NRIC IV Network Reliability and Interoperability Council

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NRIC IVNetwork Reliability and Interoperability
Council

• Washington, DC
• October 14, 1999
• Rick Harrison
• Telcordia Technologies
• 732-699-6720
• rick6_at_telcordia.com

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NRIC IV Focus Group 3 Subcommittee 1 Team Members
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NRIC IVFocus Group 3

• Subcommittee 1 Work Plan/Scope
• Focus on Power, Essential Services, Facility, and
  Procedural Best Practices and outage reports
  (Last update reported on Power and Procedural,
  Today will cover Essential Services, Suppliers
  and revisit Power)

• Identify new Best Practices from NRCII, NRICIII
  and ongoingNRSC Activities
• Update Best Practice List from last Best Practice
  reviewwith any new Best Practices found above
• Expand and revise Best Practice titles and text
  to broaden the scope to make them more applicable
  to new entrants
• Re-categorize Best Practices into more generic
  focus areas
• Survey industry on Best Practice Implementation,
  Effectiveness and relative cost to implement
• Review Outage reports for Best Practice
  implications
• Revisit Power Outages due to the recent findings
  of the NRSC

NRC/NRIC
NRC/NRIC
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NRIC IVFocus Group 3

• Subcommittee 1 Responses to Carrier Best
  Practices Survey
• GTE Yes SBC Yes
• Ameritech Yes Sprint Yes
• ATT Yes BellSouth Yes
• Bell Atlantic Yes 6 Companies No Response
• U S WEST Yes
• Responses cover 95 of total US access lines

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NRIC IVFocus Group 3

• Subcommittee 1 Responses to Supplier Best
  Practices Survey
• Lucent Yes
• MOTOROLA Yes
• Nortel Yes
• Tellabs Yes
• Siemens Yes
• 20 Other Companies No

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NRIC IVFocus Group 3

• Subcommittee 1 Observations/Findings
• Overall implementation of Best Practices by
  traditional service providers and suppliers
  remains high
• Power
• Two new best practices have been identified
• All existing best practices have been rated as
  effective
• Review of power outage reports (past 2 Years)
  supports the need for following existing best
  practices
• Outage index (customer impact) reflects
  effectiveness of power best practices in
  mitigating outage impact

DANGER 1000 Ohms
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NRIC IVFocus Group 3

• Subcommittee 1 Observations/Findings
• Power Continued Best Practice by Best Practice
  Review
• PW01 (human factors)- reword to make it more
  actionable. Also - Human Factors have been
  considered and incorporated in newer power
  equipment however, power equipment has a long
  life cycle and is typically upgraded or replaced
  based on the need for more power and not because
  of new technology or improved human factors
  features.
• 6 Power BPs have Limited Application
• Power 27 (AC Tap Boxes) was deleted as a BP
• Power 44 (multiple smaller plants closer to the
  load) was deleted as it was redundant with Power
  33
• BPs (8) originally endorsed based on Hurricane
  Andrew post mortem were found to either have
  Limited Application be redundant with other BPs
  conflict with other BPs or not be BPs at all.
• Power 10 (onsite/resupply plan fuel supply) was
  found to be a real winner

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NRIC IVFocus Group 3

• Subcommittee 1 Observations/Findings
• Power Continued Focus on Year 6 7/1/98 - 6/30/99
  Outages
• 22 Outages
• 12 - Root Cause Commercial/Backup Power Failure
• 10 Root Cause Procedural
• 8 Sub Cause Standby Generator
• BPT Findings
• 15 Outages with Best Practice implications

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NRIC IVFocus Group 3

• In Report Year 6 (July 1, 1998 - June 30, 1999)
  CO Power Outages had
• the highest number (22) of outage frequency in
  the 7-year reporting period to the FCC
• the highest aggregated outage index (355) in the
  7-year reporting period
• a considerable increase (37.5) in the outage
  frequency from the previous reporting year
• a drastic increase (570) in the aggregated
  outage index from the previous reporting year

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NRIC IVFocus Group 3
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NRIC IVFocus Group 3
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NRIC IVFocus Group 3

• Subcommittee 1 Observations/Findings
• Power Continued Focus on Year 6 7/1/98 - 6/30/99
  Outages
• BPT Findings Continued
• PW69-71 PR03 All relate to MOPs and
  Installation Guidelines
• PW69 - Telcos should have documented installation
  guidelines
• PW70 - Telcos should clearly communicate their
  installation guidelines to all involved parties
• PW71 - On-site installation acceptance should
  include a quality review of conformance to the
  company's and vendors guidelines
• PR03 - MOPs and Acceptance/Verification Check-off
  Sheets for Hardware and Software Growth/Change
  Activities
• All of the above were rated highly effective,
  implemented and low cost to implement

