Telecom Industry Tackles Ways to Address Power Outages

“Best practices should address among other things maintaining service during extended power outages through the use of backup generators and equipment,” FCC Chmn. Martin told NRIC members working on best practices for the industry. “Looking ahead, we also need to take full advantage of IP-based technologies to enhance the resiliency of the traditional communications network. IP technology provides the ability to dynamically reroute traffic within a network in the event of a system failure within the traditional network. Greater use of this technology enables service providers to restore service more quickly, to provide flexibility to initiate service in new locations that are chosen by the consumers.”

John Quigley, co-chmn. of the wireless network reliability focus group and Sprint Dir.-Network Integrity & Operations, urged future NRICs to focus on wireless reliability. “This is the first time that an NRIC charter has asked specifically to focus on the wireless industry,” he said. Quigley said there should be “continued guidance that the best practices need to be evaluated for applicability by subject matter experts prior to implementation.” Noting that his focus group spent a lot of time on power infrastructure supporting wireless networks, Quigley outlined 3 sample best practices the group came up with: (1) Network operators and property managers should consider prearranging contact information and access to restoration information with local power companies. (2) Equipment suppliers should design outdoor equipment, such as base stations, to operate in expected environmental conditions, such as earthquakes. (3) Network operators and local municipalities should cooperate on zoning issues that affect reliability of communication networks serving the public good. NRIC has 2 weeks to vote on the best practices.

FCC Comr. Copps stressed the need for follow-through by the industry. “The worst-case scenario here is we end up with all kinds of best practices but they don’t get implemented,” he said: “I am all for keeping this stuff voluntary… but if it doesn’t get enforced, we are going to have to look at other ways to get these things implemented. I am interested in knowing what the concrete plans are for doing the outreach, for making sure the industry knows about” best practices and follows them.

But industry representatives said best practices are highly valued by the industry and adherence is high. “Because these best practices are showing over and over again to be effective in promoting reliability, the companies highly value these things, they see them as something that helps them run their business better,” said Karl Rauscher, co-chmn. of wireless network reliability focus group and Lucent Technologies exec. dir.: “We are very much motivated naturally to provide highly reliable services and products.” Rauscher said the information about best practices is shared at conferences and available on websites. “The last time we measured best practices implementation it was at 89-90%,” he said: “100% is not necessarily better than 90%, because you need experts making the decision about when the best practices are applicable.”

“There are some areas where [best practices] don’t necessarily apply,” BellSouth CTO Bill Smith agreed. For example, he said, best practices call for buried fuel tanks, but in the flooded areas of New Orleans “that was a real challenge for us. I am not sure that burying tanks in that area would make the most sense.” Best practices also call for “not deploying anything in a high risk area,” he said: “Well, there are huge parts of New Orleans that by nature are high risk areas but we can’t fail to provide service in those areas.” Smith said his company looked at best practices “as a Bible,” but “the real caution is that they do require judgement of professionals in the industry” and shouldn’t be mandated.

Three other NRIC focus groups, whose final reports aren’t due until Dec., provided updates on their work. Jim Nixon, whose focus group tackles transition issues for generic E-911 architecture, said by 2010, 911 systems and networks should be built on open network architecture and be compliant with national standards. The E-911 networks should also: (1) Employ and negotiate the highest quality of service for 911 calls to get the best audio, text and video available. (2) Provide end-to-end support for real time IP text with voice so you can type and speak at the same time. (3) Promote the end-to-end interoperability of all services, including voice, text, data and video, independent of the access network technology. (4) Identify 911 calls and treat them on a priority basis with both access for completion and bandwidth. (5) Provide support for intermediate call centers including telematics and relay services. (6) Transfer IP calls with data to a traditional 911 PSAP, to the extent the traditional 911 network supports connectivity. Nixon said PSAPs should be able to receive and reply to e-mail, SMS and store and forward messages, and connect to the server providing streaming video, on getting the indication that streaming video is available.