NRIC Releases First Data on 911 Outages
The Network Reliability & Interoperability Council (NRIC) is completing its first detailed study of the causes of 911/E911 outages, NRIC officials said Thurs. But Comr. Copps opened a meeting of the advisory group at the FCC with a warning that the nation is still unprepared for future terrorist attacks.
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A NRIC subcommittee analyzed 76 reported outages from Jan. 2002-March 2004. The biggest causes were cable damage (20 incidents) and design hardware (18), followed by service provider problems (12) and hardware failure (7). The group is working on best practices recommendations.
Robert Oenning, co-chmn. of the subcommittee and a state 911 program administrator in Wash., told us the report is significant to emergency communications personnel. “We care very much that we get every call every time,” he said: “Previously, we've looked at general outages, this is the first time we've looked specifically at 911. It'll help us when we look at how we design our networks, how we order our networks and simply how we work with telcos to mitigate the potential for outages.” Oenning added: “It’s important because in the 911 business we don’t want to have any outages. We want 100% reliability… This will help us improve reliability.”
In a separate report, a 2nd NRIC subcommittee predicted Thurs. that by 2010 communications networks will be IP-based and the U.S. must by that date have in place much better IP-based E911 capability. That subcommittee also recommended a closer look at extending E911 to satellite communications.
Copps told us NRIC needs to move more quickly in some cases: “I don’t think anybody could ever say that we're satisfied with the extent of the work or the progress of the work… I'm trying to urge them to go faster and move up the reports.” Copps added: “The terrorists aren’t going to wait for us until June of 2005 or 2006 or 2007 to make our way through all these schedules.”
Copps called on NRIC to maintain the same focus on public safety seen in the immediate aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on N.Y. and D.C. “NRIC has been important for a long time,” he said. “In the aftermath of Sept. 11 it took on a far higher national priority…. Three years later it remains absolutely critical. None of its importance has gone away. I hope none of the sense of the urgency we all felt on Sept. 11 has gone away.”
Copps said he was “disappointed” that the 9/11 Commission report didn’t specifically mention the FCC or any work it has done on emergency communications in the ensuing 3 years. “When terrorists strike again I don’t want anyone to be able to say that either industry or the government has been asleep at the switch,” he said: “More work is in front of us than behind us. Government reorganization tomorrow is not enough.”
Comr. Abernathy encouraged NRIC to push ahead on developing industry best practices on network outages. “It does seem to me that the best way to reduce the likelihood of these events is to work together,” she said: “Best practices no doubt do improve reliability and security.” Abernathy added: “You know more about where technology is going. This forum is much more flexible, much more adaptable than actual mandates the government could impose on you. I seems to me that we get so much more bang for our bucks when all of you work cooperatively and together.” - Howard Buskirk