BILL ANALYSIS Ó
-----------------------------------------------------------------
|SENATE RULES COMMITTEE | SB 1250|
|Office of Senate Floor Analyses | |
|(916) 651-1520 Fax: (916) | |
|327-4478 | |
-----------------------------------------------------------------
THIRD READING
Bill No: SB 1250
Author: McGuire (D), et al.
Amended: 3/28/16
Vote: 21
SENATE ENERGY, U. & C. COMMITTEE: 7-0, 4/5/16
AYES: Hueso, Cannella, Hertzberg, Hill, Leyva, McGuire, Pavley
NO VOTE RECORDED: Morrell, Gaines, Lara, Wolk
SENATE APPROPRIATIONS COMMITTEE: 6-1, 5/27/16
AYES: Lara, Beall, Hill, McGuire, Mendoza, Nielsen
NOES: Bates
SUBJECT: Telecommunications: major rural outages:
notifications and reporting
SOURCE: Author
DIGEST: This bill requires notification of a major rural outage
of service, as defined, of specified providers of
telecommunication services and requires the California Public
Utilities Commission (CPUC) in consultation with the Office of
Emergency Services (OES) to establish the requirements.
ANALYSIS:
Existing law:
1)Provides that the CPUC has regulatory authority over public
utilities, including telephone corporations. (California
Constitution, Article 3 and 4)
SB 1250
Page 2
2)Requires the CPUC to periodically assess the reliability of
the public telecommunications network and, if necessary, to
develop recommendations for improvement.
3)Prohibits the CPUC from exercising regulatory jurisdiction
over Voice Over Internet Protocol (VOIP) and Internet Protocol
(IP) enabled services, except as specified, or as expressly
authorized by federal law or by statute. (Public Utilities
Code §710)
4)Establishes the Warren 911 Emergency Assistance Act
(Government Code §53100) which establishes the 911system.
5)Establishes the California Emergency Services Act and provides
that the state is recognized with responsibility to mitigate
the effects of natural, manmade, or war-caused emergencies
that result in conditions of disaster or in extreme peril to
life, property, and the resources of the state, generally to
protect the health and safety and preserve the lives and
property of the people of the state. Confers on the Governor
to provide state assistance and emergency programs and
establishes the OES. (Government Code §8550)
This bill:
1)Establishes the 911 Emergency Reliability and Public Safety
Act and requires the CPUC to annually report to the
Legislature summarizing major rural outage information,
including the number and duration of major rural outages and
the number of customers affected by those outages, as well as,
any related rules adopted, recommendations for statutory
changes, remedial actions to avoid outages, and failures to
comply.
2)Defines "major rural outage" as an outage of
telecommunications service in a rural area, experienced by a
facilities-based provider of telecommunications services that
the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) requires to
provide access to 911 service, that is both (A) of 30 or more
minutes duration and (B) potentially affects 75,000 or more
user-minutes. User-minutes is defined as multiplying the
outage's duration in minutes and the number of users
potentially affected.
SB 1250
Page 3
3)Requires the CPUC, in consultation with OES, to require all
facilities-based providers of telecommunications services to
provide responder outage information within 30 minutes of the
outage to OES. Requires OES to notify any applicable county
office of emergency services and sheriff of any county
affected by the outage, with specified information regarding
the telecommunications providers.
4)Requires the CPUC, in consultation with OES, to adopt rules to
inform the public relative to outages, including specified
information to be posted on the providers Internet Web site.
5)Requires the CPUC, in consultation with OES, to require all
facilities-based providers of telecommunications services to
provide initial outage reporting within 120 minutes of the
outage to OES. 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. Requires the telecommunications service
provider to notify the CPUC upon its completion of providing
initial outage reporting. Requires the CPUC, in consultation
with OES, to determine what information may be made public
consistent with the confidentiality provisions of Public
Utilities Code §583 and confidentiality requirements of the
FCC.
6)Requires the CPUC, in consultation with OES, to require all
facilities-based providers of telecommunications services to
provide final outage reporting within 20 days of the outage to
OES and the CPUC. Requires specified information that should
be included in the report. Requires the telecommunications
service provider to notify the CPUC upon its completion of
providing initial outage reporting. Requires the CPUC, in
consultation with OES, to determine what information may be
made public consistent with the confidentiality provisions of
Public Utilities Code §583 and confidentiality requirements of
the FCC. 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.
7)Authorizes the CPUC, in consultation with the OES, to adopt
rules to implement and refine the notification and reporting
requirements.
SB 1250
Page 4
8)Provides that violations of the 911 Emergency Reliability and
Public Safety Act are subject to existing CPUC enforcement
actions, including fines and penalties.
9)Establishes that rural outage notifications and reporting
requirements of this act shall be among the numerous
provisions explicitly authorized and not subject to the
limitations imposed on the CPUC to limit regulatory
jurisdiction of VOIP and IP.
Background
North Coast service outages. The North Coast of California has
experienced at least four significant outages of the its
telecommunications service in the last year, including a
September 3, 2015 incident when a fiber cable owned by AT&T was
cut, as well as, December 9th outage in Humboldt County. These
outages have affected the public safety in several ways
including the loss of 911 service. During some of these outages
ambulances have been deployed and staged at busy intersections,
in lieu of 911 services. Additionally, the United States Coast
Guard was required to fly their entire Northern territory until
emergency service would be back up. Although these outages have
affected the communities' quality of life and public safety,
many of the outages experienced in the North Coast never reach
the federal Network Outage Reporting System (NORS) thresholds,
therefore telecommunications service providers are not required
to communicate with local and statewide emergency officials.
