NRIC V had its first meeting today. NRIC is a Federal Advisory Counsil providing information to the FCC on telecommunications (ie telephone) network reliability. Information on NRIC can be found at www.nric.org The Chair of NRIC is Jim Crowe from Level3. The primary focus of this NRIC will be to continue the network reliability work of the group, including packet switched networks. NRIC will be broken into the following subgroups (1) Y2K - finishing the work (2) Network Reliability and (3) Interoperability. NRIC IV recommended that a one year voluntary trial period of network outage reporting be initiated for a wide variety of communications service providers, including Internet Service Providers. The final report of NRIC IV's recommendations in this area can be found at http://www.atis.org/atis/nricgr3.htm The relevant language from the Executive Summary is below. This Report was placed on the web for public comment in February for public comment. Those comments were received and incorporated. The recommendation has been accepted by NRIC. Thus, presumably, NRIC will move forward to initiate a one year voluntary trial period of ISPs report outages to NCC/NCS, NRIC, and ultimately to the FCC. At the completion of the trial, an analysis will be done of the usefulness of the reporting. NRIC indicates that the issue of ISP involvement in the voluntary reporting was supported by Ira Richter of IOPS www.iops.org The presentations from todays NRIC meeting should soon be on the NRIC website www.nric.org Exec Summary: "A voluntary trial is recommended with participation by service providers of CMRS, satellite, cable, data networking and INTERNET SERVICE PROVIDERS (ISPs) to alert National Communications Systems/National Coordinating Center for Telecommunications (NCS/NCC) of outages that are likely to have a significant public impact. "* Industry associations should provide an informational notice to their membership to inform them of a voluntary outage reporting trial and encourage their participation. "* Analysis of the data from this voluntary trial should be done by a neutral party. This analysis should be similar to scope to the analysis conducted on wireline carrier segments. "* At the completion of a voluntary trial period (minimum 1-year) an evaluation of the effectiveness of the data for usefulness to participants and the FCC should be understaken. "Industry communication of NRIC IV 'Best Practices' to CMRS, Satellite, cable, ISP, data networking service providers is recommended." -B www.cybertelecom.org cannon@world.oberlin.edu Views Dey Are My Own ______________________________________________ FREE Personalized Email at Mail.com Sign up at http://www.mail.com/?sr=signup