§ 4.5   Definitions of outage, special offices and facilities, and 911 special
facilities.

   (a) Outage is defined as a significant degradation in the ability of an end
   user to establish and maintain a channel of communications as a result of
   failure or degradation in the performance of a communications provider's
   network.

   (b)  Special  offices  and  facilities  are  defined as major military
   installations, key government facilities, nuclear power plants, and those
   airports that are listed as current primary (PR), commercial service (CM),
   and reliever (RL) airports in the FAA's National Plan of Integrated Airports
   Systems (NPIAS) (as issued at least one calendar year prior to the outage).
   The  member  agencies of the National Communications System (NCS) will
   determine which of their locations are “major military installations” and
   “key government facilities.” 911 special facilities are addressed separately
   in paragraph (e) of this section.

   (c) All outages that potentially affect communications for at least 30
   minutes with any airport that qualifies as a “special office and facility”
   pursuant to the preceding paragraph shall be reported in accordance with the
   provisions of § § 4.11 and 4.13.

   (d)  A mission-affecting outage is defined as an outage that is deemed
   critical to national security/emergency preparedness (NS/EP) operations of
   the affected facility by the National Communications System member agency
   operating the affected facility.

   (e)  An  outage that potentially affects a 911 special facility occurs
   whenever:

   (1) There is a loss of communications to PSAP(s) potentially affecting at
   least 900,000 user-minutes and: The failure is neither at the PSAP(s) nor on
   the premises of the PSAP(s); no reroute for all end users was available; and
   the outage lasts 30 minutes or more; or

   (2) There is a loss of 911 call processing capabilities in one or more E-911
   tandems/selective routers for at least 30 minutes duration; or

   (3)  One or more end-office or MSC switches or host/remote clusters is
   isolated from 911 service for at least 30 minutes and potentially affects at
   least 900,000 user-minutes; or

   (4) There is a loss of ANI/ALI (associated name and location information)
   and/or a failure of location determination equipment, including Phase II
   equipment,  for at least 30 minutes and potentially affecting at least
   900,000 user-minutes (provided that the ANI/ALI or location determination
   equipment was then currently deployed and in use, and the failure is neither
   at the PSAP(s) or on the premises of the PSAP(s)).

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