WASHINGTON-The cost of complying with law enforcement’s demands for implementing the digital wiretap act is substantial, said the wireless industry last week.
Responding to revenue estimates from five telecommunications manufacturers, the wireless industry told the Federal Communications Commission the costs of implementing the punch list were too high and for this reason, the punch-list items should be excluded from a technical standard implementing the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act of 1994.
The punch list refers to nine technical capabilities law enforcement-through the auspices of the Department of Justice and the FBI-says are necessary to implement CALEA, and privacy advocates and the telecommunications industry say go beyond the scope of CALEA.
The telecom industry in 1997 adopted an industry interim standard that did not include the punch list. The Justice Department and the FBI protested to the FCC, which tentatively concluded last fall that five of the items fell within the scope of CALEA, and three went beyond the scope of CALEA. There was not a ruling on the final item.
The cost issue has been particularly sticky because law enforcement has apparently adopted a CALEA-at-any-cost position while the telecommunications industry has consistently complained CALEA compliance-even without the punch list-will cost too much.
Attorney General Janet Reno reportedly asked telecommunications manufacturers to supply DOJ with cost data in the spring of 1998, but she has not made this information public despite calls from Congress and the telecom industry to do so.
Earlier this year, the FCC gathered revenue data from five manufacturers: Alcatel Network Systems, Lucent Technologies Inc., Motorola Inc., Nortel Networks and Siemens Information and Communications Networks. It aggregated the data for confidentiality purposes and earlier this month asked the public to comment on it.
Noticeably absent from the list-as pointed out directly by the Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association, and indirectly by the Personal Communications Industry Association-was Ericsson Mobile Systems, which claims to have installed nearly 30 percent of all wireless switches.
Another default with the FCC’s aggregation was not all of the manufacturers reported comparable data. For example, some of the manufacturers included in their data revenues generated from a government buy-out and licensing agreement.
Nortel has signed a letter of agreement with DOJ to allow DOJ to buy the licensing rights for CALEA-compliant software and then give that software free of charge to carriers that use the Nortel platform. DOJ is negotiating with other carriers for a similar agreement. CTIA estimates CALEA costs could be reduced by as much as 40 percent under a government bulk buy or licensing regime.
Nevertheless, CTIA said the FCC’s data showed what it had been saying all along: CALEA compliance could cost more than $1 million per switch.
The FCC is expected to rule on the technical standards sometime this summer.
