FCC Releases Report on Communication Impacts of Hurricane Michael

Hurricane Michael demonstrated starkly how some wireless providers in the Florida Panhandle were able to rebound from this devastating storm through foresight and appropriate planning, while others stalled in their efforts to restore full service. Some providers, working in the same area and facing the same challenges as others, were back in service considerably sooner than others. The poor level of service several days after landfall by some wireless providers cannot simply be attributed to unforeseeable circumstances specific to those providers. A lack of coordination and cooperation between certain wireless service providers on the one hand, and utilities and debris clearance crews on the other, unnecessarily prolonged critical backhaul repairs and full restoration of functioning wireless service. The Federal Communications Commission's Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau finds that three key factors – insufficiently resilient backhaul connectivity, inadequate reciprocal roaming arrangements, and lack of coordination between wireless service providers, power crews, and municipalities – were the predominant causes of the unacceptable lack of service. The Bureau further concludes that a lack of coordination and cooperation among wireless providers themselves (exacerbated by inadequate roaming arrangements) inhibited their ability to increase service availability via roaming. Some providers appear not to have comported with the Wireless Resiliency Cooperative Framework (Framework), the voluntary commitment that several nationwide service providers proposed and committed to abide by in 2016. Specifically, it appears that some wireless providers demurred from seeking assistance from potential roaming partners and, therefore, remained inoperable