Federal Communications Commission FCC 11-74 STATEMENT OF COMMISSIONER MIGNON L. CLYBURN Re: Proposed Extension of Part 4 of the Commission’s Rules Regarding Outage Reporting to Interconnected Voice Over Internet Protocol Service Providers and Broadband Internet Service Providers, PS Docket No. 11-82 With this Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, the Commission takes an important step to improve our Nation’s emergency preparedness. As the item explains, the President has assigned the FCC the mission essential function of ensuring continuous operation of critical communications services. Because hundreds of millions of Americans use broadband Internet service networks, and a growing number of Americans use interconnected VoIP services, these networks need to be at the top of the priority list when it comes to ensuring continued operations of critical services. The proposed outage reporting requirements also enable the Commission to meet Congressional mandates. Section 615a-1 of the Communications Act gives the Commission authority to modify its regulations, when necessary, to ensure that IP-enabled voice service providers allow their customers to make 9-1-1 calls. Last year alone, there were a number of instances in which interconnected VoIP service customers lost service for several hours. In one case, a carrier experienced an outage in which more than one million customers lost interconnected VoIP service for more than four hours. In light of these experiences, it is appropriate to propose outage reporting requirements that allow the Commission to monitor whether interconnected VoIP providers are satisfying their statutory obligations. The reporting requirements will also promote the reliability of broadband Internet and interconnected VoIP networks, and allow us to satisfy statutory obligations, to promote the deployment of those networks. I commend Chairman Genachowski and Admiral Jamie Barnett for their leadership in initiating this important proceeding.