 Hello and welcome everyone. Thank you for joining us today for What I feel is sometimes an underappreciated topic in telecom There's an old Expression that goes When the roof leaks when it's raining the roof leaks when and you can't fix it because it's raining But when it's not raining the roof don't leak. So why fix it? Unfortunately We have seen historically that that has become the attitude now towards Many of our critical communications networks We have some of you may remember Back when the traditional telephone network was the primary network and regulated as a utility we had a an emphasis on Reliability as the as new technologies such as Mobile have come in we were Reluctant to regulate those in the same way and When the internet came along it was quite explicitly what we called a best efforts network meaning that You made your best efforts to move the information from one place to another but there was absolutely no guarantee of reliability Now We fast-forward to Today where what was the best efforts network has now subsumed what was the The regulated utility network And we have to ask ourselves Is this still the right approach is are the benefits of a deregulated and Competitive set of networks enough to well offset the concerns about network reliability and Operation of critical infrastructure in a crisis or do we need a new approach and what should that approach be? fortunately, we have a tremendous panel of experts here to Discuss this topic I'm going to just read a brief by Murphy by way of introduction Francello Cillo is The executive director of next century cities. She is an attorney in digital rights activists Has worked on a variety of technology and telecommunications issues she is Represents next century cities on the FCC's broadband deployment advisory committee and disaster response and recovery working group Svetlana Matt is the legislative director in the office of congressman Jerry McNerney from his represents California District 9 She his handles his telecommunication technology policy Since he is also co-chair of the Congressional Wi-Fi caucus And the artificial intelligence caucus she has tremendous experience with these technical issues and congressman McNerney is the co-sponsor along with chairman Pallone of the network the Network reliability act of the of 2020 Tom power is senior vice president general counsel of CTI a Which is the Wireless association CTA used to stand for something but now it just stands for the wireless association the largest trade association for the wireless industry Before that he was us depth getting chief technology officer in the White House office of science and technology and chief of staff at the national telecommunications information administration and served at the FCC under FCC chairman William Kennard Travis Littman is chief of staff and senior legal advisor to FCC commissioner Jessica Rosenwurzel Before that he worked in a the FCC in a variety of The positions in the wireline competition bureau he has served as counsel to the Senate committee on commerce science and transportation and He has also been in private practice Finally Regina Costa is the responsible for the utility I always forget what turn stands for I'm terribly sorry. It's But the turn which is one of the leading consumer protection Organizations in California for regulated utilities She is in charge of their Telecommunications Issues she also serves in that capacity as a Chair of the Telecommunications Committee of the National Association of State Utility Consumer Advocates or Nashuka And has been a leading advocate at the California Public Utility Commission on Network reliability and telecommunications issues. So thank you all very much for joining us here today. This very timely Topic we have Hurricanes Scouring the Gulf Coast we have enormous Bonfires in the West Coast freak snowstorms in the upper Midwest and in all of these cases The role of communications networks both during the crisis and how long they Take and how they perform after the crisis to help in the recovery Cannot be overstated. We particularly now in this time of COVID If the communications networks go down We are all crippled in what we can do So let me start first with Regina If you can you're in California, you're in a rural area of California where you actually experience the rolling blackouts as a consequence of The wildfire season there if you could tell us your experience with wire line And wireless network reliability. Is it how do those differ from one another and Generally, how are consumers? feeling this in these California crises I'm gonna put this into a little bit of context I mean the the issue came front and center last October with big fires Lengthy power outages and a lot of people lost service for a long time, but there were problems before that 2015 in rural Mendocino County a truck took out a hundred feet of AT&T fiber All communication in that county was gone if you needed the internet forget it you couldn't transfer hospital records You couldn't do anything first responders had no communication and the same thing applied to the counties on north of that October 2017 was really when the rubber hit the road on this that night was terrible There were very high hot winds That caused electric equipment to come into contact with trees and brush a lot of this equipment was owned by the nation's third largest Electric utility private electric utility PG&E Some of it was privately owned, but it started 17 fires That were burning it across four counties. They were very fierce. It was the middle of the night And part of the damage in these fires was again a major AT&T fiber cable That was in Mendocino County on a on a north-south route that was the major transport for telecommunications So anything north of that damage service was out and it was out for quite a while And so that was a huge thing. There were also problems with wireless alerts people were not getting the alerts So that's October 2017 So PG&E is faced with a lot of liability you had 48 people die in those fires and Over 5,000 homes just in Sonoma County burned to the ground So they're facing liability third largest utility in the country goes into bankruptcy. So There had been concerned about fires one of the measures taken was to say, okay Let's proactively de-energize