FCC Strengthens Submarine Cable Reliability Requirements

Executive briefing: On March 14, 2024 the Federal Communications Commission adopted an order to bolster the reliability of U.S. submarine cable systems. Licensees must now file detailed outage reports within eight hours, maintain network status dashboards for government partners, and submit annual resiliency assessments covering route diversity, spares, and maintenance response.

Key policy signals

Faster reporting. The order accelerates outage notification timelines and requires more granular data on root causes, repair status, and expected restoration.
Resilience plans. Operators must document redundancy strategies, including alternate landing points, spare parts, and agreements with cable repair consortia.
National security coordination. The FCC enhanced information-sharing with the Committee for the Assessment of Foreign Participation in the United States Telecommunications Services Sector (Team Telecom).

Control alignment

Telecom dependency mapping. Refresh risk registers to reflect the new outage transparency and evaluate alternate routes for critical traffic.
Supplier oversight. Require submarine cable partners to share compliance documentation and resilience testing evidence.
Incident response. Integrate FCC outage reporting feeds into network operations centre workflows to accelerate failover decisions.

Action checklist

Obtain updated resilience assessments from cable landing station operators serving enterprise routes.
Model the business impact of the FCC’s eight-hour reporting clock on contractual service-level agreements.
Coordinate with public affairs teams on any confidential treatment requests for resilience data submitted to the FCC.

Sources

Zeph Tech guides enterprises in adapting connectivity strategies to the FCC’s strengthened submarine cable oversight.