SUMMARY: This Chapter contains the reporting requirements for telecommunications carrier's service outages.

§1 DEFINITIONS

1. A. Contact Protocol. 'Contact Protocol' means the most recent version of the notice procedure and contact list periodically updated and issued by the Director of the Commission's Technical Analysis Division pursuant to Chapter 130 §3(5).
2. B. DS3 Minutes. 'DS3 Minutes' means the mathematical result of multiplying the duration of an outage, expressed in minutes, by the number of operating DS3 circuits that are affected by an outage.
3. C. Outage. An 'outage' is any significant degradation in the ability of an end user to establish and maintain a channel of communications as a result of failure or degradation in the performance of a telecommunications carrier's network or equipment.
4. D. Telecommunications Carrier. A 'telecommunications carrier' is any person, association, corporation, or other entity that provides intrastate telecommunications services, whether or not that entity is a public utility. Telecommunications carrier includes all interexchange carriers (IXCs) and all local exchange carriers (LECs).
5. E. User Minutes. 'User minutes' means the mathematical result of multiplying the duration of an outage, expressed in minutes, by the number of working telephone numbers potentially affected by the outage.
6. F. Working Telephone Number. A 'working telephone number' is the number of telephone numbers, including DID numbers, or numbers behind a PBX or Centrex service, working immediately prior to an outage.

§2 REPORTING REQUIRED

A. Scheduled Outages

Notice of scheduled outages shall be provided as follows:

1. Initial Notice to the Commission

Each telecommunications carrier shall notify the Commission electronically, pursuant to the Contact Protocol, ten business days prior to any scheduled outage that is expected to exceed 30 minutes of duration and 90,000 user minutes or 1,350 DS3 minutes. If a telecommunications carrier determines that exigencies exist which necessitate that an outage be scheduled sooner than would permit such

notice, the telecommunications carrier shall notify the Commission within 120 minutes after it makes such a determination. The notification required by this subsection shall include the information required by Section 3.

2. Final Notice to the Commission

Upon request by the Director of Technical Analysis or his/her designee, within 30 days after such request the telecommunications carrier shall submit, pursuant to the Contact Protocol, a Final Outage Report. The Final Outage Report shall contain the information required by Section 3.

B. Unscheduled Outages

Notice of unscheduled outages shall be provided as follows:

1. Initial Notice to the Commission

Each telecommunications carrier shall notify the Commission, as provided by the Contact Protocol, within 120 minutes of discovering that it has experienced, with respect to any facility that it owns, operates, leases, or otherwise utilizes, an outage of at least 30 minutes duration that potentially affects at least 90,000 user minutes or 1,350 DS3 minutes. The notification required by this subsection shall include the information required by Section 3.

2. Final Notice to the Commission

Upon request by the Director of Technical Analysis or his/her designee, within 30 days after such request the telecommunications carrier shall submit, pursuant to the Contact Protocol, a Final Outage Report. The Final Outage Report shall contain the information required by Section 3.

C. Service Restoration

1. Notice to the Commission

Within 120 minutes after service is restored from an outage, the telecommunications carriers shall so notify the Commission pursuant to the Contact Protocol.

2. Notice Concerning E9-1-1

Immediately after service is restored following an outage that affected the transmission of E9-1-1 and other emergency calls, the telecommunications carrier shall conduct testing to ensure that E9-1-1 calls can be completed successfully from each affected wire center. Notice of the successful completion of such E9-1-1 tests at each wire center shall be provided to the Commission within one hour of the restoration of service and shall comply with all provisions of the Contact Protocol.

A. Initial Notice to the Commission

The Initial Notice required to be provided to the Commission shall include the following information:

1. the name of the telecommunications carrier;

2. the date of the notice;

3. the name, position, and 24x7 contact information of the person completing the notice or other responsible persons familiar with the situation;

4. the date and time of onset of outage;

5. a brief description of the problem;

6. the particular services affected; and

7. the geographic area affected by the outage.

B. Final Notice to the Commission

Any Final Notice provided to the Commission shall include all of the information from the Initial Notice, and the following information:

1. all information that was not contained in, or has changed from that provided in the Initial Notice; and

2. a description of the actions taken by the telecommunications carrier to correct the cause of the outage and to prevent its recurrence.

C. Delegation

The Commission delegates to the Director of the Technical Analysis Division the responsibility to establish the form and format of the notices required to be filed with the Commission pursuant to this Chapter.

§4 WAIVER OR EXEMPTION

Upon request of any person subject to the provisions of this Chapter or upon its own motion, the Commission may, for good cause, waive any requirement of this Chapter that is not required by statute. The waiver may not be inconsistent with the purposes of this Chapter or Title 35-A. The Commission, the Director of Technical Analysis, or the presiding officer assigned to a proceeding related to this Chapter may grant the waiver.

STATUTORY AUTHORITY: 35-A M.R.S.A. §§ 104, 111, and 112

EFFECTIVE DATE: This rule was approved as to form and legality by the Attorney General on April 1, 2008. It was filed with the Secretary of State on April 3, 2008 and became effective on April 8, 2008. It replaces Chapter 20, “Reporting Requirements for Local Exchange Carriers,”