Current through all regulations passed and filed through September 16, 2024
[Comment: For dates of references to a section of either the
United States Code or a regulation in the code of federal regulations, see rule
4901:1-6-02 of the
Administrative Code.]
(A) Each
facilities-based local exchange carrier (LEC) should design,
operate, and maintain its facilities to continue to provide customers with the
ability to originate and receive calls at all times. The commission will
utilize existing FCC rules applicable to emergency and outage operations.
Companies will submit outage reports utilizing, at the company's
discretion, either existing FCC reports or a format determined by the
commission.
(B) Each
facilities-based LEC should submit, within two hours of discovery, to the
commission's outage coordinator and when appropriate, the news media in the
affected area, a notification that it has experienced an outage, whenever that
outage occurs on any facility that it owns, operates, leases or otherwise
utilizes and is both:
(1) Expected to last for
a period in excess of thirty minutes.
(2) Potentially affects at least nine hundred
thousand user minutes in the incumbent local calling area.
(C) Each facilities-based LEC
is to
report, by telephone or electronic means, a disruption of 9-1-1 services, which
impairs 9-1-1 service within a given county 9-1-1 system, immediately to each
county 9-1-1 public safety answering point, to the statewide emergency services
internet protocol network steering committee or its designee, and to the news
media in the affected area, when appropriate.
(D) Each facilities-based LEC experiencing a
loss of communications or selective routing to a public safety answering point,
as a result of an outage described under paragraphs (B) and (C) of this rule,
will
also notify, as soon as possible, by telephone or electronic means, any
official who has been designated by the management of the affected 9-1-1
facility as the LEC's contact person for communication outages at that
facility; and the LEC should convey to
that person all available information that may be useful to the management of
the affected facility in mitigating the effects of the outage on efforts to
communicate with that facility.
(E)
Each facilities-based LEC experiencing an outage described under paragraphs (B)
and (C) of this rule, will
electronically submit to the commission's outage coordinator the same
information as that provided to the FCC or the following information:
(1) A notification that it has experienced
an outage,
which includes the name of the reporting entity, the date
and time of the onset of the outage, a brief description of the problem, the
particular service affected, the geographic area affected by the outage, the
number of customers affected, an estimate of when the service, including 9-1-1,
will be restored, and a contact name and telephone number by which the
commission's outage coordinator may contact the reporting entity.
(2) Not later than seventy-two hours after
discovering the outage, an initial communications outage report, which
includes all pertinent information then available on
the outage and should be submitted in good faith.
(3) Not later than thirty days after
discovering the outage, the provider will submit
electronically a final communications outage report, which
includes all pertinent information on the outage,
including any information that was not contained in, or that has changed from
that provided in, the initial report.
(F) Each facilities-based LEC
will
develop, implement, and maintain an emergency plan and make it available for
review by commission staff. The plan should include,
but not be limited to, all of the following:
(1) Procedures for maintaining and annually
updating a list of those customers who have subscribed to the federal
telecommunications service priority program, as identified in
47 C.F.R.
64, appendix A.
(2) Procedures for priority treatment in
restoring out-of-service trouble of an emergency nature for customers with a
documented medical or life-threatening condition.
(3) In addition to the telecommunications
service priority program, each LEC is to develop
policies and procedures regarding those customers who require priority
treatment for out-of-service clearance. Such procedures
should
include a table of restoration priority, including, but not limited to,
subscribers such as police and fire stations, hospitals, key medical personnel,
and other utilities.
(4) Procedures
for restoring service to priority critical facilities customers.
(5) Identification and annual updates of all
of the facilities-based LEC's critical facilities and reasonable measures to
protect its personnel and facilities.
(6) Assessments and evaluations of
telecommunications facilities available to provide back-up service
capabilities.
(7) Procedures for
after-action assessments and reporting following activation of any part of the
emergency plan. An after-action report will be written and will include lessons
learned, deficiencies in the response to the emergency, and deficiencies in the
emergency plan.
(8) A current list
of the names and telephone numbers of the facilities-based LECs' emergency
service personnel to contact and coordinate with in the event of any real or
anticipated local or national threats to its ability to provide
telecommunications service.
(9) A
current list of the names and telephone numbers of the facilities-based LEC's
emergency service personnel that is made available to the commission's
emergency coordinator, upon request.
(10) A continuity of operations plan to
assure continuance of minimum essential functions during a large scale event in
which staffing is reduced. Such plans should provide
for:
(a) Plan activation triggers such as the
world health organization's pandemic phase alert levels, widespread
transmission within the United States, or a case at one or more locations
within Ohio.
(b) Identification of
a pandemic coordinator and team with defined roles and responsibilities for
preparedness and response planning.
(c) Identification of minimal essential
functions, minimal staffing required to maintain such essential functions, and
personnel resource pools required to ensure continuance of those functions in
progressive stages associated with a declining workforce.
(d) Identification of essential employees and
critical inputs (e.g., raw materials, equipment, suppliers, subcontractor
services/products, and logistics) required to maintain business operations by
location and function.
(e) Policies
and procedures to address personal protection initiatives.
(f) Policies and procedures to maintain lines
of communication with the public utilities commission of Ohio during a declared
emergency.
(G)
Each facilities-based LEC is to amend its emergency plan in accordance with the
findings identified in the after-action assessment report required under
paragraph (F)(7) of this rule.