lines and there was a proceedings at the commission and the legislature saying what are the implications? How do we deal with this? So that's in play PG&E's bankrupt. We go into 2019 what happens? There's already a fire burning in Sonoma County and we have another major event nasty winds What happens PG&E says we're already in bankruptcy We do not want to take the risk of our power lines causing any more fires So we're going to move proactively and shut down all of the power Wasn't just PG&E. There were Southern California utilities, but 32 counties in California all of the power was out That was a lot of people like tens of millions of people So what happens this fire blows up and so in Sonoma County people are evacuating like crazy Some of them evacuated more than once because as the fire moved you had to move they were opening new centers and Marin Everybody might I have a home there. I wasn't there, but I got the notice get out. Okay So as this is going the power goes out and it stays out and Communication starts going out the VoIP lines all went out. Okay The wireless was spotty it depended on who your carrier was and it depended on where you were and it changed over a period of time as Backup power ran out. I think the worst day was October 28th when something like 57% of all cell sites were out in Marin I was in Humboldt 23% were out 27% in Sonoma Calaveras County through April and what happens is it isn't just that the cell site goes out or Okay, X percentage. You're still working. They don't still work when you have the same amount of people using fewer cell sites There's more network congestion. I can testify to the fact that in Humboldt County Cell service slowed to a crawl to the point where it was not usable And it really depends. Yeah, I'm I want to Bounce down to Travis because you know was so we have these You know fairly heavy and significant impacts on On people when the communications go down One of the important purposes of the FCC is to You know monitor these Situations and ensure that You know networks remain functional and reliable Can you talk a little about what is the current state of the FCC's regulation of these Services and particularly the difference between the traditional title to services that are still out there and Broadband and other Services that are currently classified as title one Sure well first. Thank you Harold. Thank you for public knowledge for holding this important webinar It's both timely as you noted at the outset and has real consequence as as Virginia's comments just made clear When we look at The FCC's network reliability rules, they're really a function is actually Harold You you wait out very well in your prefatory remarks of the history of communications in this country In which for a well over a century has been rooted and with voice telephony as the centerpiece Over time the FCC's adjusted these policies, but for better for worse. They've really remained voice centric in nature So at least from Commissioner Rosen's worst perspective at the FCC We have a lot to do to refresh our now thinking about what network reliability means When broadband is in fact the technology of our time and of the future So you can take just one example of what this means with our network outage reporting system Norse as it's commonly known as This is a system that providers are required to report into when they have Outages of consequence in terms of reasons for the outage their root cause analysis and alike at the FCC But it doesn't apply to broadband services. There's been a proposal outstanding at the FCC for the last four years That would in fact apply Norse reporting duties to broadband providers, but it's been it's been stagnant So for Commissioner Rosen or so for her part would like to see action both on that proceeding But more broadly we need to be thinking about how we can update our network or liability rules and policies To reflect that broadband is in fact the technology of our time Whereas, you know voice had been Dominant for so many decades and even a century before Great and let me Move on to Svetlana obviously for representative McNerney this is a huge issue so What happens in your office when When these disasters are going on and the communications Networks go down and Can you tell us a little bit about? You know the resilient the network act and how it addresses What you've what you've learned over the last few years Sure, thank you so much for having me here today And it's really an honor to be a part of this panel and to be a part of this conversation It's so critically important I think for Virginia did a really good job Outlining some of the issues that we've been seeing in California in recent years And so you know from our perspective the wildfire Season is only getting longer at the wildfires are only getting more severe It couldn't be more clear in terms of the events that we've been seeing this year With more acreage burn in California and some of the most of the largest wildfires in the state's history as well and in you know the having reliable communication During this time for our constituents is so critical It's the difference between you know whether or not somebody can evacuate their house as they are As a fire is blazing in the middle of the night and whether they can get an alert Whether they can check on their loved one to make sure that they're okay and they can evacuate whether somebody can call 911 Whether somebody can download evacuation maps as they're trying to evacuate especially during the pandemic when some of these evacuation routes have had to be altered and so some of the problems that we've seen in recent years with the wildfires and the impact on communication networks is that there's been a lack of coordination between the communications providers and other parties involved like the utilities There's been a lack of information sharing between these parties as well and a lack of information sharing between the communications providers and public safety Officers on the ground and local first responders And there's also been Insufficient backup power so those things are some of the lessons learned some of the things we really need to improve and the resilient Networks Act You know in addition to those things it also does other things, but some of the critical things that