Section 480-120-412 - Major outages(1) All companies must make reasonable provisions to minimize the effects of major outages, including those caused by force majeure, and inform and train pertinent employees to prevent or minimize interruption or impairment of service.(2)Notice to commission and public safety answering point (PSAP). When a company receives notice of or detects a major outage, it must notify the commission and any PSAP serving the affected area as soon as possible.(3)Notice to county and state emergency agencies and coordination of efforts. When a major outage affects any emergency response facility, a company must notify immediately the county E911 coordinator and the state emergency management authorities, and provide periodic updates on the status of the outage. The company must coordinate service restoration with the state emergency management authorities if it requests it, and, if requested to do so by the commission, report daily to it the progress of restoration efforts until the company achieves full network recovery.(4)Major outages repair priorities.(a) Outages affecting PSAPs and emergency response agencies must receive attention first and be repaired as soon as possible.(b) Companies must restore other services within twelve hours unless conditions beyond a company's reasonable ability to control prevent service restoration within twelve hours.(c) Companies must restore outages to their facilities affecting intercompany trunk and toll trunk service within four hours after the problem is reported unless conditions beyond a company's reasonable ability to control prevent service restoration within four hours. If the problem is not corrected within four hours, the company must keep all other affected companies advised of the status of restoration efforts on a twice-daily basis.(5)Information to public. Unless heightened security concerns exist, during major outage recovery efforts all companies must implement procedures to disseminate information to the public, public officials, and news media. All companies must provide a statement about the major outage that includes the time, the cause, the general location and approximate number of affected access lines, and the anticipated duration.(6)Notice of intentional outage. When a company intends to interrupt service to such an extent that it will cause a major outage, it must make a reasonable effort to notify all customers who will have their telephone service affected and the state emergency management authorities not less than seven days in advance if circumstances permit or as soon as it plans to interrupt service if circumstances do not permit seven days' advance notice. A notice is not required for planned service interruptions that have a duration of less than five minutes and occur between the hours of 12:00 a.m. and 5:00 a.m.(7)Records. All companies must keep a record of each major outage and a statement about the interruption that includes the time, the cause, the location and number of affected access lines, and the duration.Wash. Admin. Code § 480-120-412
Statutory Authority: RCW 80.01.040 and 80.04.160. 03-01-065 (Docket No. UT-990146, General Order No. R-507), § 480-120-412, filed 12/12/02, effective 7/1/03.