WASHINGTON-When the Galaxy IV satellite went berserk in May and left most paging carriers and their customers holding the bag, the Federal Communications Commission said the Network Reliability and Interoperability Council would look into the outage.
Some people say that reaction was knee-jerk because: 1) NRIC doesn’t exist and 2) the paging industry already is doing what NRIC normally would do.
NRIC is an FCC advisory committee chartered to examine network outages and network interoperability issues. It was created in 1992 as the Network Reliability Council, and the interoperability function was added in 1996. According to its Web site, NRIC expired on Jan. 6.
The FCC, however, says NRIC still exists. It just hasn’t been re-chartered. The chartering function includes who will serve as chairman, usually a high-ranking executive of a telecommunications carrier-NRIC’s chairman was Ivan Seidenberg, then-CEO of Nynex-and what specific issues it will address. In addition to the Galaxy IV issue, NRIC II is expected to examine the Year 2000 conversion. The FCC expects the chartering process will be completed this summer but NRIC members say they have yet to hear from the FCC about membership on NRIC II.
Once NRIC II is up and running, it is difficult to say what role it could have to play because the paging industry-through the Paging and Messaging Council of the Personal Communications Industry Association-already is assessing the scope of the problem and the industry’s response, said Rob Hoggarth, PCIA senior vice president of paging and messaging.
Assessing the scope of the problem first is necessary because the original estimates of how many paging customers were impacted by the outage may have been overstated. Originally, it was reported as much as 90 percent of all customers experienced the outage. Hoggarth said information now suggests that number to be lower. He could not be specific, however, because the Paging Technical Committee is still in a “fact-finding phase.”
It is unclear when the paging industry will be able to release definitive data on the customer impact of the Galaxy IV incident, but Hoggarth said that even if NRIC II is active by then, it would be unnecessary for two groups to collect the same data. PCIA does not want NRIC II to look into the Galaxy IV incident because it doesn’t want more paging regulations, Hoggarth said.
If it ever does probe the Galaxy IV satellite incident, NRIC II might find it necessary to chastise both the satellite and wireless industries for ignoring previous advice. In 1996, NRIC II suggested the two industries create forums to collect, exchange and examine network reliability, i.e. outage data, but neither industry did. A PanAmSat spokesman said the forums were not created because the suggestion was part of a report aimed at the public switched telephone network.
The wireline industries participate in the Network Reliability Steering Committee of the Alliance for Telecommunications Industry Solutions. NRSC eventually is expected to be a subgroup of NRIC II. In 1996, “We said it would be nice if they took a page from the wireline world [but] we also assumed if they got to the point that they were supporting telephony, they would have to do outage reports,” said Ray Albers of Bell Atlantic and NRSC chairman.
