Network Reliability and Interoperability Council IV
(NRIC IV)

SUMMARY OF MEETING

January 14, 1999

NRIC IV convened its second meeting at 1:30 P.M. on January 14, 1999 in the Commission Meeting Room of the Federal Communications Commission, 1919 M Street, Washington, DC. Mr. Michael Armstrong, Chairman and CEO of AT&T, presided over the meeting.

In accordance with Public Law 92-463 (The Federal Advisory Committee Act), the meeting was open to the public. Approximately 100 people attended the meeting in the Commission Meeting Room, and it was viewed by way of closed circuit television at various sites around the Commission and by way of the Internet.

Ms. Marsha MacBride of the FCC, the Designated Federal Official for the NRIC and a member of the NRC Steering Committee, introduced Mr. Armstrong, the Chairman of NRIC IV, who summarized the ongoing concerns of the Council, namely maintaining the urgency of the group's mission in the face of growing public concern about the Y2K problem, and sharing information among affected entities.

Mr. Armstrong then called on Commissioner Michael Powell, who thanked the members of the Council for their continued participation and pointed to the tremendous progress made in the past six to eight months, largely because of the efforts of the industries represented on the Council.

Mr. Armstrong then called for status reports from the Council's three Focus Groups.

Peter G. Spring (AT&T) presented the report of Focus Group I, which had as its overall responsibility the determination of how the Y2K problem could adversely affect the reliability, interconnectivity, and interoperability of public telecommunications networks. The Group is also responsible for assessing the magnitude of perceived risks, reviewing efforts aimed at addressing those risks, and determining the additional steps necessary in mitigating the risks. In particular, the Group was to confirm that appropriate intra- and inter-network testing, contingency planning, and network monitoring had been arranged.

Focus Group I includes a Subcommittee on Y2K Readiness (headed by G. Roth of GTE), a Subcommittee on Y2K Testing (headed by L. Scerbo of Bellcore), and a Subcommittee on Y2K Contingency Planning (headed by R.L. Bennett of Lucent). General Focus Group meetings were held on November 2, 1998 and January 7, 1999. The work of the subcommittees was conducted through Task Groups, conference calls, and face-to-face meetings.

The overall messages to be conveyed by Focus Group I are as follows. The Group's initial assessment indicates that the domestic carriers have made good progress and that more than 99% of local access lines will be completed by June 1999. International preparedness, however, varies greatly by country, and there has been some difficulty in getting countries to respond to our requests as to their plans for dealing with Y2K problems. Further, the group must analyze further the risk and impact of the various levels of international preparedness. In the area of testing, Mr. Spring indicated that extensive component level testing has been completed. In addition, some network interoperability testing is complete and additional testing is in progress. The Testing Subcommittee is addressing the initial gap in international and in data. Contingency planning is being approached in phases. The "company level" phase is complete, including the posting of "how to" documents on the NRIC website (www.nric.org), while the "industry level" phase is underway.

Bill Blatt of Nortel Networks delivered the Focus Group II report. Focus Group II includes two subcommittees: Y2K Readiness and Testing (headed by Dr. Vaho Rebassoo of Boeing) and Contingency Planning (headed by Mike Cooke of Nortel). Mr. Blatt reported that overall, there are no known Y2K issues impacting the interface between the Public Switched Telephone Network and connected Consumer Premises Equipment (CPE), even though certain CPE could have stand-alone problems as a result of Y2K. The Group concluded that the availability of fixes, upgrades, or replacements from the supplier community is good.

Mr. Blatt emphasized that end users are responsible for Y2K assessment, including taking responsibility for contacting vendors, implementing fixes, and budgeting for remediation. The Group has targeted April 1999 for release of its draft report on issues within its purview.

Ray Albers of Bell Atlantic, Chair of Focus Group III, then gave the Network Reliability Steering Committee Annual Report. While the overall frequency and impact of reported problems was higher than the baseline year (1992/93), he said, these are still within control limits. Procedural errors, such as ignoring alarms, are the root cause of 32% of all outages. Central office (CO) power outages are increasing in frequency, but these represent the lowest annual aggregated outage index to date. On the other hand, common channel signaling (CCS) outages are declining in frequency, but these have a relatively high impact. Further, there has been an increase in the CCS outage index over the last three years.

Mr. Albers pointed out that local switch outages are stable and show the lowest annual aggregated outage index to date. Facility outages, which have a higher customer impact that other failure categories (except for outages due to natural disasters and overloads), are the major contributor to the overall rise in the median outage index.

Focus Group III includes a Subcommittee on Industry Best Practices Review and a Subcommittee on Data Analysis and Future Consideration. The Best Practices Review Subcommittee began its work in November of 1998 and is following a schedule, which will lead to sharing its accumulated data with new entrants and suppliers in July, 1999. The Data Analysis Subcommittee likewise began its work in November of 1998 and anticipates recommending criteria for future outage reporting requirements by August 1999.

Each Focus Group maintains a subsite on the NRIC public Web site (www.nric.org), which will include background material such as reports, guidelines, and templates. The membership of the Focus Groups and Subcommittees is attached as an appendix to these minutes. Slides from today's presentations are also available on the site.

Mr. Armstrong then called on the Chair of the NRIC IV Steering Committee, Mr. John Pasqua (AT&T), who presented the NRIC IV Communications Plan Proposal. The purpose of the Plan is to provide a framework for consistent communications about NRIC efforts and results. In addition, the Plan will heighten industry and public awareness about NRIC's efforts and will disseminate communications tools and materials for NRIC member use as well as best practices, templates, assessments, and contingency plan procedures to industry partners and end-users.

The Plan is expected to reach telecommunications industry partners, suppliers, customers, and employees; member groups of industry associations; the news media and general public; and governments at all levels.

Further, the Plan will present the overall message that the telecommunications industry is well positioned to meet the Y2K challenge. It will caution, however, that contingency planning is a critical component of Y2K programs and that Y2K success depends on end-user responsibility.

These points will be emphasized through the communications media established by NRIC, such as the FCC and NRIC Web sites, press releases and official communiqués, presentation packages and feature articles, and industry fora and customer events.

Starting with this meeting, the Plan will evolve incrementally through 1999, culminating in a press release on the telecommunications industry handling of the Y2K transition in January 2000. Mr. Pasqua also presented a timeline for future NRIC meetings on April 14, 1999 and July 14, 1999; an industry forum in late summer; a Fall meeting on October 14, 1999; and a final meeting on January 6, 2000 in which conclusions and recommendations for future activities will be highlighted.

A draft of the Communications Plan was circulated among the members present.

After taking questions from members of the panel and the audience, Mr. Armstrong cited problems with participation in various NRIC queries, particularly in the area of individual countries failing to provide information on their efforts to meet the Y2K challenge. Mr. Armstrong suggested that Commissioner Powell might join in future requests for information and that help from the State Department might be enlisted in getting a response from countries who have not so far answered our requests for information.

In closing the meeting, Mr. Armstrong urged every member, as well as the public, to read the material supplied by the Focus Groups, Subcommittees, and Steering Committee and submit their comments by the end of January.

The meeting was adjourned at 3:00 P.M.