it addresses are the things that I just outlined by requiring that the FCC issue rules to improve information sharing between communication providers and between local first responders to improve To improve coordination and information sharing between for communication providers and the utilities so that as utilities are Getting the power back up and running with re-energizing the grid that they are able to prioritize essential communication networks and Importantly it also has the FCC in consultation with DHS and DOE Ensure that communication providers take reasonable and technically feasible steps so that communication provider to ensure that communication providers are In are integrating backup power into their networks So some of those are some of the things that it does and I you know My boss is going to be also taking a look at what happened this This wildfire season and recent wildfire season and to see how these things can also be strengthened Thank you. So Tom Obviously the industry has not been standing still in all of this every one of these disasters has Provided lessons so two questions for you if you can Combine these one is So what is the industry view of disaster preparedness? How is the industry collectively? learning and adjusting as climate change intensifies disasters and What do you think is the appropriate role of the federal governments and local governments both? in disaster in disaster preparedness and disaster response but also in just regular oversight of Network reliability Tom you're muted. Thank you for that. I'll try to cover all that but you keep me honest when I If I don't respond to all all parts of that and but first thanks for having me on here and And for the spotlight on this issue and appreciate the effort of all the all the panelists here on what's obviously a critical issue as you said It's it couldn't be more timely just this week as you mentioned Hurricane Zeta the winter storm in the Midwest the fires out west Colorado Three of its biggest wildfires are for this summer So, you know, this is a problem we're seeing and you know, if you if you Draw a map of these storms for example and a map of electric outages It's just amazing how how devastating these storms can be Luckily when you draw the map of the wireless outages, it's it is a much smaller Contained issue than it is to the electric outages But and and certain clearly electric utilities have a different network to deal with in terms of their resiliency but they obviously are facing challenges and so we we try to be there to back them up and I think You know, one of the things the industry does is to try to avoid the problem in the first place The construction of over overlapping cell sites since you have extra capacity Regina mentioned the congestion issue, you know, the more overlap you can have the less. That's a problem Certainly generators and and batteries for backup power is is are crucial And then third to some extent when it's possible redundant fibers would address some of the problems that Regina talked about so all of these are potential prescriptive solutions before the problem occurs and And hopefully if you can if you can do that just right, you don't have these problems But different cell sites have different needs and different limitations that make that harder. And so so then the question becomes what do you do after the fact and All the all the carriers have a version of this but you know first and for it starts with actually they will start giving unlimited texting and data and voice plans so that customers don't have to worry about that and then second It's staging the equipment that they need the cows and the Colts You guys are familiar with these terms cells on wheels cells on light trucks the flying cows as we call the drones up to amphibious vehicles and and Equipment to clear roadways of the debris And staging that before the storm hits working closely with DHS at the at the federal level and then the local authorities as well to know exactly where to stage those To say to that kind of equipment And then this coordination with each other Which I think you're getting at and a few years ago We helped the carriers pull together the wireless network resiliency Cooperative framework which addresses things like roaming between the carriers or mutual aid so that they are actually repairing each other's equipment Or sharing infrastructure sharing equipment with each other and and you know what we've seen Through all this and with better coordination as some Atlanta put her finger on it and we think the resiliency at the resilient act Ames it's a lot of the problems Coordination between not just carriers but between carriers and utilities first responders federal government state local government and I think everyone's been upping their game the last few years and we're seeing it in the numbers You know just these last few months Hurricane Laura hit the Gulf Coast 150 mile-hour winds Category four storm at its worst. We had 84 percent of cell sites up That was 92% within a couple days and that that's exclusive of the extra capacity That is provided by the cows and the colts and the other mobile assets hurricane Sally and Delta. We saw the same things so You know, I think overall we're obviously investing a lot more time and money and that's not just the carriers That's all the stakeholders. We're seeing these improved results and You know, I have not seen the numbers from from Hurricane Zeta yet But hopefully we'll see even better results there. Great. So well friends. I love the local governments are both users and Communications themselves during these Disasters and during the response and of course have the first level of accountability and responsibility to their Local residents What does the view look like right now from the local government? Perspective is this You know, what is the coordination the problem should You know, what are you guys experiencing on the ground? Well at the beginning of this conversation You said something really important about the way that we tend to actually treat these issues Resiliency tends to be a forefront issue for people who are actually in the heart of those emergencies And then after the fact it tends to be something we can deal with later And what we've learned this year is that, you know, it doesn't