PUBLIC NOTICE
Federal Communications Commission
445 12th St., S.W.
Washington, D.C. 20554
News Media Information 202 / 418-0500
Internet: http://www.fcc.gov
TTY: 1-888-835-5322
DA 16-514
May 9, 2016
PSHSB ANNOUNCES THE OPENING OF A TWO-MONTH TESTING PERIOD FOR 
THE NEW VERSION OF THE NETWORK OUTAGE REPORTING SYSTEM
By this Public Notice, the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC or Commission) Public Safety 
and Homeland Security Bureau (Bureau) announces that, over the next two months, from May 10 to July 
5, 2016 the Commission will introduce a new version of the Network Outage Reporting System (NORS) 
for testing and, ultimately, operational use. Under Part 4 of the Commission’s rules, providers of voice 
and paging communications, (e.g., wireless, wireline, cable, satellite communications and interconnected 
Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP)) must report significant disruptions or outages to their 
communications systems.  
The new platform contains improvements that will enhance the overall security and reliability of NORS 
and allow future evolution to best support new communications technologies and analytic methods.  The 
new version of NORS has two interfaces:  a web-based interface and an API interface for companies that 
want to file outage reports automatically.  These interfaces will be open for testing during this two-month 
period.  During the testing phase, companies will continue to file their official NORS reports in the old 
system.  The Commission requests that companies voluntarily file a duplicate of some of their reports in 
the new NORS system so that companies can become familiar with the new system.  Similarly, if a 
company does not have any reportable outages during the test period, the Commission requests that the 
company voluntarily file a test outage report in the new NORS system.
If testing is successful, the Commission will migrate all filings to the new NORS system on July 20, 
2016. On that date, any test data in the new NORS system will be deleted and the old NORS system will 
be retired. The data from the old NORS system will be copied to the new NORS system.  Finally, all 
filing of NORS reports will be done using the new system from that point forward.
The following dates should be noted by all companies required to file outage information in NORS:
Date Milestone
May 10, 2016
Testing begins of the web-based interface including 
filing duplicate reports in the new test system.
May 14, 2016
Testing begins of the API interface including filing 
duplicate reports in the new test system.
June 2, 2016 Training session on the new NORS system.
July 5, 2016 Testing of the new NORS system ends.
July 20, 2016 Cutover to the new NORS system.
2A tester/user can obtain a UserID by going to https://www.fcc.gov/eform/submit/register-to-nors.  A new 
UserID and password will be sent to the tester’s e-mail address.  The new NORS system can be accessed 
at https://fcctest.appiancloud.com/suite/.  Any questions regarding the new NORS system, the testing 
phase, and any reporting requirements can be directed to John Healy, CCR/PSHSB, at 202-418-2448 or 
john.healy@fcc.gov.