphs (d) and
(e) of §4.7.) In determining the number of users potentially affected by a
failure of a switch, a concentration ratio of 8 shall be applied. For
providers of paging service solely, however, the following outage criteria
shall apply instead of those in paragraphs (b)(1) through (b)(3) of this
section. Notification must be submitted if the failure of a switch for at
least 30 minutes duration potentially affects at least 900,000 user-minutes.
Not later than 72 hours after discovering the outage, the provider shall
submit electronically an Initial Communications Outage Report to the
Commission. Not later than thirty days after discovering the outage, the
provider shall submit electronically a Final Communications Outage Report to
the Commission. The Notification and the Initial and Final reports shall
comply with all of the requirements of §4.11.
(f) Wireline. All wireline communications providers shall submit
electronically a Notification to the Commission within 120 minutes of
discovering that they have experienced on any facilities that they own,
operate, lease, or otherwise utilize, an outage of at least 30 minutes
duration that:
(1) Potentially affects at least 900,000 user minutes of either telephony or
paging;
(2) Affects at least 1,350 DS3 minutes;
(3) Potentially affects any special offices and facilities (in accordance
with paragraphs (a) through (d) of §4.5); or
(4) Potentially affects a 911 special facility (as defined in paragraph (e)
of §4.5), in which case they also shall notify, as soon as possible by
telephone or other electronic means, any official who has been designated by
the management of the affected 911 facility as the provider's contact person
for communications outages at that facility, and the provider shall convey
to that person all available information that may be useful to the
management of the affected facility in mitigating the effects of the outage
on efforts to communicate with that facility. (DS3 minutes and user minutes
are defined in paragraphs (d) and (e) of §4.7.) Not later than 72 hours
after discovering the outage, the provider shall submit electronically an
Initial Communications Outage Report to the Commission. Not later than
thirty days after discovering the outage, the provider shall submit
electronically a Final Communications Outage Report to the Commission. The
Notification and the Initial and Final reports shall comply with all of the
requirements of §4.11.
§ 4.11 Notification and initial and final communications outage reports that
must be filed by communications providers.
top
Notification and Initial and Final Communications Outage Reports shall be
submitted by a person authorized by the communications provider to submit
such reports to the Commission. The person submitting the Final report to
the Commission shall also be authorized by the provider to legally bind the
provider to the truth, completeness, and accuracy of the information
contained in the report. Each Final report shall be attested by the person
submitting the report that he/she has read the report prior to submitting it
and on oath deposes and states that the information contained therein is
true, correct, and accurate to the best of his/her knowledge and belief and
that the communications provider on oath deposes and states that this
information is true, complete, and accurate. The Notification shall provide:
The name of the reporting entity; the date and time of onset of the outage;
a brief description of the problem; service effects; the geographic area
affected by the outage; and a contact name and contact telephone number by
which the Commission's technical staff may contact the reporting entity. The
Initial and Final Reports shall contain the information required in this
part 4. The Initial report shall contain all pertinent information then
available on the outage and shall be submitted in good faith. The Final
report shall contain all pertinent information on the outage, including any
information that was not contained in, or that has changed from that
provided in, the Initial report. The Notification and the Initial and Final
Communications Outage Reports are to be submitted electronically to the
Commission. “Submitted electronically” refers to submission of the
information using Commission-approved Web-based outage report templates. If
there are technical impediments to using the Web-based system during the
Notification stage, then a written Notification to the Commission by e-mail,
FAX, or courier may be used; such Notification shall contain the information
required. All hand-delivered Notifications and Initial and Final
Communications Outage Reports, shall be addressed to the Federal
Communications Commission, The Office of Secretary, Attention: Chief, Public
Safety & Homeland Security Bureau. Electronic filing shall be effectuated in
accordance with procedures that are specified by the Commission by public
notice.
[ 71 FR 69037 , Nov. 29, 2006]
§ 4.13 Reports by the National Communications System (NCS) and by special
offices and facilities, and related responsibilities of communications
providers.
top
Reports by the National Communications System (NCS) and by special offices
and facilities (other than 911 special offices and facilities) of outages
potentially affecting them (see paragraphs (a) through (d) of §4.5) shall be
made according to the following procedures:
(a) When there is a mission-affecting outage, the affected facility will
report the outage to the NCS and call the communications provider in order
to determine if the outage is expected to last 30 minutes. If the outage is
not expected to, and does not, last 30 minutes, it will not be reported to
the Commission. If it is expected to last 30 minutes or does last 30
minutes, the NCS, on the advice of the affected special facility and in the
exercise of its judgment, will either:
(1) Forward a report of the outage to the Commission, supplying the
information for initial reports affecting special facilities specified in
this section of the Commission's Rules;
(2) Forward a report of the outage to the Commission, designating the outage
as one affecting “special facilities,” but reporting it at a level of detail
that precludes identification of the particular facility involved; or
(3) Hold the report at the NCS due to the critical nature of the
application.
(b) If there is to be a report to the Commission, an electronic, written, or
oral report will be given by the NCS within 120 minutes of an outage to the
Commission's Duty Officer, on duty 24 hours a day in the FCC's
Communications and Crisis Management Center in Washington, DC. Notification
may be served at such other facility designated by the Commission by public
notice or (at the time of the emergency) by public announcement only if
there is a telephone outage or similar emergency in Washington, DC. If the
report is oral, it is to be followed by an electronic or written report not
later than the next business day. Those providers whose service failures are
in any way responsible for the outage must consult and cooperate in good
faith with NCS upon its request for information.
(c) Additionally, if there is to be a report to the Commission, the
communications provider will provide a written report to the NCS, supplying
the information for final reports for special facilities required by this
section of the Commission's rules. The communications provider's final
report to the NCS will be filed within 28 days after the outage, allowing
the NCS to then file the report with the Commission within 30 days after the
outage. If the outage is reportable as described in paragraph (b) of this
section, and the NCS determines that the final report can be presented to
the Commission without jeopardizing matters of national security or
emergency preparedness, the NCS will forward the report as provided in
either paragraphs (a)(1) or (a)(2) of this section to the Commission.
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