SB 1250: Telecommunications: Warren-911-Emergency Assistance Act: notification of rural outages.

Session Year: 2015-2016
House: Senate

Version:

Existing provisions of the Warren-911-Emergency Assistance Act, establishes the number 911 as the primary emergency telephone number for use in the state and requires the providing of enhanced service capable of selective routing, automatic number identification, or automatic location identification. The act requires a telephone corporation serving rural telephone areas that cannot provide enhanced 911 emergency telephone service capable of selective routing, automatic number identification, or automatic location identification to present to the Office of Emergency Services a comprehensive plan detailing a schedule by which their facilities will be converted to be compatible with the enhanced emergency telephone system.

This bill would require a facilities-based provider of telecommunications services that the Federal Communications Commission requires to provide access to 911 service to provide responder outage notification by email to the Office of Emergency Services whenever there is a rural outage, as defined, within 60 minutes of discovering the rural outage. The bill would make the Office of Emergency Services responsible for notifying any applicable county office of emergency services and the sheriff of any county affected by the outage. The bill would require the responder outage notification to the Office of Emergency Services to include the telecommunications providers contact name and calling number with a description of the estimated area affected by the outage. The bill would require the telecommunications services provider to notify the Office of Emergency Services of the estimated time to repair the outage and when service is restored. The bill would require that the telecommunications service provider ensure that the calling number provided to the Office of Emergency Services with the responder outage notification be staffed by the indicated contact person, or by a person qualified to respond to inquiries about the outage, at all times until the provider notifies the office that service has been restored.

Under existing law, the Public Utilities Commission has regulatory authority over public utilities, including telephone corporations. Existing law requires the commission to periodically assess the reliability of the public telecommunications network and, if necessary, to develop recommendations for improvement. The assessment is required to include (1) an analysis of those factors that pose a risk to network reliability, including the adequacy of independent sources of reserve power, (2) consideration as to whether development of reliability standards is appropriate, and (3) consideration as to whether procedures should be developed to notify customers about accessing other telecommunications companies in the event of a service disruption.

This bill would impose, on a facilities-based provider of telecommunications services that the Federal Communications Commission requires to provide access to 911 service, certain notification and reporting requirements for a major rural outage of telecommunications services, with the requirements to be adopted by the commission in consultation with the Office of Emergency Services. The bill would make these requirements enforceable through the Public Utilities Act. The bill would require the commission to annually report to the Legislature on certain information from reports filed with the commission and to include recommendations to improve the reporting of major rural outages and remedial actions that can be undertaken to avoid or minimize outages. Because a violation of the Public Utilities Act or any order, decision, rule, direction, demand, or requirement of the commission is a crime, and the requirements added by the bill would be a part of, or enforceable pursuant to, the act and require actions by the commission for their implementation, the bill would impose a state-mandated local program by creating a new crime.

Existing law, until January 1, 2020, prohibits the commission from regulating Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) and Internet Protocol enabled service (IP enabled service), as defined, except as required or delegated by federal law or expressly provided otherwise in statute.

This bill would expressly authorize the commission to implement the notification and reporting requirements for major rural outages with respect to facilities-based VoIP and IP enabled service providers of telecommunications services that the Federal Communications Commission requires to provide access to 911 service.

The California Constitution requires the state to reimburse local agencies and school districts for certain costs mandated by the state. Statutory provisions establish procedures for making that reimbursement.

This bill would provide that no reimbursement is required by this act for a specified reason.

Discussed in Hearing