47 Cfr 4.15

47 CFR § 4.15 - Submarine cable outage reporting. | CFR | US Law | LII ...

1 of 6

https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/47/4.15

47 CFR § 4.15 - Submarine cable outage reporting.
CFR

§ 4.15 Submarine cable outage reporting.
(a) Definitions.
(1) For purposes of this section, “outage” is defined as a failure or
significant degradation in the performance of a licensee's cable service
regardless of whether the traffic can be re-routed to an alternate path,
where:
(i) An outage of a portion of submarine cable system between submarine
line terminal equipment (SLTE) at one end of the system and SLTE at
another end of the system occurs for 30 minutes or more; or
(ii) An outage of any fiber pair, including due to terminal equipment, on a
cable segment occurs for four hours or more, regardless of the number of
fiber pairs that comprise the total capacity of the cable segment.
(2) An “outage” does not require reporting under this section if the outage is
caused by announced planned maintenance and the licensee notified its
customers in advance of the planned maintenance and its expected duration,
except that if the planned maintenance duration surpasses the shortest
announced duration for the planned maintenance and this additional time
triggers the requirements in paragraph (a)(1) of this section, the outage
becomes reportable as of the time the maintenance exceeds the shortest
announced duration for the planned maintenance.
(b) Outage reporting.
(1) For each outage that requires reporting under this section, the licensee
(or Responsible Licensee as designated by a Consortium) shall provide the
Commission with a Notification, Interim Report, and a Final Outage Report.
(i) For a submarine cable that is jointly owned and operated by multiple
licensees, the licensees of that cable may designate a Responsible Licensee

12/17/2020, 5:19 PM

47 CFR § 4.15 - Submarine cable outage reporting. | CFR | US Law | LII ...

2 of 6

https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/47/4.15

that files outage reports under this rule on behalf of all licensees on the
affected cable.
(ii) Licensees opting to designate a Responsible Licensee must jointly
notify the Chief of the Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau's
Cybersecurity and Communications Reliability Division of this decision in
writing. Such Notification shall include the name of the submarine cable at
issue; and contact information for all licensees on the submarine cable at
issue, including the Responsible Licensee.
(2) Notification, Interim, and Final Outage Reports shall be submitted by a
person authorized by the licensee to submit such reports to the Commission.
(i) The person submitting the Final Outage Report to the Commission shall
also be authorized by the licensee to legally bind the provider to the truth,
completeness, and accuracy of the information contained in the report.
Each Final report shall be attested by the person submitting the report that
he/she has read the report prior to submitting it and on oath deposes and
states that the information contained therein is true, correct, and accurate
to the best of his/her knowledge and belief and that the licensee on oath
deposes and states that this information is true, complete, and accurate.
(ii) The Notification is due within 480 minutes (8 hours) of the time of
determining that an event is reportable for the first three years from the
effective date of these rules. After three years from the effective date of
the rules, Notifications shall be due within 240 minutes (4 hours). The
Notification shall be submitted in good faith. Licensees shall provide: The
name of the reporting entity; the name of the cable and a list of all
licensees for that cable; the date and time of onset of the outage, if known
(for planned events as defined in paragraph (a)(2) of this section, this is
the estimated start time/date of the repair); a brief description of the
event, including root cause if known; nearest cable landing station; best
estimate of approximate location of the event, if known (expressed in
either nautical miles and the direction from the nearest cable landing
station or in latitude and longitude coordinates); best estimate of the
duration of the event, if known; whether the event is related to planned
maintenance; and a contact name, contact email address, and contact
telephone number by which the Commission's technical staff may contact
the reporting entity.
(iii) The Interim Report is due within 24 hours of receiving the Plan of
Work. The Interim Report shall be submitted in good faith. Licensees shall
provide: The name of the reporting entity; the name of the cable; a brief
description of the event, including root cause, if known; the date and time
of onset of the outage; nearest cable landing station; approximate location

12/17/2020, 5:19 PM

47 CFR § 4.15 - Submarine cable outage reporting. | CFR | US Law | LII ...

3 of 6

https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/47/4.15

of the event (expressed in either nautical miles and the direction from the
nearest cable landing station or in latitude and longitude); best estimate of
when the cable is scheduled to be repaired, including approximate arrival
time and date of the repair ship, if applicable; a contact name, contact
email address, and contact telephone number by which the Commission's
technical staff may contact the reporting entity.
(iv) The Final Outage Report is due seven (7) days after the repair is
completed. The Final Outage Report shall be submitted in good faith.
Licensees shall provide: The name of the reporting entity; the name of the
cable; the date and time of onset of the outage (for planned events as
defined in paragraph (a)(2) of this section, this is the start date and time
of the repair); a brief description of the event, including the root cause if
known; nearest cable landing station; approximate location of the event
(expressed either in nautical miles and the direction from the nearest cable
landing station or in latitude and longitude coordinates); duration of the
event, as defined in paragraph (a) of this section; the restoration method;
and a contact name, contact email address, and contact telephone number
by which the Commission's technical staff may contact the reporting entity.
If any required information is unknown at the time of submission of the
Final Report but later becomes known, licensees should amend their report
to reflect this knowledge. The Final Report must also contain an attestation
as described in paragraph (b)(2)(i) of this section.
(v) The Notification, Interim Report, and Final Outage Reports are to be
submitted electronically to the Commission. “Submitted electronically”
refers to submission of the information using Commission-approved Webbased outage report templates. If there are technical impediments to using
the Web-based system during the Notification stage, then a written
Notification to the Commission by email to the Chief, Public Safety and
Homeland Security Bureau is permitted; such Notification shall contain the
information required. Electronic filing shall be effectuated in accordance
with procedures that are specified by the Commission by public notice.
Notifications, Interim reports, and Final Reports may be withdrawn under
legitimate circumstances, e.g., when the filing was made under the
mistaken assumption that an outage was required to be reported.
(c) Confidentiality. Reports filed under this part will be presumed to be
confidential. Public access to reports filed under this part may be sought only
pursuant to the procedures set forth in 47 CFR 0.461. Notice of any requests
for inspection of outage reports will be provided pursuant to 47 CFR
0.461(d)(3).
(d) Compliance date. This section contains new or modified information-

12/17/2020, 5:19 PM

47 CFR § 4.15 - Submarine cable outage reporting. | CFR | US Law | LII ...

4 of 6

https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/47/4.15

collection and recordkeeping requirements. Compliance with these
information-collection and recordkeeping requirements will not be required
until six months after the Commission publishes a document in the F
R

announcing approval by the Office of Management and Budget and

the compliance date. Following such approval, the Commission will publish a
document in the F

R

announcing that compliance date and

removing or revising this paragraph.
[81 FR 52363, Aug. 8, 2016, as amended at 85 FR 15740, Mar. 19, 2020]
E

D

N

:

At 81 FR 52363, Aug. 8, 2016, § 4.15 was added. This section contains
information collection and recordkeeping requirements and will not become
effective until approval has been given by the Office of Management and
Budget.

CFR Toolbox
Law about... Articles from Wex
Table of Popular Names
Parallel Table of Authorities
How current is this?

12/17/2020, 5:19 PM

47 CFR § 4.15 - Submarine cable outage reporting. | CFR | US Law | LII ...

5 of 6

https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/47/4.15

ACCESSIBILITY
ABOUT LII
CONTACT US
ADVERTISE HERE
HELP

12/17/2020, 5:19 PM

47 CFR § 4.15 - Submarine cable outage reporting. | CFR | US Law | LII ...

6 of 6

https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/47/4.15

TERMS OF USE
PRIVACY

12/17/2020, 5:19 PM