Northern Virginia may well have endured one of the worst communications catastrophes a modern society can endure outside of an outright power failure; its 911 systems have undergone outages. In a bid to prevent such from happening again in the future, the three congressmen from Northern Virginia--Jim Moran, Gerry Connolly, and Frank Wolf turned to the FCC's Julius Genachowski (News - Alert) in a recent letter to help ensure that, when it's needed, 911 will always be available.

The Northern Virginia congressmen specifically called on FCC (News - Alert) Chairman Genachowski to bring back a regulation established in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, which would require every telecommunications company to maintain sufficient backup power supplies such that every cell phone tower would be able to operate for eight hours, even in the midst of a power outage. While the regulation itself was originally shot down owing to technicalities in the gathering of public opinion, the congressmen from Northern Virginia want the FCC to take another look.

Considering that, following the late-June storm, fully 2.3 million people throughout a wide swath of Virginia lost access to 911 service, it's easy to see why the congressmen are taking another run at the issue of getting power backups for the 911 system. While Verizon (News - Alert), who administers the system, blamed a malfunction in a trunk line, it later mentioned that a diesel generator had also cut out. This was called "one factor" in the loss, and gives the assessment from the congressmen a little extra credibility. Though even their assessment may not be good enough; power in the Virginia area was down for as long as four days following the storm, and that eight-hour requirement would have been quickly defeated by the first day's loss.

It's a difficult balancing act for the whole system. While 911 outages are downright unforgivable--the whole reason they're there in the first place is so that, in an emergency, they'll be useful. So what's the point of an emergency system that fails in the midst of an emergency? Yet at the same time, who should bear the cost of putting up a backup power system? How long is long enough? The longer a backup system is required to operate, the more it costs.

One thing is clear, however, 911 is an emergency system. It must be preserved and available when it's needed. If it's not, it can't fulfill its intended purpose. The exact solution to the 911 outage problem may not be clear, but one thing is: a 911 outage may well be an even bigger emergency than whatever took it offline in the first place.

Want to learn more about the latest in communications and technology? Then be sure to attend ITEXPO West 2012, taking place Oct. 2-5, in Austin, TX. ITEXPO (News - Alert) offers an educational program to help corporate decision makers select the right IP-based voice, video, fax and unified communications solutions to improve their operations. It's also where service providers learn how to profitably roll out the services their subscribers are clamoring for – and where resellers can learn about new growth opportunities. For more information on registering for ITEXPO click here.

Stay in touch with everything happening at ITEXPO. Follow us on Twitter.