The FCC has announced a tentative agenda for its January meeting. It includes an item to enhance use of the Disaster Information Reporting System.
The commission said it will consider a mandate that would transition the current, voluntary DIRS outage reporting structure to a mandatory structure for certain communications providers. This presumably will include broadcast stations as the FCC has previously proposed, though details were not yet published.
The FCC typically activates DIRS to collect operational status and restoration information from communications providers during major disasters and subsequent recovery efforts. The web-based system is used by broadcast, wireless, wireline, cable, interconnected VoIP and broadband service providers. For instance it has been mentioned frequently in Radio World news articles after hurricanes, earthquakes and other natural events, when the FCC announces how many local radio and TV stations had reported being off the air.
Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel said in a press release this week that, in addition to the possibility of mandating DIRS reporting for certain communications providers, the FCC will consider proposals to expand reporting to include other providers.
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