Verizon told FCC it shouldn’t require that telecom equipment and ...

Verizon told FCC it shouldn’t require that telecom equipment and facilities be protected against extremely high levels of electromagnetic pulse (EMP) generated by terrorist attack. Comments filed by carrier were in response to petition for notice of proposed rulemaking dated Sept. 25 by Donald Schellhardt and Nickolaus Legett. Petitioners asked Commission to adopt standards to require carriers to install shielding to protect networks against extremely high levels of EMP that could be experienced in terrorist attack. They said such shielding would require that every electronic device in network be completely encased in copper or other material that wouldn’t conduct EMP energy. They proposed that all new equipment installed on or after July 2004 meet standard and all existing equipment be retrofitted by Jan. 2008. Petitioners provided no estimate of cost of providing that level of protection nor how it would be financed. FCC rejected similar request 15 years ago, Verizon wrote, and industry since has addressed problem by adopting standards to deal with reasonably anticipated EMP levels. “In contrast, the vastly higher EMP levels posed by petitioners are more that can be reasonably expected,” Verizon said: “Adding to the level of shielding, as they request, would require a virtual rebuild of the entire telecommunications network, with costs running into the trillions of dollars nationwide, an unrealistic and unnecessary measure.” Existing electronic equipment can’t readily be encased in copper or other material to prevent penetration by EMP at levels petitioners requested, it said. “Instead, each item would need to be redesigned and replaced to prevent EMP from penetrating and damaging it.” Verizon cited measures by Department of Defense, which had considered EMP effects of wide area thermonuclear exchange with former Soviet Union but had concluded extensive EMP shielding was necessary only in its most critical installations. Many electrical protection measures currently used by telecom industry designed to protect against lightning strikes provide adequate protection against reasonably anticipated EMP levels, said Percy Pool, Verizon lead engineer, network engineering, in separate statement. Standards for such protection were issued by T1 committee of Alliance for Telecommunications Industry Solutions (ATIS), he said. EMP fields can affect exposed electronics equipment by: (1) Direct illumination of electronics in line of sight of generation point. (2) Induction of voltages onto cables for power, cable TV, antenna, telecommunications that enter buildings or enclosures that house electronics. Copper shielding proposed by petition wouldn’t effectively protect equipment from latter inducted EMP because “energy is likely to be introduced into the device through cabling and wiring,” Pool said: “Consistent with these published industry standards, which are designed to protect against ‘baseline’ (i.e., reasonably anticipated) EMP levels, Verizon has implemented grounding, bonding and electrical protection measures… both in the central office and in outside plant. These measures will generally mitigate the EMP and direct it away from sensitive equipment so it cannot cause harm, just as it mitigates harm from lightning strikes.” In case of particularly sensitive facilities, such as those serving govt. installations, carriers where requested have installed at customer expense higher level of shielding based on ATIS- developed industry standards to prevent damage from more localized high-power EMP attack. Energy released by EMP device detonated at high altitude -- most likely scenario -- would be dispersed over broad area and energy reaching any office would be attenuated, Pool said: “To the extent that any outage occurs, it will be of short duration, similar to that that may occur during periods of high sunspot activity, and the affected equipment generally will not suffer permanent harm.”