BILL ANALYSIS Ó
SENATE COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS
Senator Ricardo Lara, Chair
2015 - 2016 Regular Session
SB 1250 (McGuire) - Telecommunications: major rural outages:
notifications and reporting
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|Version: March 28, 2016 |Policy Vote: E., U., & C. 7 - 0 |
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|Urgency: No |Mandate: Yes |
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|Hearing Date: May 2, 2016 |Consultant: Narisha Bonakdar |
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This bill meets the criteria for referral to the Suspense File.
Bill
Summary: SB 1250 requires specified telecommunication services
providers to notify the California Office of Emergency Services
(OES) of a major rural outage, as defined, and requires the
California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) in consultation
with OES to establish the requirements.
Fiscal
Impact:
Ongoing costs of approximately $152,000 (Public Utilities
Commission Utilities Reimbursement Account) to analyze data
and report to the Legislature, coordinate with OES, and
oversee carrier reporting.
Minor costs to OES.
Background: The Federal Communications Commission (FCC)
requires facilities-based telecommunications service providers
(e.g., wireless, wireline/landline, cable and satellite
communications providers) to electronically report significant
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disruptions or outages through the Network Outage Reporting
System (NORS). FCC rules require notification for all outages
that last at least 30 minutes and affect at least 900,000 user
minutes, calculated as the outages duration multiplied by the
potential customers affected. The FCC presumes the outage
information is confidential and protected from routine public
disclosure given the sensitivity of the information to national
security and commercial competitiveness. The CPUC largely
adheres to the FCC outage notification requirements. However,
the CPUC has petitioned the FCC in order to gain access to the
NORS data for California.
In March 2015, the FCC adopted a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking
regarding proposals to update the Outage Reporting rules to
enhance the reliability and resiliency of the Nation's
communication system, in particular to strengthen the Nation's
911 system. The FCC is considering a number of changes to the
existing rules, however, largely maintaining the existing
notification outage threshold of 30 minutes duration and
affecting 900,000 user minutes. The proposals include creating
more uniformity in applying the threshold for wireless service
which the FCC found are applying different methods, as well as,
proposals to better address the needs of rural communities by
considering a geography-based threshold. The FCC is also
soliciting comments as to whether and how it may share data with
state regulatory agencies, such as the CPUC. As of the writing
of this analysis, the proposed rulemaking remains open.
Proposed Law:
This bill:
Establishes the 911 Emergency Reliability and Public Safety
Act and requires the CPUC to annually report specified
information on major rural outages to the Legislature.
Defines "major rural outage" as an outage of
telecommunications service in a rural area, experienced by a
facilities-based provider of telecommunications services that
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the FCC requires to provide access to 911 services, that is
both (A) of 30 or more minutes duration and (B) potentially
affects 75,000 or more user-minutes.
Requires the CPUC, in consultation with OES, to:
- Require all facilities-based telecommunications services
to provide responder outage information within 30 minutes
of the outage to OES.
- Require all facilities-based providers of
telecommunications services to provide initial outage
reporting within 120 minutes of the outage to OES.
- Require all facilities-based providers of
telecommunications services to provide final outage
reporting within 20 days of the outage to OES and the CPUC,
and specifies information that must be included in the
report.
- Adopt rules to inform the public relative to outages,
including specified information to be posted on the
providers Internet website.
- Determine what information may be made public consistent
with the confidentiality provisions of Public Utilities
Code § 583 and confidentiality requirements of the FCC.
Authorizes the CPUC, in consultation with the OES, to adopt
rules to implement and refine the notification and reporting
requirements.
Requires OES to notify any applicable county office of
emergency services and sheriff of any county affected by the
outage and specifies what should be included in the report.
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Requires the telecommunications service provider to notify the
CPUC upon its completion of providing initial outage
reporting.
Requires that a written summary of the outage report is
supplied to the board of supervisors of each county affected
by the outage within 30 days of the major rural outage.
Provides that violations of the 911 Emergency Reliability and
Public Safety Act are subject to existing CPUC enforcement
actions, including fines and penalties.
Establishes that rural outage notifications and reporting
requirements of this act are among the numerous provisions
explicitly authorized and not subject to the limitations
imposed on the CPUC to limit regulatory jurisdiction of Voice
over Internet Protocol (VOIP) and Internet Protocol (IP).
Staff
Comments: Per the CPUC, in 2015, facilities-based wireline and
wireless telephone corporations filed approximately 460 NORS
reports per month, based on the 900,000 user minute reporting
threshold. This Legislation has a 75,000 user minute reporting
threshold for rural areas; at present, the CPUC does not have
information on the number of users affected by past outages or
how that might be affected by future outages. Consequently, the
CPUC estimates that the new reporting could generate hundreds of
additional reports per month.
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