ITA's FCC Reform Alert--Servce Restoration Plan
Thursday, March 01, 2012
(0 Comments)
Posted by: Andrea Haney
ITA Reminds
Members of Duty to Have Emergency Response Plans
As
part of a series of initiatives in 2007 in response to ice storms, pandemic
fears, and other causers of widespread service outages, ITA hosted an Emergency
Planning workshop and distributed several Special Reports. In January 2007, the IUB notified all ITA
members it would amend its Annual ETC Quality of Service Reporting form to add
a question asking whether you have an updated emergency response plan.
The
ITA Industry Relations Committee prepared a Service Restoration and Business
Continuity Plan to help ITA members establish or improve their emergency
response plans. Most companies should have their plans from several years ago
that can be readily updated.
In
its Order reforming USF and ICC, the FCC notified all ETCs that it expects
carriers to have emergency response plans in place. During the January 10th FCC Reform
Workshop, industry experts noted this requirement as part of the new FCC
reporting requirements on customer complaints, outages, unfilled service
requests, and compliance with service quality standards and consumer protection
rules. Specifically, section 54.202 of the FCC’s rules requires
that an ETC will need to certify (beginning April 2013) and annually thereafter
that they are able to function in emergency situations, and: - Demonstrate its ability to remain
functional in emergency situations, including a demonstration that it has a
reasonable amount of back-up power to ensure functionality without an external
power source,
- Show it is able to reroute traffic
around damaged facilities, and
- Show it is capable of managing traffic
spikes resulting from emergency situations
To
assist ITA members, we have linked an updated version of the Service Restoration and Business Continuity
Plan to help members refresh and update your plans.
Though all telecom companies are well-prepared
for isolated service outages, ITA strongly encourages all companies to update,
refresh and test your emergency response plans on a regular basis.
|
Print to Page
Email to a Friend