Emergency Reporting Act

Emergency Reporting Act

This bill requires the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to report on certain activations of the Disaster Information Reporting System (the system through which communications providers report their operational status during times of crisis) and to adopt specified rules related to network outage reporting.

If the system was activated for at least seven days, the FCC must issue a preliminary a report that includes (1) the number and duration of any service outages, (2) the approximate number of users or the amount of infrastructure potentially affected by a service outage, and (3) the number and duration of any outages at public safety answering points (PSAPs) that prevent the PSAPs from receiving and routing emergency calls to emergency service personnel. The FCC must also hold at least one public field hearing in the area affected by the event, and it must issue a final report that includes recommendations on how to improve the resiliency of affected communications or networks recovery efforts.

The FCC must also determine the circumstances under which it shall require certain service providers to notify a PSAP of a communications service disruption that prevents the origination of 9–1–1 calls or the delivery of information that allows the PSAP to identify the number of or locate a 9–1–1 caller. Further, the FCC must require this notification to be made and specify the appropriate timing of the notification.