The FCC’s Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau has announced that the new 911 network certification and reporting requirements have become effective. Pursuant to these requirements, entities that provide 911 capabilities directly to a Public Safety Answering Point (PSAP), a central office that directly serves a PSAP, or a designated emergency answering point (referred to in the rules as “covered 911 service providers”) must annually certify that they have taken reasonable measures to provide reliable 911 service with respect to circuit diversity, central-office backup power, and diverse network monitoring. The first reliability certification will be due October 15, 2015. Subsequent annual reliability certifications will then be due on October 15 of every year thereafter. Additionally, the new requirements that were added to the FCC’s Part 4 network outage reporting rules that require covered 911 service providers to notify PSAPs of outages that might impact 911 service are also now effective.
