Vermont’s telecoms regulator has opened an investigation into “isolation” within the state’s E911 network, disruptions caused by falling trees, technical glitches or other events that leave entire communities unable to contact emergency services for hours at a time.
The vulnerability received scrutiny in the Legislature this year — and has existed for some two decades — causing some lawmakers to ask the E911 Board to delay signing a new five-year, $12 million contract while policymakers ponder a solution.
The board pressed ahead and signed a new contract at the end of March with INdigital, an Indiana-based company that operates next-generation E911 networks in Indiana, Alabama and New Hampshire.
“We felt we had addressed the questions the Legislature had,” Barbara Neal, executive director of the E911 Board, said earlier this month. Lawmakers said it was too late to stop the new contract, and weren’t sure there was anything they could do even if they wanted to block it.
Before signing the new contract, the board petitioned Vermont’s Public Utility Commission to host a workshop identifying the extent of the isolation problem and discussing potential fixes.
The PUC decided to open a full investigation into E911 isolation, which involves taking testimony from affected parties and eventually issuing an order on what action needs to be taken if a problem is identified.
Neal referred questions about the investigation to the PUC. Kyle Landis-Marinello, the commission’s general counsel, noted that “investigations” conducted by the body were often explorations of an issue, as opposed to a process to determine who or what is at fault.
He said the commission would take public comments on 911 isolation, which are due by April 25, and then decide how to proceed, whether it’s with workshops involving interested parties or additional rounds of public comments.
Landis-Marinello said the final outcome could be rulemaking, recommending changes to relevant laws or starting another exploratory process if it’s needed. “We have to wait and see what we are being asked to do first,” he said.
The extent of the 911 isolation issue, who should fix it, and whether it’s something that needs to be fixed at all, has been a matter of ongoing debate at least as far back as 2006, the last time the PUC hosted a workshop on the problem.
The commission drafted an order in 2016 to address the issue, but it met stiff resistance from Verizon, which owned most landline networks at the time, and went nowhere.
Neal insisted during numerous meetings over the past two months that it was not an issue that should be addressed in the E911 board’s contract with INdigital, because the isolation was being caused by problems in the privately owned telecommunications architecture outside the board’s control — most often wirelines owned by Consolidated Communications, a successor to Verizon.
Over the past two years, about 50 landline 911 outages were reported in communities across Vermont, though not all were caused by “isolation” problems. And those are only reported outages — telecom companies are not required to report all outages. Neal said it’s not possible to know how many individual emergency calls were blocked during these events.
The greatest concern regarding 911 outages has been for communities that don’t have connection to broadband or cellular phone coverage, meaning there is no alternative when landlines go down.
The Department of Public Service has never created a comprehensive coverage map showing which areas receive which telecommunications services, sparking complaints from critics who want to see a more strategic approach to addressing Vermont’s connectivity woes.
When it comes to 911, however, at least one lawmaker said the notion that all Vermonters should be able to reach emergency services from their house all the time was “ludicrous.”
“I mean, life goes on,” Sen. Alison Clarkson, D-Windsor, said during a Senate Government Operations meeting this month. “It’s not like everybody’s always going to be able to call 911. I just think it’s unrealistic to think that you’re always going to have access.”
That has not been the sentiment of most of Clarkson’s colleagues. Sen. Randy Brock, R-Franklin, has been pushing government agencies this session to explain who is accountable for which functions, who will take the blame if things go wrong and who is going to step up and propose solutions to persistent problems like E911 isolation.
Brock said senators are looking into “whether or not the 911 board ought to be attached to some other entity for governance and oversight, if you will,” though major changes would come next year at the soonest. The board is currently appointed by the governor and operates independently.
“When I look around for the expertise within, you know, the rest of the state government about E911, it’s somewhat limited,” Brock said. He added that he had accepted the need for the E911 board to meets its deadlines in signing a new contract, but added that he was “comforted by the fact that we can pull the plug if we have to.”
The new contract has a clause allowing it to be canceled by either party with 30 days notice, which did not exist in the current contract with Consolidated Communications. Neal said she did not know why that change was made.
The PUC has also opened a separate workshop this month related to 911 isolation that occurs because of power outages. More households in the state use voice over internet protocol, “VOIP,” for their home phones, a service that is often bundled with internet and cable.
This type of phone service is not vulnerable to wireline isolation, but the devices often use electricity, unlike standard landline phones. This means that when the power goes out, the phones stop working, unless there is a backup power source.
The PUC has asked VOIP providers and regulators come together to look into “how the telecommunications industry in Vermont is addressing the federally mandated backup power obligations,” which compel phone providers to offer backup batteries in case of blackouts. Comments are due by April 23.
The Town of Shrewsbury filed a letter with the Department of Public Service in January complaining that VTel was not meeting those obligations (VTel says that it’s going beyond its federal requirements).
Charles Finberg, a Shrewsbury resident, testified about the issue in the Senate Finance Committee this week. He said that VTel customers in Shrewsbury who are in need of new backup batteries are being directed to a shop in Rutland that is sold out of the devices.
“But, more fundamentally,” he said in prepared statement, “one must ask whether even a 24-hour set of batteries is an adequate replacement for the uninterrupted E911 access that copper-wired phones provided.”
Finberg called the VOIP issue a “gaping, dangerous hole in the phone service” and said that public investment in expanding internet service in the state should not move forward “without simultaneously assuring preservation of access to E911 service.”