matter if your infrastructure is on fire If it is constantly being tested over and over again If it is underwater like in Hurricane Maria if you can't get it back up all of those situations They've already happened and they are only getting worse So we have to be really honest about when's going to be a really good time for us to address resiliency and maybe maybe making it a part Of even um conditionally like making it a part of funding strategies of collaboration strategies Making emergency preparedness a part of our planning because as much as we're talking about broadband deployment in general We also need to be thinking about what's the backup plan from our conversations with local officials Very often a lot of them are saying look we're strapped for resources So we've done the best that we can but what do you do when your infrastructure is on fire? Like what do you do then and so essentially that relies on having good relationships with your providers Some of the things that tom said it was really excited to hear that about um, you know Really making sure that there's a strategy to collaborate on making sure wireless networks are up And other things like that but at the local level We really need to make sure that there are resources for local governments to be able to make plans Not just with providers when they're reacting to a crisis But in planning so that you know residents and businesses actually know their role in resiliency planning Because there are a couple of things that federal governments can do state governments can do and residents can do on the ground To help support local governments and having some sort of plan So for example, one of the things that was tossed around in our uh, you know Internally at our organization. We were talking about what's the plan for when you know residents They don't have anywhere to go their cell phone towers are down Are there emergency hubs for internet where they can actually know in any emergency? This is going to come up as soon as hospitals are up This one comes up next and really thinking about those types of strategies not just with the government But actually thinking about proactive measures that people can take to collaborate with providers with other Stakeholders in this because there's no way that we're going to be able to solve this problem without new ideas and resources to actually fix it Oh, yes. Thank you. Um, I'd like to uh, unless Anybody has something they want to specifically respond to what? um, what uh What others have said, uh, I'd like to put a question out there for the panel generally Are there disparate impacts on no with the network maintenance and uh network Reliability do we see? for example that communities of color are uh, particularly affected by reliability or lack of reliability is this uh, um a Are there rural differences as well as urban? differences and If there are disparities, how should we be addressing those? If I could jump in here with one of those because I'm going to expand the call of your question Um, essentially, I think the dispositive factor isn't necessarily whether or not you're marginalized It's actually um your income level because essentially people with higher incomes tend to have insurance and things like that to recover from it If you're in a maybe a small town in Louisiana, you've had five hurricanes this year in 2020 five So that means that did you have insurance to replace not just your house? But to be able to go out and buy a new cell phone plan and basically have some sort of resiliency plan just for your household So in places like for example, lake charles that have been hit over and then rebuilt then hit over and then rebuilt When we're thinking about that those people in the most low income parts of that community Even if there is a government plan their households are struggling to recover So when we're thinking about resiliency, it can't just be about has the the have the networks come back up to speed Has local government been able to actually coordinate a response? But being able to make sure that every household can actually benefit from that strategy All right, Regina. You're right. Yeah, I was just going to turn to you to expand on that Yeah, a couple of things we've looked at this quite a bit in california When we have had a docket on emergency disaster relief going since 2018 You know following up from people losing their homes. So what do you do about that? What do you do about their bills and shutoffs and disconnects those kinds of things and that docket evolved into requirements for things like Making charging stations available during an emergency wi-fi hotspots bringing in colts and cows and the extra stuff How do you deal with bills? How do you deal with the situation where a lot of people who are Disabled have to evacuate. How are they notified? You know when you this happens in the middle of a heat wave It was over a hundred degrees here when some of this stuff was going on both in the north and the south So we dealt with that But the other part that comes into play is how do you afford this because what are people told? You're told we'll go get some backup power so your cell phone doesn't die Who can afford what? And who can afford to take the time to really research? Well, how much does this backup power Last how does it work? It's expensive if you're on a low income You're not necessarily going to be able to go to staples and buy a humongous battery The other thing to sort of circle back to one of travis's points about, you know, the support for the copper networks and things Copper networks were great in this situation provided you were directly connected to the central office We're talking about rural areas in the just disproportionate impact A lot of these places are served off of remote terminals. They're the very long lines that connect to a box That the telephone company takes all those calls and transmits them to the central office Those boxes rely on commercial power So when the power is out in particularly for an extended period of time the copper lines go out They went out all over rural california The batteries we know were not replaced. They were 10 years old You know, and so stuff on the table that the california commission is beefing up the battery capacity in those remote terminals Otherwise your