This bill requires the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to take certain actions following an activation of the Disaster Information Reporting System, which is used by communications providers to report the operational status of their service and infrastructure to the FCC.
Specifically, the FCC must issue a preliminary report following an activation of the Disaster Information Reporting System, which includes information on (1) the number and duration of any outages of internet and mobile services, and (2) the approximate number of users affected by such outages. The FCC must then conduct at least one public field hearing in affected communities and issue a final report that includes recommendations on how to improve the resiliency of affected communications or networks recovery efforts.
Further, the FCC must initiate a rulemaking to determine under what circumstances it should require mobile service providers to alert public safety answering points (i.e., the points where emergency calls are routed) regarding disruptions to their mobile service.