Resilient Networks; Concerning Disruptions to Communications

<RULE> FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION <CFR>47 CFR Part 4</CFR> <DEPDOC>[PS Docket Nos. 21-346 and 15-80; ET Docket No. 04-35, FCC 25-45; FR ID 311054]</DEPDOC> <SUBJECT>Resilient Networks; Concerning Disruptions to Communications</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Federal Communications Commission. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Final rule. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> In this document, the Federal Communications Commission (Commission) adopts an Order on Reconsideration ( <E T="03">Order</E> ) which grants in part, the Alliance for Telecommunications Industry Solutions' (ATIS's) petition for reconsideration of the Second Report and Order & Further Notice Proposed Rulemaking (FNPRM)—in which the Commission adopted certain rules governing Disaster Information Reporting System (DIRS) activations—to clarify what the Commission expects from providers during DIRS activations. Specifically, the <E T="03">Order</E> clarifies the scope of the suspension of Network Outage Reporting System (NORS) reporting obligations during DIRS activations, thereby reducing filing burdens. The Commission otherwise denies ATIS's petition. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> Effective September 16, 2025. </EFFDATE> <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Jeanne Stockman, Attorney Advisor, Cybersecurity and Communications Reliability Division, Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau, at (202) 418-7830, or <E T="03">Jeanne.Stockman@fcc.gov.</E> </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: </HD> This is a summary of the Commission's Order on Reconsideration ( <E T="03">Order</E> ), FCC 25-45, adopted August 4, 2025, and released August 6, 2025. The full text of this document is available by downloading the text from the Commission's website at: <E T="03">https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/FCC-25-45A1.pdf.</E> The full text of this document is available for public inspection and copying during regular business hours in the FCC Reference Center, 45 L Street NE, Washington, DC 20554. 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 (voice). A Proposed Rule relating to 47 CFR part 4 is published elsewhere in this issue of the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> . <HD SOURCE="HD1">Procedural Matters</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Regulatory Flexibility Analysis</HD> The Regulatory Flexibility Act of 1980, as amended (RFA), requires that an agency prepare a regulatory flexibility analysis for notice-and-comment rulemaking proceedings, unless the agency certifies that “the rule will not, if promulgated, have a significant economic impact on a substantial number of small entities.” Accordingly, the Commission has prepared a Final Regulatory Flexibility Analysis (FRFA) and Initial Regulatory Flexibility Analysis (IRFA) concerning possible impact of the rule and policy changes contained in the <E T="03">Order on Reconsideration</E> on small entities concerning possible impact of the rule and policy changes contained in the <E T="03">Order on Reconsideration</E> on small entities. The FRFA is set forth in Appendix C. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Congressional Review Act</HD> The Commission has determined, and the Administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, Office of Management and Budget, concurs, that this rule is “non-major” under the Congressional Review Act, 5 U.S.C. 804(2). The Commission will send a copy of this <E T="03">Order on Reconsideration</E> to Congress and the Government Accountability Office pursuant to 5 U.S.C. 801(a)(1)(A). <HD SOURCE="HD1">Paperwork Reduction Act</HD> This <E T="03">Order on Reconsideration</E> does not contain proposed information collections subject to the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995 (PRA), 44 U.S.C. 3501-3521. In addition, therefore, it does not contain any new or modified information collection burden for small business concerns with fewer than 25 employees, pursuant to the Small Business Paperwork Relief Act of 2002, 44 U.S.C. 3506(c)(4). <HD SOURCE="HD1">Synopsis</HD> In this <E T="03">Order,</E> we grant, in part, ATIS's Petition for Reconsideration and/or Clarification of the <E T="03">Second Report and Order.