Foreign firm to take over massive US phone database; Handover sparks fears...
Overhaul of U.S. Telecoms Database Sparks Fear of
Catastrophic Failure
Foreign firm handling overhaul cited for national
security breaches
By: Adam Kredo March 26, 2018 5:00 am
An impending overhaul of the national U.S.
telecommunications database is prompting fears the transition could spark a
catastrophic failure, crippling emergency communications networks across the
United States, according to industry insiders who told the Washington Free
Beacon the foreign firm handling the upcoming transition may not be prepared to
initiate the switch.
On April 8, a foreign firm will initiate the first phase
in a Federal Communications Commission-mandated overhaul of the national
telecoms database that stores and facilitates millions of American phone
numbers.
The national database, known as the Number Portability
Administration Center (NPAC), handles 6 billion calls and texts per day, and if
the system fails, no calls at all will be able to be placed. It is being taken
over by a foreign-owned firm with a past of breaching U.S. national security
clauses banning it from employing foreign workers, such as those tied to China.
Ahead of the deadline, industry insiders have been
raising concerns that iconnectiv, the firm responsible for handling the
nation-wide transition, is not prepared to implement the switch, a situation
that could cripple emergency services and interrupt cell service for scores of
Americans.
The first phase of the transition will focus on nine
American states in the southeast, as well as Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin
Islands. Industry insiders told the Free Beacon that there is currently no
mechanism in place to return to the existing telecoms database should something
catastrophic occur during the impending transition.
"First responders won't be able to reach people in
need, the FBI and other law enforcement will lose a critical tool in conducting
wiretaps, and consumers could face long stretches without wireless
service," said one source with direct knowledge of the situation.
iConnectiv, formally known as the Swedish-owned firm
Telcordia, has been working on an expedited timeline to implement to transition
after it was forced to restart its work in the wake of a national security
scandal.
Telcordia was caught in 2016 using a Chinese engineer to
work on the sensitive database, a violation of national security clauses
included in the firm's contract with the U.S. government.
The use of foreign workers triggered an FBI
investigation, forcing the company to restart its work, a situation that
delayed the project for months and cost U.S. taxpayers some $375 million.
Now working on a rushed deadline ahead of the April 8
switch, industry insiders have been expressing concerns that the network is not
ready for primetime, which could result in a catastrophic failure impacting
scores of Americans.
"The bottom line is that it's difficult to get a
good read on whether everything is on target for April 8," officials with
Mobile Ecosystem, an industry consulting firm, wrote in a recent update on the
situation. "Executives who have been involved with IT projects of this
magnitude are concerned about the compressed time schedule for this
project."
"It was delayed for a time because some code that
had been written by a Chinese citizen who did not have the proper security
clearance had to be rewritten, which resulted in the testing schedule being
substantially compressed," the firm noted. "In an ideal world, given
the volume of data involved, the production traffic should be mirrored for a
time. But it does not appear that there's a plan for that."
Concerns about the overhaul have also reached Congress,
where Sen. Bill Nelson (D., Fla.), ranking member of the Senate's Committee on
Commerce, Science & Transportation, recently petitioned the FCC to explain
if it is prepared for iconnectiv to take over the database.
Nelson implored FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai to provide
assurances the database overhaul will not takedown Florida's emergency
services, as industry insiders have been warning for months.
The senator requests the FCC explain what it "is
doing to make sure that the transition occurs seamlessly and without disruption
to public safety, law enforcement, industry of the general public in
Florida," according to a copy of the letter sent last week and obtained by
the Free Beacon. "In particular, I want your assurance that no Floridian
will be harmed as a part of this process."
Nelson is demanding further assurances that the FCC has a
plan to revert back to the current system should something go wrong with the
overhaul.
Currently, there is no system in place to quickly
reinstate the current database should iconnectiv's overhaul go wrong, according
to multiple sources with knowledge of the situation.
"The FCC, for a highly suspect reason, is hell-bent
on making this happen on a date certain to the point where they're willing to
ignore this necessity of a contingency rollback," said one source familiar
with the new database.
If the new system "does not work the way it was
intended, they don't have a contingency plan, which is a very odd way to do a
technology transition," the source said.
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