copper line is not going to work But for rural areas, if you check the cpuc website, one of the things we pushed for and got Was an examination of the state of the wire line networks of at&t and verizon now frontier And that study is going to is released. They've been letting it out chapter by chapter. Well, they resolved confidentiality disputes They've just basically dismissed all the rest of them. We're commenting on that But that study will show that those networks were not maintained And those are the same people on these long copper lines where there is no fiber And they're in locations where if there is wireless there, it's spotty If you go around the wrong corner, you lose a signal And so they're they're locations where you cannot depend on wireless for your emergency alerts in high fire threat areas So those those are disparities in the in the situation that really have to be rectified so um Travis your boss commissioner rosenwurzel has been a huge champion of greater FCC action in this area both in terms of information collection about these issues and others What do you think the FCC could do more of? and do better in terms of Its responses to these disasters Sure, so we need to make sure that our restoration and recovery responses are fair to everyone So this reason that commissioner rosenwurzel has called on the agency to refresh its disaster playbook And I think that starts And this gets a little bit at your prior question with making sure we have standardized policies across the board For what happens in the wake of a disaster that includes everything from after-event investigations field hearings reports and then utilization of the agency's public policy tools to affect policy changes to learn from our disasters She's not entirely alone in this thinking. I think just last month The disaster reporting act passed the house of representatives that would actually propel the agency to standardize some of these practices I think it's a it's an appropriate place to start is looking at the agency's standard operating procedures for You know both post disaster post resiliency issues to make sure that it's it's pursuing its policies fairly Because in everyone no matter who they are where they live deserves the same response out of the government So tom and svetlan I want to ask you Both a a specific question about these disparities. We saw what happened with Puerto Rico following hurricane maria and One of the responses which got some eye rolls was when The president apparently realized for the first time that Puerto Rico was an island and it was difficult to get things out there There are a lot of areas like Puerto Rico Some of them are island communities. Some of them are more remote communities where We need a it seems that they have a lot of specific issues Both from a you know sort of legislative Perspective but also from the industry perspective. Do we need different rules and different standards for These geographically isolated or hard to reach areas Sure, I'll You know a couple of your question and a couple of our comments get to just the economic impact here and And this goes beyond the emergencies situations You know the covid pandemic has exposed The the challenge so many of our students face young students Where they are now supposed to be educating from home where they don't have enough connectivity And obviously the there have been government programs addressing this for years The lifeline program at the FCC as well as other programs such as the agriculture department You know in the wake of these emergencies, obviously we take some steps to try to help In terms of making free voice data and text available The the FCC is looking at pushing the subsidies out to now to more rural areas and You guys know all the challenges there with the mapping Challenges and and all that but you know fundamentally for you know for the carriers obviously the challenges It's just not economically viable to to serve some of these rural areas without some help so definitely Definitely that's a way to think about it, but You know in the emergency situation what we know is You grab your phone, you know, it's the mobility that counts certainly landlines can save lives broadcasters can save lives But you need that mobility to to really be secure and that's You know with low income consumers again More likely to be mobile only or wireless only So I I definitely agree that that focusing on the financial needs of these communities has got to be a key part of this So spend a lot of anything to add is this Is this a budgeting issue is this about You know earmarking funds specifically for emergency preparedness, perhaps um also relating to climate change or are there other responses that Congress ought to consider as well to these sorts of situations Yeah, well, I think that as we are thinking about any sort of broadband deployment It is really critical that resiliency is made a part of that And hr2 the moving forward act which the congressman co-sponsored in the house past ensures that resiliency and reliability are made a part of the funding that is Made available through the reverse auction for broadband deployment Specifically with respect to Puerto Rico In our territories, I think it's really critical that there that we have a strong national framework that protects areas like Puerto Rico And also and and that's something that we should really make a priority And also I shouldn't flag that in the resilient networks act something that it also includes is that it directs the GAO to conduct an on audit of the FCC's 2017 response to the hurricane season in Puerto Rico and to put forward findings and recommendations and it requires FCC to then Issue or conduct a proceeding based on that So I think that we also really need to re-examine In to take a close look at what happened and less informed So we've talked about disaster recovery and resilience, but I want to ask you all about what are called sunny day outages the Where a network goes offline When there's no apparent reason for it most recently we saw this with t-mobile and the The FCC issued a report on t-mobile's nationwide outage. We've seen this With the sentry link which had a multi-day multi-state outage We've seen multi-state 9-1-1 outages How does this happen? I mean How is it that I mean I read the