FCC Announces Further Details for Roll-Out Schedule for New Network Outage Reporting System

On July 22, 2016, the Federal Communications Commission’s Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau announced the roll-out schedule for the new version of the Network Outage Reporting System (NORS) platform. We also stated in the July 28 Public Notice that user profile information was moved to the new platform on August 1, 2016, and that August 31, 2016 would be the planned cutover date for filing NORS outage reports using the new platform. We have since concluded, based on discussions with communications providers that NORS users should migrate to the new platform during a cutover window in two steps.

In the first step beginning August 31, 2016, CenturyLink, Verizon, and T-Mobile will be moved to the new production system. When a company is moved to the new production system, the company’s NORS users will be required to file all outage reports using the new platform and will not be permitted to use the current platform. Before a company is moved to the new platform, NORS users from that company should continue to make all required filings under Part 4 in the current version of the NORS system. In the second step, the remaining companies will be migrated. The second step will be completed as soon as possible, but no later than September 30, 2016. The current NORS platform will not be available for filing of formal NORS reports after the completion of the second step.