North American Network Operators Group

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FCC's NRIC to monitor ISP outages

  • From: Robert Cannon
  • Date: Mon Mar 20 16:30:43 2000

NRIC V had its first meeting today.  NRIC is a Federal Advisory Counsil
providing information to the FCC on telecommunications (ie telephone)
network reliability.  Information on NRIC can be found at www.nric.org  The
Chair of NRIC is Jim Crowe from Level3.

The primary focus of this NRIC will be to continue the network reliability
work of the group, including packet switched networks.  NRIC will be broken
into the following subgroups (1) Y2K - finishing the work (2) Network
Reliability and (3) Interoperability.

NRIC IV recommended that a one year voluntary trial period of network outage
reporting be initiated for a wide variety of communications service
providers, including Internet Service Providers.  The final report of NRIC
IV's recommendations in this area can be found at
http://www.atis.org/atis/nricgr3.htm  The relevant language from the
Executive Summary is below.  This Report was placed on the web for public
comment in February for public comment.  Those comments were received and
incorporated.  The recommendation has been accepted by NRIC.  Thus,
presumably, NRIC will move forward to initiate a one year voluntary trial
period of ISPs report outages to NCC/NCS, NRIC, and ultimately to the FCC. 
At the completion of the trial, an analysis will be done of the usefulness
of the reporting.  NRIC indicates that the issue of ISP involvement in the
voluntary reporting was supported by Ira Richter of IOPS  www.iops.org

The presentations from todays NRIC meeting should soon be on the NRIC
website www.nric.org

Exec Summary:

"A voluntary trial is recommended with participation by service providers of
CMRS, satellite, cable, data networking and INTERNET SERVICE PROVIDERS
(ISPs) to alert National Communications Systems/National Coordinating Center
for Telecommunications (NCS/NCC) of outages that are likely to have a
significant public impact.

"* Industry associations should provide an informational notice to their
membership to inform them of a voluntary outage reporting trial and
encourage their participation.

"* Analysis of the data from this voluntary trial should be done by a
neutral party.  This analysis should be similar to scope to the analysis
conducted on wireline carrier segments.

"* At the completion of a voluntary trial period (minimum 1-year) an
evaluation of the effectiveness of the data for usefulness to participants
and the FCC should be understaken.

"Industry communication of NRIC IV 'Best Practices' to CMRS, Satellite,
cable, ISP, data networking service providers is recommended."

-B
www.cybertelecom.org
[email protected]
Views Dey Are My Own

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