Definition
A code assigned to a telecommunications circuit or service that establishes the order in which it will be restored after an outage. Lower-numbered codes indicate higher priority, meaning those circuits are brought back into service first when communications are disrupted.
Plain English
A ranking that says which communication lines get fixed first when something goes wrong. The most important ones have the highest priority and get restored before the others.
Context Anchor
Seen in FAA acronym lists and may appear with NOTAM or facility-status information when equipment or services are out of service.
Derivation
Restoration means putting something back into service after it has failed. Priority means the order in which things are handled, with the most important first. Code is a label or number that stands for a category. Together, the term names a number that ranks how urgently a service must be brought back online.
Why Pilots Care
Helps pilots understand how long a facility may remain unavailable when planning flights.
Intuition Check
Do not read RPC as a promise that the item will be fixed by a certain time. It shows repair priority, not current availability and not a guaranteed repair time.
Example Sentence 1
The circuit supporting the approach control radios was assigned a high restoration priority code so it would be returned to service before non-critical lines.
Example Sentence 2
Pilots checked the RPC in the NOTAM to see when the navigation aid would be back in service.