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NRIC IVFocus Group 3
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NRIC IVFocus Group 3

• Subcommittee 1 Observations/Findings
• Power Continued Focus on Year 6 7/1/98 - 6/30/99
  Outages
• BPT Findings Continued
• Six remaining Outages
• 1- Under-engineered for load
• 1- Lightning
• 4- Engine/hardware failure
• 3- multiple failures
• 1 - Remote location in the mountains, bad weather
  forced back helicopter and SnowCat trip was over
  4 hours.
• Two new Best Practices identified related to Low
  Voltage Disconnect and Alarm

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NRIC IVFocus Group 3

• Subcommittee 1 Observations/Findings
• (The Subcommittee has reviewed and evaluated the
  report of the NRSC Procedural Error Team and has
  included their recommendations, as appropriate,
  for new best practices)
• Procedural
• The volume of procedures being performed in the
  networks is increasing (increased opportunity for
  errors)
• Increasing complexity and capacity of operating
  environment
• Increased number of interconnecting networks
• Expanded capabilities of new technology
• Code openings due to increased utilization of
  numbering resources
• Implementation of Number Portability
• Y2K related software changes

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NRIC IVFocus Group 3

• Subcommittee 1 Observations/Findings Continued
• (The Subcommittee has reviewed and evaluated the
  report of the NRSC Procedural Error Team and has
  included their recommendations, as appropriate,
  for new best practices)
• Procedural
• High Implementation
• However, Implementation may mean have a policy
• Survey responses indicate that Procedural Best
  Practices are highly effective however, in
  practice, the trend in the frequency of
  procedural outage reports indicate that they are
  not being followed
• Procedural Best Practices are directed at both
  mitigating and preventing outages

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NRIC IVFocus Group 3

• Subcommittee 1 Observations/Findings Continued
• Essential Services
• ECOMM of NRCII had 33 recommendations which posed
  many options and alternatives to improve
  reliability
• Many of the above recommendations were
  complementary and Supplementary
• Survey Data indicated confusion regarding
  implementation responses

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NRIC IVFocus Group 3

• Subcommittee 1 Observations/Findings Continued
• Essential Services
• SC1 analysis resulted in a complete revamping of
  the Essential Services Best Practices
• Deleted redundant BPs
• Deleted Not Best
• Combined related options and alternatives that
  supported the same goals and objectives
• ES01 ES02/ES01 ES03 ES04

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NRIC IVFocus Group 3

• ES01 ES02/ES01 ES03 ES04
• ES01- Diverse Interoffice Transport Facilities
• ES02 - Diverse Interoffice Transport Facilities
  with Standby Protection (Option of ES01)
• ES03 - Diverse Interoffice Transport Facilities
  Using DCS (Option of ES01)
• ES04 - Fiber Ring Topologies for 911 Circuits
  (Accomplishes the goals of ES01,0203)

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NRIC IVFocus Group 3

• Subcommittee 1 Observations/Findings Continued
• Essential Services
• 33 Best Practices Evaluated
• 8 Deleted
• 7 combined with others
• 18 Best Practices

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NRIC IVFocus Group 3
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NRIC IVFocus Group 3

• Subcommittee 1 Observations/Findings Continued
• Supplier Best Practices
• SP05 Human factors represents a new paradigm for
  vendors. There will be increased emphasis due
  to the Procedural. Errors Team Report.
• SP12 Establish Core Team to plan, test and
  evaluate change - Service Provider initiated BP
  that suppliers should participate in. Not a
  Supplier BP Delete (See PR14)
• Add PR04 Information Sharing Guidelines - as SP12
• Survey reflects continued high implementation
• Confirmed broad industry applicability beyond
  traditional Telcom suppliers
• Combined categories of DCS, Switch and Signaling
  into 1 Network element category

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NRIC IVFocus Group 3

• Next Steps
• July -A Best Practice by Best Practice review
  and analysis of the survey responses COMPLETE
• -Review NRSC Facilities Solution Team Report
  for Best Practice implications ONGOING
• August -Complete survey analysis and gain
  consensus
• around final recommendations COMPLETE
• November -Draft 1 of final report ( deferred
  due to renewed focus on Power)
• December -Complete final report