FCC blames phone companies for derecho 911 outages
Telephone companies' failure to provide sufficient backup power and monitor networks properly directly contributed to "large-scale" outages of communications at 911 call centers during the derecho storm last June, according to a report expected to be released by the Federal Communications Commission today.
As one of the most destructive storms in U.S. history moved rapidly across the Midwest and Mid-Atlantic regions, 77 emergency call centers, serving more than 3.6 million customers in six states, lost phone connections, including information on call locations, the report says.
The communication networks and services of 911 call centers are provided by large telephone companies, including Verizon and Frontier.
Virginia and West Virginia were particularly hard hit, with most of their 911 call centers experiencing partial or complete outages for several days. "Isolated breakdowns" also were reported in Ohio, New Jersey, Maryland and Indiana, the FCC report says.
More than 2 million people in three states — Virginia, West Virginia and Ohio — were unable to reach 911 after 17 call centers lost service completely.
Local governments affected by the outages filed formal reports with the FCC following the storm, and the agency launched an investigation into the causes.
Along with the report's findings, FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski will also "propose measures to improve reliability of the existing 911 networks," including providing adequate backup power and on-site audits, improving monitoring and ensuring that phone companies better alert 911 centers of outages.
In Northern Virginia, FCC investigators found phone circuits that were powered by single central offices. With no working generators at the offices, the entire system collapsed.
About 7% of the generators belonging to one company — the FCC didn't disclose the company's name — didn't work properly. "They didn't maintain them or test them properly," the agency said.
Some companies didn't have information on the location of circuits that connect to call centers because they hadn't conducted on-site audits.
Phone companies' network operations centers also missed outages because their "monitoring systems" failed to work.
Some local government officials also cited phone companies' failure to promptly notify 911 centers. Fairfax County in Northern Virginia said it took Verizon about three hours to notify the county that 911 was down after the emergency line went out, according to a report in The Washington Post.
"Verizon understands the critical role it plays in the 911 ecosystem. We take this role seriously, and when an issue arises, we act quickly to investigate, correct and apply any learnings across our system," Verizon said in a statement.
Verizon says it has taken several steps to improve its 911 call facilities, including backup power system audits of "all critical Verizon 911 facilities in Virginia, Maryland and Washington, D.C."
The company also says it "improved communications with 911 center directors and other government officials during emergencies."
Source: http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2013/01/09/fcc-derecho-911-outage/1821695/--
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