AT&T, NASCA Seek Changes to FCC Undersea Cable Outage Reporting Proposal

with an aide to Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel. Operators need a transition period of at least one year to implement new requirements; anything less would be "unrealistic," they said. Many undersea cable systems are consortium-owned, requiring "complex negotiations and coordination among members to implement technology and procedures for reporting," and many belong to multiple consortia, further complicating changes, they said. Because older undersea cable systems may not be able to detect all outages, "affected operators will need to incorporate new technology and coordinate with other consortium members to ensure they receive notification of reportable outages," they said. On another issue, NASCA said it's more realistic to give operators a 24-hour window to report outages than a proposal that they report within hours. Many smaller operators have fewer than 10 employees and they will be focused on repairing service when disruptions occur, the filing said, also noting that outages on the other side of the world could occur when employees are sleeping. AT&T and NASCA urged the FCC to scrap a proposed interim report duty that "adds an extra burden on operators without any material benefit" to the agency. "Between the time of an initial outage notification and the time of scheduling a repair, when the interim report would be due, operators would not have additional material information about the outage or its cause. The cause -- if discoverable at all -- could likely only be determined during the course of the repair," they said. Unlike terrestrial counterparts, undersea operators can't gain immediate access to trouble spots that are often "thousands of kilometers offshore" and deep in the sea, they said.