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In October 2021, the Commission adopted a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) to investigate ways to improve the reliability and resiliency of communications networks during emergencies and ways to ensure that communications services remain operational when disasters strike. The NPRM sought comment on: (i) potential improvements to the voluntary Wireless Resiliency Cooperative Framework (Framework), including evaluating what triggers its activation, its scope of participants, whether existing Framework elements can be strengthened, any gaps that need to be addressed, and whether the public would benefit from codifying some or all of the Framework, (ii) ways to enhance the information available to the Commission through Network Outage Reporting System (NORS) and Disaster Information Reporting System (DIRS) during disasters and network outages to improve situational awareness, and (iii) communications resiliency strategies for power outages, including improved coordination between communications service providers and power companies and deploying onsite backup power or other alternative measures to reduce the frequency, duration, or severity of power-related disruptions to communications services.

In June 2022, the Commission adopted a Report & Order (R&O) and Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (FNPRM) following up on and further addressing matters related to the Framework.  The R&O introduced the Mandatory Disaster Response Initiative (MDRI), which largely codified the Framework’s five substantive provisions as mandatory, extended the reach of these provisions to all facilities-based mobile wireless providers, expanded the real-world criteria that trigger activation of the MDRI (as compared to the Framework) and introduced new provisions requiring providers to test their roaming capabilities and report on the performance of their implementation of the MDRI to the Commission after disaster events.  The FNPRM examined whether and how the new reporting requirement can be standardized to ensure that the Commission obtains vital and actionable information on the performance of providers’ implementation of the MDRI in the aftermath of exigency, while also minimizing associated burdens. This proceeding addresses network reliability in the context of public safety and does not promote the administration’s specified priorities.

In October 2022, CTIA and the Competitive Carriers Association (CCA) filed a Petition for Clarification and Partial Reconsideration in response to the 2022 Resilient Networks R&O. Particularly, Petitioners asked that the Commission: 1) provide a list of potential providers to which the MDRI may apply; 2) provide sufficient time for wireless providers to achieve compliance (by requesting 12 months for non-small providers and 18 months for small providers); 3) align the definitions of non-small” and small” with the Commission’s existing definitions of nationwide” and non-nationwide” as used in the 911 context; 4) establish the process in which the Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau (Bureau) will inform providers that the MDRI is active; and 5) affirm that Office of Management and Budget (OMB) review is required for all information collection obligations and that the Commission will treat all roaming arrangements as presumptively confidential under Section 4.17(d). A draft Order on Reconsideration was circulated for Commission consideration on July 28, 2023