WASHINGTON-The chairman of the House Government Reform Committee told the Federal Communications Commission Wednesday that its proposed outage reporting requirements for wireless carriers go against the Critical Infrastructure Information Act.
“The FCC proposal is not crafted from a security perspective. We do not want to create additional vulnerabilities for critical infrastructure sectors. Unfortunately, the proposed regulations would do just that. The Department of Homeland Security, not the FCC, is the appropriate agency to receive sensitive critical infrastructure information since it also possesses the statutory ability to respond to security threats. Moreover, it is unnecessary to create duplicative reporting processes,” said Rep. Tom Davis (R-Va.). “In light of these significant concerns, I ask that the commission not take action on the proposal to impose mandatory outage reporting requirements on the wireless industry.”
The FCC adopted proposed rules in February to force wireless carriers to report service outages.
The wireline industry has been subject to reporting in cases when 30,000 customers lose telephone service for at least 30 minutes since the early 1990s. The FCC now proposes that this same matrix-900,000 user minutes-be applied across the telecommunications industry.
However only reports of outages will be required-not network anomalies. In other words, if the wireless network is operating but a peak in usage-such as the 400 percent that occurred on Sept. 11-makes it difficult for most consumers to make calls, a wireless carrier would not be required to report.
Nonetheless the industry prefers voluntary reporting and it was the Cellular Telecommunications & Internet Association that released Davis’ letter to the media.
The FCC decided to propose mandatory reporting after a telecommunications industry voluntary trial showed how inadequate voluntary reporting can be.
FCC Commissioner Kathleen Abernathy, who once worked for AirTouch Communications Inc., said the staff had convinced her it was necessary to propose mandatory reporting.