the t-mobile report and It seemed to me that This was this would have been funny if it weren't So deadly serious so You know, how is it that we are in a situation where these outages can occur and what should we be doing about them? Let me start with Let me start with travis and I'll work around Sure. Thank you. So um You know the the t-mobile report is an interesting read and I'd recommend it to anyone who's interested in not only FCC policy but These these topics generally Was the right call for the bureau to actually investigate an issue or report here and you know What you'll read in the report is a description of the root cause analysis of the outage The attempts to remediate the outage the cascading consequences from the network And then you'll see a description of the changes or of the impact of of this outage And we learned that tens of thousands of calls to 911 failed We learned that You know during this time There were some folks who wrote to the agency how they missed job interviews because of this outage and even one woman Who was stranded to buy the roadside for several hours? So it's just a healthy reminder of how our networks are But we also need to take from from these types of reports a couple of things first we need to standardize the The Investigations and reports like this after sunny data outages like the FCC has done a couple of times And we just need to make it standard operating procedure across the board But we can't stop there We need to actually follow through to make sure that what the lessons learned are in these reports Actually carry some weight, uh, you know, whether if scissor express practices aren't being followed The agency needs to dig in and and discover why and if any policy changes They're going to need to be made to to correct that so that these outages don't happen again So, um Go ahead, principale. You wanted to add just wanted to add something really quickly to that I think that it's really important for us to I cannot really reiterate enough I am so with travis on this idea of standardizing What happens when we're documenting this but also to say what policy changes are required because essentially You know local officials are in a place where they go to the grocery store with their constituents They go to church with them. Their kids are in the same school There's no smoke and mirrors when it comes to I need you to fix this And so when you're responding to this emergency, they're in it with their residents But at the same time, they're also the most cash-strapped and under resourced entity So the thing is this is a great opportunity for not only the federal government But also state governments to say here to model actually like these are really good Resiliency plans. Here's a good, you know methodology for emergency preparedness If your municipality doesn't have enough funding for it, you can apply for resiliency grant funding through x And so to really make that a priority and even when the FCC and state governments are offering Funding opportunities for providers ask them to actually provide. What is your resiliency plan to actually make that a condition of funding? Because even if nothing else, maybe you're in an area where they haven't had any hurricanes recently I don't think earthquakes are an issue actually forcing people to ask the questions is a really important part of being prepared So Tom, let me Ask you and I'm going to press you a little bit here one of the things that comes up Constantly in these FCC reports is that these are voluntary standards and Best practices and in the t-mobile Report they list several best practices that were ignored by the the crew our Is should we still be leaving these to uh um, you know voluntary and and best practices or um, isn't it time for uh, Regulatory uh enforcement to be available or you know liability lawsuits to Give companies the incentive to keep their uh personnel trained and to follow best practices for fear of liability So Harold on the t-mobile issue, you know chairman pie summed it up pretty well with one word failure, right? that's what it was it was a failure and and You know Travis is right that you read that report You understand all about it and and it's always you know, that's always the appropriate role to to Review what happened and to fix it and t-mobile has implemented the fixes so that doesn't happen again um, you know, this is uh industry that a Compete on these issues. You can see the the tv advertisements. You can see it in their regulatory filings. They actually will explain why they're the superior network. Um, the you know, the the The industry the wireless industry invests 25 to 30 billion dollars a year in their networks And some of that is resiliency. Some of that is further deployment. Some of that is mobile edge computing and other advances Uh, it is more money than any other industry Any other operational industry invests every year So, uh, you know, we talk about liability or regulation I mean, we all want to get to the same end. Everyone has the same incentives to get to the same end We think best practices Gives just the added flexibility to give the exact right response Uh, and and frankly liability or regulations don't necessarily add to the incentive They have all the incentives they need. There was nobody at t-mobile after that Outage saying yeah, but on the other hand, right? That was a failure as chairman pie called it and and they are taking all the steps They need to replace it. We think that's the right path and I would add on trenchella's point The the assistance to the local authorities is so important And there is some available and not not as much financially, of course They probably like but just in terms of coordination and dhs in particular who we work with a lot We see examples where the local governments just aren't aware Of what is available from the just from a coordination and education standpoint Uh, and so, you know, whether it's working with them Uh, or coordination, um with the other stakeholders that that is also a big part of that Regina, I wanted to ask you a question from the audience that dovetails with this and it'll give you a chance to respond Uh, um as well to any of the comments tom or others were making So what role do you envision for state pucs on monitoring and enforcing, uh standards