John T. Nakahata was recently quoted in the Communications Daily article, “FCC Outage Reporting Rules Could Increase PSAP ‘Overnotification’, Lawyers Say,” highlighting challenges in the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) outage reporting rules and the likelihood of increased overnotification resulting from those going into effect on April 15.
The article addressed existing issues with FCC reporting rules, noting that the new rules expanding outage reporting requirements are likely to exacerbate the ongoing burden of ambiguous notifications for public safety answering points (PSAP). John commented on a potential repercussion of the rule change, stating, “as soon as somebody thinks there might be a problem, you don’t have any time to figure it out, so the first thing you do is hit the button to the PSAP and say, ‘hey, there might be a problem’ . . . . What you’re naturally going to see here is overnotification.” He added that the time limit imposed by the new rules will lead carriers to report to PSAPs prior to confirming the areas affected, thus creating more confusion.
John is Chair of HWG and a widely recognized telecommunications lawyer. He has played a significant role in major FCC proceedings related to competition, intercarrier compensation, and universal service. John has experience advising clients on communications rulemakings, regulatory compliance and transactional diligence, and regulatory approvals.