Facilitating Implementation of Next Generation 911 Services (NG911); Improving 911 Reliability

FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION <CFR>47 CFR Parts 0 and 9</CFR> <DEPDOC>[PS Docket Nos. 21-479 and 13-75, FCC 25-21; FR ID 295635]</DEPDOC> <SUBJECT>Facilitating Implementation of Next Generation 911 Services (NG911); Improving 911 Reliability</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Federal Communications Commission. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Proposed rule. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> In this document, the Federal Communications Commission (the FCC or Commission) proposes rules that would help ensure that emerging Next Generation 911 (NG911) networks are reliable and interoperable. NG911 is replacing legacy 911 technology across the country with Internet Protocol (IP)-based infrastructure that will support new 911 capabilities, including text, video, and data. However, for NG911 to be fully effective, NG911 networks must safeguard the reliability of critical components and support the interoperability needed to seamlessly transfer 911 calls and data from one network to another. When the Commission first adopted 911 reliability rules in 2013, the transition to NG911 was in its very early stages. Since then, many state and local 911 Authorities have made significant progress in deploying NG911 capabilities in their jurisdictions. This Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (FNPRM) is the next step in fulfilling the Commission's commitment to facilitate the NG911 transition and to ensure that the transition does not inadvertently create vulnerabilities in the nation's critical public safety networks. The FNPRM proposes to update the definition of “covered 911 service provider” in the Commission's existing 911 reliability rules to ensure that the rules apply to service providers that control or operate critical pathways and components in NG911 networks. It also proposes to update the reliability standards for providers of critical NG911 functions to ensure the reliable delivery of 911 traffic to NG911 delivery points, and proposes to establish NG911 interoperability requirements for interstate transfer of 911 traffic between Emergency Services IP Networks (ESInets). In addition, the FNPRM proposes to modify the certification and oversight mechanisms in the current 911 reliability rules to improve reliability and interoperability in NG911 systems while minimizing burdens on service providers, and proposes to empower state and local 911 Authorities to obtain reliability and interoperability certifications directly from covered 911 service providers. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> Comments are due on or before July 21, 2025, and reply comments are due on or before August 18, 2025. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> Pursuant to §§ 1.415 and 1.419 of the Commission's rules, 47 CFR 1.415, 1.419, interested parties may file comments and reply comments on or before the dates indicated on the first page of this document. Comments may be filed using the Commission's Electronic Comment Filing System (ECFS). See Electronic Filing of Documents in Rulemaking Proceedings, 63 FR 24121 (1998), <E T="03">https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-1998-05-01/pdf/98-10310.pdf.</E> You may submit comments, identified by PS Docket Nos. 21-479 and 13-75, by any of the following methods: • <E T="03">Electronic Filers:</E> Comments may be filed electronically using the internet by accessing the ECFS: <E T="03">https://www.fcc.gov/ecfs.</E> • <E T="03">Paper Filers:</E> Parties who choose to file by paper must file an original and one copy of each filing. • Filings can be sent by hand or messenger delivery, by commercial courier, or by the U.S. Postal Service. All filings must be addressed to the Secretary, Federal Communications Commission. • Hand-delivered or messenger-delivered paper filings for the Commission's Secretary are accepted between 8:00 a.m. and 4:00 p.m. by the FCC's mailing contractor at 9050 Junction Drive, Annapolis Junction, MD 20701. All hand deliveries must be held together with rubber bands or fasteners. Any envelopes and boxes must be disposed of before entering the building. • Commercial courier deliveries (any deliveries not by the U.S. Postal Service) must be sent to 9050 Junction Drive, Annapolis Junction, MD 20701. Filings sent by U.S. Postal Service First-Class Mail, Priority Mail, and Priority Mail Express must be sent to 45 L Street NE, Washington, DC 20554. • <E T="03">People With Disabilities:</E> To request materials in accessible formats for people with disabilities (braille, large print, electronic files, audio format), send an email to <E T="03">fcc504@fcc.gov</E> or call the Consumer & Governmental Affairs Bureau at 202-418-0530. <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Chris Fedeli, <E T="03">Christopher.Fedeli@fcc.gov</E> or 202-418-1514, or Daniel Spurlock, <E T="03">Daniel.Spurlock@fcc.gov</E> or 202-418-0212, Attorney-Advisors, of the Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau, Policy and Licensing Division. </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> This is a summary of the Commission's Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (FNPRM), in PS Docket Nos. 21-479 and 13-75, FCC 25-21, adopted on March 27, 2025, and released on March 28, 2025. The full text of this document is available at <E T="03">https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/FCC-25-21A1.pdf.