Amid complaints that phone companies such as AT&T and Verizon are letting copper networks deteriorate, the Federal Communications Commission today said it will examine the allegations and develop rules that maintain customers' access to emergency services even after old copper networks are discontinued.

Today’s vote is one of the first steps in planning for the discontinuation of the primarily copper-based Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN). The PSTN is being replaced by Internet Protocol (IP)-based voice services that rely on network technologies such as fiber, cable, and wireless. AT&T and Verizon are anxious to make the transition because they want to shed costly infrastructure and century-old utility rules that likely won’t apply to Voice over IP (VoIP) services. Customers from around the country have complained that the companies are letting the copper networks rot in order to push them onto largely unregulated services.

Keeping VoIP phones running during power outages is perhaps the biggest concern. Copper lines conduct electricity and supply power to phones from central offices, potentially keeping phones running for weeks on end during outages. This system isn’t foolproof because damage to lines or the central office could result in loss of power, but backup options for VoIP phones are more limited, consisting of batteries in customers’ homes. When the power is out and the batteries for landline phones and cell phones have run out, customers won’t be able to call 911.

Carriers must seek permission before discontinuing services, the FCC said. A declaratory ruling approved today “clarif[ies] that the circumstances in which carriers must seek approval to discontinue a service depend upon the practical impact of its actions, not the fine print of an aging tariff filing,” the FCC said. “This ensures that there will be a public process to evaluate a proposed discontinuance before a choice is removed from the market, regardless of how the carrier has written its tariff.”

Secondly, a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) lays out some general goals for next-generation networks and asks the public for information on numerous topics. On the question of whether consumers are being harmed today, it “asks for facts and data about whether carriers are, in effect, retiring copper networks without giving notice simply by failing to maintain them [and] asks about allegations that carriers are not being clear with consumers about the options available when the copper network is shut down,” the FCC announcement said.

The FCC wants to create a technology-neutral standard for backup power. As such, the NPRM “proposes a framework to establish reasonable expectations for when providers should bear responsibility for providing a backup power solution for the communications equipment at a customer’s home during a power outage; seeks comment on different back-up power technologies and solutions in the marketplace today; [and] examines potential strategies for providing back-up power during lengthy commercial power failures,” the commission said.

The NPRM proposes greater transparency and consumer input on network shutdowns and “a process to ensure that new services meet the needs of consumers before carriers are allowed to remove legacy services from the marketplace.”

To preserve competition, the NPRM tentatively concludes that incumbent carriers who sell wholesale access to their networks must continue providing equivalent wholesale access to so-called “competitive providers” after technology transitions. The FCC is also seeking comment on proposals that would facilitate the sale or auction of copper facilities that incumbent carriers intend to retire.

Separately, the commission also issued an NPRM seeking comment on proposals to impose new requirements on 911 providers. One proposal would "requir[e] 911 providers to make public notification of major changes to 911 service, so that 911 call centers and other stakeholders are aware of potential impacts, and to seek approval if they intend to discontinue critical 911 services." Other proposals would require entities that intend to provide 911 service "to certify that they have the technical and operational capability to do so reliably," clarify how service providers should coordinate during 911 outages, and "updat[e] the FCC’s 911 reliability certification requirements to account for new technologies and network architectures."

Chicken Little?

Chairman Tom Wheeler and fellow Democrats Mignon Clyburn and Jessica Rosenworcel voted in favor of the proposals. Republican commissioners Ajit Pai and Michael O’Rielly concurred in part and dissented in part, each objecting to the 911 NPRM and the declaratory ruling requiring carriers to ask the FCC for permission before discontinuing network services.

O'Rielly said, "the entire declaratory ruling sets a stage to force providers to either maintain their legacy networks and every last service, or file applications only to see them bogged down in a subjective review process. In the end, I suspect that providers will probably continue to migrate willing customers to advanced communications platforms and services separate from this scheme and do just enough to maintain their existing copper network. What a waste."

“The commission has no business micromanaging each change a carrier makes to its network,” Pai said. “Just imagine if Google had to seek regulatory permission from the FCC to change features in Gmail.”

Pai said concerns about consumers being harmed are like Chicken Little’s belief that the sky is falling. “I believe we must act on concrete evidence, not hypothetical harms,” Pai said.

Wheeler disagreed, pointing to the real events that happened in Fire Island, New York, after Hurricane Sandy.

“This is not a hypothetical issue,” Wheeler said. “A proposal [by Verizon] to end traditional service in Fire Island, New York, after Hurricane Sandy damaged the copper plant there sparked substantial public concern and rightly so. Technology transitions will be speeded up by technology neutral rules that promote, preserve and protect what we’ve begun to call the network compact, which is the set of values that consumers have rightly come to expect from their networks.”

Clyburn agreed, saying, “our current service discontinuance and copper retirement rules may not provide consumers and wholesale customers with the information and notice they need to understand and successfully plan for technology transitions. So, it is appropriate to ask whether our policies need to be updated to ensure that competition is not negatively impacted during these transitions.”