FCC considers making carriers report their resilience during natural disasters

FCC considers making carriers report their resilience during natural disasters With the devastating Hurricane Sandy having knocked down nearly 25 percent of cell towers during the peak of its impact in the affected states, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is mulling over the prospect of a report by the carriers about the disaster performance quality of their networks.

The reporting requirement which the FCC is considering for the carriers will only pertain to major natural calamities; and will chiefly require the carriers to provide pertinent information about how well their networks can perform even a natural disaster hits the country.

The FCC revealed in a Wednesday statement that the issue related to having the carriers report their disaster performance quality was one of the several points which will be discussed during the course of the different hearing which the agency has scheduled all through 2013.

In addition, the FCC also said that the hearing which will be held in the beginning of next year will chiefly revolve around the question of whether the performance of the US wireless networks could have been, or should have been, better when Hurricane Sandy hit the country.

Noting that users of communications services currently do not have sufficient information about the performance of the services they are paying for, FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski said that the natural disasters which have struck the US of late have prompted the requirement for " ideas and actions to ensure the resilience of communications networks."