FCC outage reporting requirements. The FCC requires
facilities-based telecommunications service providers, including
wireless, wireline/landline, cable and satellite communications
providers, including VOIP services, to report information
electronically, through the NORS, about significant disruptions
or outages to their communications systems that meet specified
thresholds set forth in the FCC's rules (47 C.F.R. Part 4). 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 FCC requires facilities that trigger the
required threshold of 900,000 user minutes provide the required
notification. This threshold is defined as an outage lasts at
least 30 minutes and affects at least 900,000 user minutes,
SB 1250
Page 5
calculated as the outages duration multiplied by the potential
customers affected. The CPUC largely adheres to the FCC outage
notification requirements, utilizing the same thresholds and
similar reporting detailed in General Order 133-C. However, the
CPUC has petitioned the FCC in order to gain access to the NORS
data for California.
FCC opens rulemaking to propose changes to NORS reporting. 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.
Rural vs. urban/suburban. This bill utilizes the U.S. Census
Bureau definition for rural communities. Since
telecommunications networks are not necessarily designed in a
manner that reflects the rural and urban/suburban designations
of the U.S. Census map, there may be some instances when the
interface between the two may trigger reporting requirements
that when the population numbers of the network are skewed by
the network servicing the neighboring suburban/urban area.
However, this would pose a challenge in a situation when the
service often goes out in the area. It would seem reasonable
that service outages experienced by customers should be
minimized in those instances, as the urban areas may be more
likely to have redundancy built into its systems.
Regulation of VOIP and IP. In 2012, the Legislature passed
statute to limit the CPUC's regulation of VOIP and IP-enabled
services, Public Utilities Code §710. However, the code section
explicitly lists several exemptions for regulatory activities
that would be allowed which include the CPUC's authority in
Public Utilities Code §716 to require data and requirements to
SB 1250
Page 6
maintain the 911 services. Additionally, Public Utilities Code
§710 provides that additional exceptions to the prohibition on
CPUC regulatory oversight can be made so long as they are
established via statute or by the federal government. The
proposed addition of rural outage notification in SB 1250 would
meet the requirements of the existing statute. However, several
of the service providers opposing this bill argue that adding
additional exceptions would be inconsistent with the
Legislature's intent to support a competitive market. The
Legislature must weigh the desire to ensure public safety and
notification of service outages against the desires of the
service providers to prohibit any additional regulatory
requirements.
Is the threshold to low? This bill proposes to adopt a rural
outage threshold of 30 minutes duration and 75,000 or more
user-minutes. As such an outage of 30 minutes would need to
potentially affect 2,500 customers. If the outage is two hours,
then it need only affect 625 customers. It's unclear whether
75,000 user minutes is the appropriate threshold, though a
specified rural threshold should be well under 900,000 user
minutes or determined exclusively by the location of the outage.
Should this bill move forward the author may wish to consider
increasing the threshold while ensuring it remains well-under
900,000 user minutes.
FISCAL EFFECT: Appropriation: No Fiscal
Com.:YesLocal: Yes
According to the Senate Appropriations Committee:
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.
SUPPORT: (Verified5/27/16)
Access Sonoma Broadband
SB 1250
Page 7
Alpine County Board of Supervisors
American Heart Association
American Stroke Association
Branagh Information Group Inc.
Broadband Alliance of Mendocino County
California Center for Rural Policy
California Fire Chiefs Association
California Police Chiefs Association
California State Sheriffs' Association
Communications Workers of America, District 9 AFL-CIO
Consumer Federation of California
Fire Districts Association of California
Humboldt County Board of Supervisors
Marin County Board of Supervisors
Mendocino Coast Broadband Alliance
Mendocino County Board of Supervisors
Monterey County Business Council
North Bay-North Coast Broadband Consortium
Rural County Representatives of California
The Utility Reform Network
OPPOSITION: (Verified5/27/16)
AT&T
CTIA
California Cable & Telecommunications Association
Consolidated Communications
Frontier Communications
Sprint
T-Mobile
Verizon
ARGUMENTS IN SUPPORT: SB 1250 is simple; require
telecommunications providers to report rural 911 outages to the
appropriate public safety agencies. The author states that
failure to report 911 service outages can wreak havoc on rural
communities, and put the public's safety unnecessarily at risk.
Previous 911 outages along the North Coast have resulted in
significant disruptions to the community. The author further
states that over the past few months rural Northern California
communities were affected by several service outages resulting
in 911 call centers going offline. These outages did not reach
SB 1250
Page 8
the Federal NORS thresholds, therefore, telephone utilities were
not required to communicate with local and statewide emergency
officials. The California Police Chiefs Association states that
providing emergency assistance to every region of California is
an essential task of our law enforcement agencies. To do so
requires a functioning 911 system that is maintained at all
times. SB 1250 will help ensure this, and for that reason Cal
Chiefs is supporting the measure.
ARGUMENTS IN OPPOSITION:Many of the communications companies
opposing this bill state the current requirements to report
outages are sufficient and don't merit further changes. They
also argue against the new threshold for reporting because they
believe it is not feasible and would create a new reporting
regime. Additionally, many of the communications providers
express concerns that this bill grants the CPUC new regulatory
powers and be inconsistent with state policy adopted by the
Legislature to prohibit the regulation of VOIP and IP enabled
services.
Prepared by:Nidia Bautista / E., U., & C. / (916) 651-4107
5/28/16 17:11:58
**** END ****