and responding To these issues, especially when the source is outside of the state for some of these, uh sunny day, uh Issues, I mean the source of this was uh, Atlanta, uh, georgia, but it had impacts, uh, you know throughout the country What's the role of the the california puc in something like this? I think states have a huge role in this. I mean, I'm much more familiar with the century link 911 outage Which I mean mainly clobbered washington state, but also hit some areas of california It was a piece of equipment in denver or somewhere in colorado Okay, it's still affected interest state communication and and the puc has an obligation under statute And I would guess that virtually every puc does about public safety And about the essential nature of communications and the the role that it plays in their state And maybe they don't have authority to take an action depends on the state california certainly does But they can certainly investigate and I I'm remembering the durecho report Um where it was virginia who took on the task of investigating the wire the horizon, uh, 911 outage Um and the FCC commending virginia for the work that they did at the state level because it informed their investigation And the same thing happened with the the century link 911 outage Phil jones was sitting at the dais at the FCC when that investigation was was being discussed Um, so the states have a big role and I want I want to disagree a little bit with tom on the best practices I mean, I will note that the the Communication outages in october 2019 took place less than a month After the carriers had assured the commission that their networks were very resilient and capable of functioning during disasters And you'd or not you but the carriers had made the same sort of statements to the FCC And that did not fly with our commissioner with our with our commission with our legislators with the director of oes Um and the california commission and the legislature have have stepped in Mike maguire the senator representing the district I'm sitting in where a lot of these fires took place introduced a bill to require reporting to oes For outages in little communities that don't come close to meeting a nor's threshold community isolation outages This commission has adopted Requirements for network resiliency. It will adopt them for wire line. We're waiting for that one But they did it for wireless where they were acquiring 72 hours of backup power They're requiring network resiliency plans with specific information that is to be included Explaining what equipment is in networks? What equipment relies on commercial power? What are the plans for taking care of that if there's a problem? Is there a place that it can't be bolstered? Please explain that to us so that they can identify The the potential problems in networks if you're going to ensure that service is reliable Which they have a statutory obligation to do You have to have that information it also includes requirements for providing points of contact with Emergency services officials both the state level and I think Fuzzy on my memory on this one, but also local It also requires information to the public on websites And one thing in there that that we believe should happen And I I don't know if they're going to do this on the wire line site or not But if you have new construction or you're rebuilding facilities that have been destroyed Incorporate resiliency in that construction That's the time to put in a standby generator Um, you know like things of this nature There are things that definitely can be done in that docket the cable industry has come in and said look We may not be able to retrofit our entire networks But we can certainly bolster the backup power at critical nodes will take that You know, there are a lot of things that can be done It is not all within the purview of a of a state commission to do it It's got to be a collaborative effort with the providers with local authorities with the legislature Um, if I'm a community services district and I'm doing something and I and I'm thinking about a micro grid Okay, coordinate Can this be used as backup power to bolster the local cable or the local void network, you know things things like this so one of the things I'm hearing is that whether it's Voluntary or mandatory coordination is certainly key in our very complex communication in environment And I wanted to get one last audience question in as we're 10 minutes till the end of the panel But there's a very timely question. So how has the pandemic? impacted the ability to coordinate among the industry government stakeholders and particularly at a time when we are even more reliant than ever on our communications networks what You know, what needs to be done here that's new because of co vid in terms of Coordination as well as in terms of the preparation Harold I can jump in with one one response to that which what co had revealed was in the early days when Governors and and other officials were trying to figure out who's essential who can be out You know, some of our companies were running into problems because just going out doing standard repairs You know, was that okay? Could this could the retail stores be open? You know, you think well, it's just a store. Maybe it doesn't have to be open But if folks their phone is dead or they need a charger. That's where they come and get it And so we had like a lot of success actually working with dhs Who went through a list of what was deemed essential and what was not Communicating that to governors. It was voluntary It was guidance to the states But it was it was very helpful and trying to get everybody on the same page and that kind of coordination You know is even more important in the face of a natural disaster Um Anybody else want to address that? Yeah, I just wanted to jump in really quickly to To actually elevate something that Travis brought up earlier about reorienting reorienting emergency preparedness around Broadband instead of telephone connectedness a lot of emergency response plans Or at least local ones in either small and even like mid-sized cities Really still rely on you being able to communicate by a telephone or even radio to be able to you know get even Local tv to be able to get out the message and the truth is especially during kovat People are