</E> The <E T="03">Second Report and Order</E> codifies the suspension of NORS reporting requirements when filers timely report outages in DIRS while DIRS is activated. We clarify that when any NORS filing is due prior to the first DIRS filing deadline, providers must submit that filing in NORS. Requirements to submit NORS filings with deadlines that occur after the deadline for the first DIRS filing deadline are waived so long as the outage is timely reported in DIRS. We otherwise deny the petition. Specifically, we decline ATIS's request to clarify that the waiver of NORS reporting during DIRS activations extends to 911 and 988 special facility notifications. We reaffirm that the final rules that the Commission adopted in the Second Report and Order regarding the waiver of NORS reporting during DIRS activations serve the public interest. We dispose of the other issues raised in ATIS's petition, concerning DIRS final reports and extending the NORS reporting waiver to DIRS-Lite activations, pursuant to § 1.429(b). These arguments were not raised in response to the <E T="03">2021 Resilient Networks NPRM,</E> and we do not believe that consideration of ATIS's arguments on these points is required in the public interest, as necessary for us to address an issue that was not raised during the proceeding for which reconsideration is sought. We nonetheless seek comment on these issues in the <E T="03">Third Further Notice</E> to more fully consider alternatives in response to the points ATIS raises. <HD SOURCE="HD2">A. Clarifying the Situations in Which NORS Reporting Is Waived</HD> We clarify our outage reporting requirements for outages that occur in the same geographic area as a DIRS activation. In these circumstances, providers must file in NORS if the required filing will become due prior to the first DIRS filing deadline of the activation. Requirements to submit any NORS filings with deadlines that occur after the first DIRS filing deadline will be waived as long as the outages are timely reported in DIRS. If the first DIRS filing deadline occurs before the NORS notification is due, then the provider may file solely in DIRS. This waiver does not apply to outages occurring outside of the geographic area where DIRS is activated, nor does it apply to outages with notification deadlines that occur after DIRS is deactivated. All outage impacts that are not timely reported in DIRS must still be reported in NORS. We believe the clarity we provide today will serve the public interest by confirming reporting obligations in those limited circumstances when an outage occurs, in ATIS's phrasing, “just prior to” a DIRS activation. This clear demarcation defining when NORS reports must be filed for outages occurring “just prior” to a DIRS activation will remove any potential uncertainty among providers. We agree with ATIS that by providing greater certainty regarding how the NORS waiver is to be applied, this waiver will be more effective at reducing filing burdens during emergencies. We deny ATIS's request to clarify that NORS filers be allowed to withdraw notifications or reports that are filed in NORS before the first DIRS filing deadline solely because DIRS has been activated in the area of the outage. ATIS suggests that without this clarification, the Commission may receive “duplicative outage reports for the same disaster.” We find that the benefit of maintaining the NORS report on file outweighs any burden of potentially receiving duplicative reports. Maintaining the NORS report on file allows the Commission to retain a record that the provider satisfied its obligation. Additionally, allowing withdrawals solely in response to a DIRS activation would not reduce any reporting burden to communications service providers, as the effort to create and submit a NORS report would have already been expended (and withdrawing a NORS report would arguably expend additional provider resources). Further, withdrawing a NORS report would deprive the Commission of potentially useful information that is not collected in DIRS, such as the outage start time. To be clear, we do not preclude communications service providers from withdrawing NORS reports if there are other reasons in addition to the activation of DIRS that support withdrawal ( <E T="03">e.g.,</E> the outage is determined not to meet the NORS reporting threshold). But absent some other reason justifying withdrawal in addition to a DIRS activation, we find that the public interest is best served by maintaining such NORS reports on file and therefore decline ATIS's request. <HD SOURCE="HD2">B. 911 and 988 Special Facility Notifications</HD> We decline ATIS's request to clarify that the NORS reporting waiver during DIRS activations applies to 911 and 988 special facility outage notification requirements because ATIS's request is both procedurally and substantively infirm. With respect to the procedural soundness of ATIS's request for clarification, we agree with APCO that ATIS's argument is procedurally barred because ATIS failed to present it to the Commission at the appropriate juncture. ATIS does not dispute that its comments and reply in response to the <E T="03">2021 Resilient Networks NPRM</E> failed to request that the Commission extend its proposed NORS waiver to include special facility notification requirements, but asserts that its argument is nonetheless timely because some special facility notification requirements stem from subsequent Commission or ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 26k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━