Section 737.430  Network Outages and Notification

a)         Each Local Provider shall inform the Commission verbally or via e-mail of any service interruption exceeding 30 minutes duration caused by a complete or partial central office failure or complete or partial isolation of an exchange due to toll circuit failure, including cut cables.  A reportable outage is any one of the following occurrences with duration, unless otherwise specified, of at least 30 minutes affecting more than 50% of the customers and affecting more than 100 access lines in the affected exchange:

1)         Toll isolation;

2)         Loss of dial tone;

3)         One or more end offices or host/remote clusters is isolated from 9-1-1 service;

4)         There is loss of ANI/ALI processing; or

5)         Simplex conditions exceed 5 days.

b)         The notification shall be made via telephone call to (217)558-6166 or via e-mail at the outage notification e-mail address posted on the Commission's website and shall consist of the following information:

1)         Affected Area Code/Prefix

2)         Exchange name

3)         Local Provider name

4)         Cause of interruption

5)         Outage date and time

6)         Restoral date and time

7)         Effect on 9-1-1 service

8)         Name and number of persons reporting the service interruption.

c)         A follow-up written report shall be filed within 30 days, either via U.S. Postal Service, facsimile or e-mail.

d)         All outages affecting 9-1-1 services shall be reported in accordance with 83 Ill. Adm. Code 725, Standards Applicable to 9-1-1 Emergency Systems. 

e)         Whenever it is necessary to interrupt customer service for the purpose of working on the distribution system or central office equipment, the work should be completed with minimal customer impact. The Local Provider shall use reasonable efforts to notify in advance public service customers (e.g., 9-1-1 entities, police, fire, hospitals) it reasonably believes may be most seriously affected by the interruption.  Any customer credits for interrupted service shall be made pursuant to Section 737.300.

f)         The requirements of this Section apply to a Local Provider only to the extent that it owns and/or operates the network facilities and/or equipment that results in an interruption or outage.

(Source:  Amended at 42 Ill. Reg. 2042, effective January 12, 2018)