required to be able to work and learn from home So we're going to have to make sure that our emergency plans actually Accommodate that and so the thing is it means that not only do we have to make sure that people can get back onto networks It also means making sure that the third of the country that's struggling with reliable access can actually get online So we're uh coming down to the last few minutes. I want to thank you all for Um participating in this panel here. Um, I want to Just give each of you one minute Um to answer this question Um If there's one thing you want folks listening to take away From this panel on network resilience and network uh reliability What would it be and i'll run this in reverse order from when I started so friend cello you go first I think that when we're thinking about how to address this problem that you know I personally think that we always have to make sure that policy is not only based on good numbers But also compassion and very often the people who are having to deal with these national National disasters are also dealing with housing insecurity food insecurity. There are a lot of layers that they're dealing with So making sure that they can get back on their communications networks is something that has far-reaching impact And can actually be a part of like actually just a compassionate response from the government So if nothing else, I really hope that um the federal government takes more of a role in terms of modeling What are good practices and here are the resources that are available to you and that also state governments actually Even if they don't have the resources can actually be able to tell these are plans that worked That can actually help people in other parts of the country Thanks, tom You know to me, I think it's how much agreement there is across everyone here We all agree on what the problem is we all agree on what the solution looks like, right? We believe in backup power. We believe in generators. We believe in contingency planning Uh, you know, we we're all aiming in the same direction and we come down to this narrow question that you put your finger on harold You know the the costs and unintended causes of regulation outweigh the the benefits and you know, clearly That's where we think it is and I could tick through that california order and talk about some of the things where it just It seems not in the best interest of of consumers to be pursuing these things and subjecting Folks for to liability for things that aren't really relevant to what we're trying to solve But you know, the good news about this this panel what it reveals is we really all all are growing in the same direction I think we all know what the solution looks like and I think just continued collaboration and communication Uh, is what's going to drive the the right solutions here? Great svetlana You know, this is something that just cannot wait. This is something that we need to be prioritizing right now and doing everything possible to really be addressing just given the Extreme weather patterns that we're seeing climate change longer and more severe hurricane seasons longer and more severe wildfire seasons We need to be taking all immediate action right now Just to quickly piggyback on some of the points we were made earlier as it relates to this The pandemic has only made that more clear because Now as local first responders are trying to get this information information that from our constituents perspective Maybe they're going to have to evacuate differently or go to different locations than before because of the pandemic And the unique challenges there that first responders need to be able to deliver that information I know who and does it who has who doesn't have self-service So there's just a lot more anxiety among our constituents when it comes to how you know, what these What with just the the things that they're seeing on the ground with wildfires and the extreme weather patterns right now They're happening but the pandemic combined on top of that and so that's when it comes when it's things like Making sure that there is adequate backup power making sure that there is The necessary information chairing going on making sure that there is the coordination That's needed beyond all the Among all the parties involved. We need to be addressing that right now and taking all steps possible to do that Great. Thanks. Travis To pick up on a point that spent Lana was making But also to take a step back, you know, ultimately we have a choice We can wait for disaster to occur And put in place resiliency policies after the fact after we already have a mess after consumers have already been cut off Or we can think about it up front in every way We can think about how a safety insecurity should be built into our thinking our policies on the front end of things And so I guess that's where I would I would leave it Hey Regina I mean I would I would echo that and just add, you know Something we said in our opening comments on this last round of network resiliency Which it was a quote from Vince Lombardi that If you chase perfection, you might not get it, but you can achieve excellence And there may not be the perfect solution that's available in the short term But you can serve do a heck of a lot and you can set the stage To really thoroughly address these things and put ourselves in a position to adjust as we go Well that Certainly sounds like a A great note to end on here I Just want to add that like tom. I'm I'm struck by the amount of agreement That this is a an issue that needs to be elevated and You know what acted on that there's a tremendous need for future planning that there's a wide number of stakeholders outside of the traditional industry players that need to be brought in to these discussions at the local level at the state and federal level and I want to and one of the most important questions though that still remains unanswered is who's going to pay for it And how are we going to pay for it? and That's worth a panel on its own But unfortunately, we don't have time To to address that critical issue. So I just want to thank all of you for giving us your time today and participating In this panel and thank all of you who have been watching And attending this panel for your attention on this Absolutely critical issue