</E> <E T="03">Ex Parte Presentations—Permit-But-Disclose.</E> The Commission will treat this proceeding as a “permit-but-disclose” proceeding in accordance with the Commission's <E T="03">ex parte</E> rules. Persons making <E T="03">ex parte</E> presentations must file a copy of any written presentation or a memorandum summarizing any oral presentation within two business days after the presentation (unless a different deadline applicable to the Sunshine period applies). Persons making oral <E T="03">ex parte</E> presentations are reminded that memoranda summarizing the presentation must (1) list all persons attending or otherwise participating in the meeting at which the <E T="03">ex parte</E> presentation was made, and (2) summarize all data presented and arguments made during the presentation. If the presentation consisted in whole or in part of the presentation of data or arguments already reflected in the presenter's written comments, memoranda, or other filings in the proceeding, the presenter may provide citations to such data or arguments in his or her prior comments, memoranda, or other filings (specifying the relevant page and/or paragraph numbers where such data or arguments can be found) in lieu of summarizing them in the memorandum. Documents shown or given to Commission staff during <E T="03">ex parte</E> meetings are deemed to be written <E T="03">ex parte</E> presentations and must be filed consistent with rule 1.1206(b). In proceedings governed by rule 1.49(f) or for which the Commission has made available a method of electronic filing, written <E T="03">ex parte</E> presentations and memoranda summarizing oral <E T="03">ex parte</E> presentations, and all attachments thereto, must be filed through the electronic comment filing system available for that proceeding, and must be filed in their native format ( <E T="03">e.g.,</E> .doc, .xml, .ppt, searchable .pdf). Participants in this proceeding should familiarize themselves with the Commission's <E T="03">ex parte</E> rules. <E T="03">Providing Accountability Through Transparency Act.</E> Consistent with the Providing Accountability Through Transparency Act, Public Law 118-9, a summary of this FNPRM will be available on <E T="03">https://www.fcc.gov/proposed-rulemakings.</E> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Synopsis</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Introduction</HD> In this Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (FNPRM), we propose to update existing Commission rules to ensure the resiliency, reliability, interoperability, and accessibility of Next Generation 911 (NG911) networks. With the transition to NG911, dedicated 911 networks are evolving from Time Division Multiplexing (TDM)-based architectures to Internet Protocol (IP)-based architectures, which will provide state and local 911 authorities with significant new capabilities to respond to those in need of emergency assistance and to improve system resilience in comparison to legacy 911. These new capabilities include multimedia NG911 calls that allow the transmission of texts, photos, videos, and data, which persons with disabilities depend on for full and equal access to emergency services. However, for NG911 to be fully effective and accessible, it is essential that NG911 networks are designed to ensure the reliability of critical components and applications and interoperability to enable seamless transfer of 911 calls and data. Today, we propose certain reliability and interoperability requirements that would apply to “covered 911 service providers” (CSPs), the providers that support essential functions within 911 networks such as call routing and automatic caller location, with particular emphasis on entities that provide these capabilities in the NG911 environment. <SU>1</SU> <FTREF/> Our proposals build on the 911 reliability rules that the Commission adopted in 2013, which require CSPs to take measures to provide reliable 911 service to Public Safety Answering Points (PSAPs) with respect to circuit diversity, central-office backup power, and diverse network monitoring. <SU>2</SU> <FTREF/> We propose to modify and update these rules to keep pace with the ongoing transition to NG911, improve NG911 network reliability and resilience, reduce the risk of outages, and ensure accessibility to the life-saving improvements that NG911 is uniquely capable of delivering. We also propose to adopt rules that would require Emergency Services IP Network (ESInet) providers to support interoperability in the interstate transfer o ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 366k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━