New Act Demands Public Hearings and Reports on Major Communication Outages Affecting 911 Services

The newly proposed Emergency Reporting Act is aimed squarely at making sure the lights—and cell towers—stay on when disaster strikes, and holding the communication networks accountable when they don't. Essentially, this bill forces the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to get serious about documenting and learning from major network failures that happen during emergencies.

When the Network Goes Dark: Mandatory Public Review

If the FCC has to activate its Disaster Information Reporting System (the System) for at least seven days in a given year, they will now be required to hold at least one public hearing within the following year. Think of this as a mandatory post-mortem, but with the public invited. The FCC needs to make sure that these hearings include the people who really felt the pain: state and local officials, residents, consumer advocates, first responders, 911 directors, and even the utility companies. This is critical because it ensures that the voices of those who were cut off, like a small business owner unable to process payments or a family unable to reach 911, are officially heard and documented after a major weather event or disaster (Sec. 2).

The Data That Matters: Tracking the 911 Impact

Within 120 days of one of these public hearings, the FCC must produce a report detailing what went wrong. This report isn't about collecting new data; it’s about analyzing the information they already have on hand. The reports must cover the number and duration of outages for broadband, VoIP phone service, and mobile services, estimating how many users and how much equipment were affected. Most importantly, the report must specifically detail any outages that prevented emergency centers from getting essential information—like caller location or number—or from properly routing 911 calls. The goal here is to get a clear picture of the true cost of network failure on public safety, and the FCC must also include suggestions for making affected networks tougher against future disasters (Sec. 2).

Modernizing Emergency Alerts

Beyond the public hearings, the Act mandates a crucial study focused on improving how service providers alert emergency centers (like 911 call centers) to problems. The FCC has one year to investigate whether including visual information in outage alerts is useful for public safety agencies, and what kind of burden this would place on the phone companies that have to send the alerts. If you’ve ever tried to explain a complex technical issue over the phone, you know a visual aid can be a game-changer. This study, and the subsequent recommendations for rule changes, could lead to 911 operators getting clearer, faster information when systems fail, potentially shaving off precious minutes during a crisis (Sec. 2).

Keeping the FCC in Check

One provision that might offer some relief to service providers is the clarification that this Act does not grant the FCC any new, broad regulatory power over broadband internet providers beyond what is specifically detailed in the bill itself. This keeps the focus tightly on emergency reporting and resilience, rather than opening the door to wider regulatory changes. While service providers may face an increased administrative burden from participating in these hearings and providing detailed outage data, the overall intent is clearly to improve public safety and accountability when communication fails during the moments we need it most.