Federal Communications Commission 445 12 th St., S.W. Washington, D.C. 20554 News Media Information 202 / 418-0500 Internet: http://www.fcc.gov TTY: 1-888-835-5322 PUBLIC NOTICE DA 15-898 Released August 7, 2015 PUBLIC SAFETY AND HOMELAND SECURITY BUREAU ANNOUNCES AVAILABILITY OF 911 RELIABILITY CERTIFICATION SYSTEM PS Docket Nos. 13-75, 11-60 By this Public Notice, the Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau (Bureau) announces that the Federal Communications Commission’s (Commission’s) online system for filing 911 reliability certifications 1 is now available. Covered 911 Service Providers that wish to begin submitting information for the Initial Reliability Certification due October 15, 2015, may now do so through the Commission’s online portal at https://apps2.fcc.gov/rcs911/. As a consequence of recent events affecting the availability of 911 services, the Commission adopted rules intended to promote the use of critical best practices. The Commission’s rules require Covered 911 Service Providers 2 to take reasonable measures to provide reliable service with respect to 911 circuit diversity, central office backup power, and diverse network monitoring, as evidenced by an annual certification of compliance with specified best practices or reasonable alternative measures. 3 Substantive certification requirements are set forth in section 12.4(c) of the Commission’s rules. 4 The Initial Reliability Certification requires covered providers to demonstrate “substantial progress” toward meeting the requirements of the full Annual Reliability Certification. 5 Substantial progress is defined as compliance with standards of the full certification in at least 50 percent of the Covered 911 Service 1 See Improving 911 Reliability; Reliability and Continuity of Communications Networks, Including Broadband Technologies, PS Docket Nos. 13-75, 11-60, Report and Order, 28 FCC Rcd 17476 (2013), available at http://transition.fcc.gov/Daily_Releases/Daily_Business/2013/db1212/FCC-13-158A1.pdf. This collection of information has been approved by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) under control number 3060-1202. 2 See 47 C.F.R. § 12.4(a)(4) (defining Covered 911 Service Providers as entities that “[p]rovide[] 911, E911, or NG911 capabilities such as call routing, automatic location information (ALI), automatic number identification (ANI), or the functional equivalent of those capabilities, directly to a public safety answering point (PSAP), statewide default answering point, or appropriate local emergency authority,” or that “[o]perate[] one or more central offices that directly serve a PSAP”). 3 See 47 C.F.R. § 12.4. 4 47 C.F.R. § 12.4(c). 5 See Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau Announces Effective Dates of 911 Reliability Certification and PSAP Outage Notification Requirements, Public Notice, DA 14-1664 (2014), available at https://apps.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DA-14-1664A1.pdf. Provider’s critical 911 circuits, central offices that directly serve public safety answering points (PSAPs), and independently monitored 911 service areas. 6 On July 30, 2015, the Commission released an Order on Reconsideration in this proceeding, clarifying that, under section 12.4 of the Commission’s rules, Covered 911 Service Providers may implement and certify an alternative measure for any of the specific certification elements, as long as they “provide an explanation of how such alternative measures are reasonably sufficient to mitigate the risk of failure. We believe that this should include an explanation of how the alternative will mitigate such risk at least to a comparable extent as the measures specified in our rules.” 7 Covered 911 Service Providers that wish to begin submitting certification information may register new users on the login page at https://apps2.fcc.gov/rcs911/. 8 Companies that serve numerous PSAPs or service areas may choose to enter their responses in an Excel spreadsheet, which is available for download on the main menu page. 9 Once all certification information has been entered, the system provides a link to upload a signed attestation from a company’s Certifying Official that such information is true and correct. 10 More detailed instructions on how to complete the certification are available as Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) at https://apps2.fcc.gov/rcs911/911RCS_FAQ.html and in a User Manual posted on the main menu of the certification system. For further information about the certification system and filing process, please contact John Healy in the Cybersecurity and Communications Reliability Division of the Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau at (202) 418-2448 or john.healy@fcc.gov. For further information about the 911 reliability rules, please contact Eric Schmidt in the Cybersecurity and Communications Reliability Division of the Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau at (202) 418-1214 or eric.schmidt@fcc.gov. – FCC – 6 47 C.F.R. § 12.4(d)(1). 7 Improving 911 Reliability, et al., Order on Reconsideration, PS Docket Nos. 13-75, 11-60, FCC 15-95 (rel. July 30, 2015), available at https://www.fcc.gov/document/911-reliability-certification-order-reconsideration. 8 As with the Commission’s Network Outage Reporting System (NORS), there are two types of users: inputters and coordinators. Inputters only have access to information that they have submitted, while coordinators have access to all information submitted by their company. Users responsible for limited portions of a company’s certification (e.g., particular service areas or topics such as circuit diversity, backup power, or network monitoring) should register as inputters, while users responsible for overseeing each company’s certification as a whole should send a request to David Ahn (david.ahn@fcc.gov) or to John Healy (john.healy@fcc.gov) to be upgraded to coordinator status. For security purposes, these upgrades are done on a case-by-case basis. 9 Please note that only users registered as coordinators will have access to the Excel upload and download capability. 10 See 47 C.F.R. § 12.4(a)(2)-(3) (defining Certifying Official as “[a] corporate officer . . . with supervisory and budgetary authority over network operations in all relevant service areas” and explaining attestation requirements).