STATEMENT OF 
CHAIRMAN TOM WHEELER
Re: Improving Outage Reporting for Submarine Cables and Enhanced Submarine Cable Outage 
Data, GN Docket No. 15-206, Report and Order.
Our ability to serve the public and fulfill our responsibilities begins with being informed. To do 
our job right, we need the facts. While it’s our responsibility to promote the resiliency and reliability of 
our communications networks, when it comes to a key piece of those networks – submarine cables -- we 
have unacceptable gaps in understanding of outages and disruptions. With today’s order, we fix that.
Let’s start with a few baseline facts.
First, submarine cables are a vital part of our communications infrastructure – carrying virtually 
all voice and data traffic between the United States and the rest of the world. As a result, these cables are 
essential to America’s economic stability and national security.
Second, outage reporting systems are a proven tool for promoting network reliability. Other 
communications providers have long reported outages to the FCC through our mandatory Network 
Outage Reporting System (NORS). The data have enabled us to detect adverse outage trends and work 
with industry on solutions, monitor and assist restoration efforts, and coordinate with public safety 
officials and other affected third parties during crises.
Third, the information we receive regarding undersea cable disruptions is too limited and 
inconsistent to be useful. The record in this proceeding identified a series flaws with the current reporting 
system. For starters, it’s voluntary, which means we only receive inform on about 25 percent of undersea 
cables. It’s also ad hoc with no standardized guidelines, which means the information we receive is 
inconsistent and not necessarily revelatory about the root causes of problems.
To understand the problem, look at one recent example of how things currently work – or more 
appropriately – don’t work. 
In July 2015, a damaged submarine cable severed communications for thousands of residents and 
businesses on the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands for three weeks. The outage affected 
phone, Internet, banking, credit card transactions, ATM withdrawals, and health care. The Commission 
did not receive information about the outage through the current voluntary reporting system, and the 
information we received through NORS was inadequate. The reports from terrestrial providers did not 
convey the very significant impact that “total communications isolation” had on consumers or the 
impacted communities, subsequent terrestrial reports did not convey accurate status of the submarine 
cable outage nor projected restoral and repair times.  It took open press news reports to allow staff to 
piece together what was happening, spurring FCC initiated calls to parties to gather information on what 
had occurred and organize mitigation options. Lack of timely situational awareness certainly hampered 
Commission efforts to monitor the outage, support restoration and development of interim options to 
mitigate consumer suffering. 
In the few months since we launched this proceeding, through media reports we learned of a 
Florida lightning strike hitting the U.S. terminus of a submarine cable disrupting communications 
between Florida and multiple locations in the Caribbean and an incident where cable connectivity 
between the U.S. territory of Guam and Australia was severed. These outages were not reported to the 
FCC through the existing voluntary system.
Submarine cables are a key piece of our broader communications infrastructure. It simply 
doesn’t make sense that other providers must report network outages, while submarine cable operators do 
not. Today, we bring some common sense and regulatory parity to our outage reporting rules. 
The new rules will require submarine cable licensees to report major communications outages to 
the FCC, which other communications providers have done for more than a decade. Licensees will report 
service failures or the significant degradation of service, regardless whether the traffic can be re-routed.
In situations where traffic is rerouted over another cable or fiber pair, that doesn’t mean that the outage 
didn’t occur. It should be reported. If disruptions prevent a category of service like voice, that too is an 
outage to voice customers even if internet traffic is still up. Collecting information regarding the mode of 
failure is valuable, and maintaining an understanding of decrements to overall submarine cable capacity is 
an important National Security function which the FCC is uniquely suited to fulfill.
The Commission staff has made significant progress in improving interagency coordination 
processes to facilitate rapid maintenance and deployment of cables, identify non-cable seabed activity that 
may place submarine cables at risk. By promoting a diversity of submarine cable routes and providers, 
we can add resiliency and reliability to our communications systems. 
The rules we are adopting today will close reporting gaps, enable the Commission to keep apprised of the 
operating status of submarine cables, and help ensure that this vital communications infrastructure 
remains reliable.