WASHINGTON-Network-based solutions to meet the wireless enhanced 911 Phase II mandate may be winning the battle with handset-based solutions because handsets are not available as the deadline looms for carriers to make a choice.
While many of the largest carriers-including Verizon Wireless, Sprint PCS and Nextel Communications Inc.-would not comment on what solution they have chosen, rural carriers and AT&T Wireless Services Inc. are expected to choose network-based solutions.
“I am not aware of anyone who is choosing the handset-based solution,” said Michael Bennet, regulatory counsel to many rural wireless carriers.
“We plan to file by the deadline that we will be in compliance with a network-based solution. Handset-based [solutions are] too uncertain. The quality varies from manufacturer to manufacturer,” said Ken Woo, spokesman for AT&T Wireless.
Bennet said the reports may vary by carrier but that all of the rural carriers are “very frustrated with having to comply with the Nov. 9 filing. … It is very difficult at this point for carriers to make such an election.”
Federal Communications Commission rules require carriers to file decision and status reports on Nov. 9 declaring which technology they will use to meet the mandate to deliver automatic location information to public safety answering points.
Network-based solutions generally use triangulation while handset-based solutions use global positioning system chips.
Some rural carriers may not make a choice, Bennet said.
“I would imagine that most of the [smaller carriers] will not be able to make an election by the deadline,” said Bennet. These carriers are expected to file status-like reports at the FCC explaining why they can’t make a choice.
VoiceStream Wireless Corp. has previously said that it will first use a network-based solution and then migrate to a system that uses both network functionality and handset capabilities. The GSM carrier is expected to file a report that will closely track a filing it made earlier this month where it said that it will meet the extended deadlines the FCC set out for it when it granted the company a waiver to use a technology known as enhanced observed time difference of arrival.
Carriers have long complained about the Phase II mandates and earlier this year convinced the FCC to delay the date for when carriers must make a technology choice. Thomas Sugrue, chief of the FCC’s Wireless Telecommunications Bureau said last week that the Nov. 9 date is firm.
Since the FCC changed the rules for handset deployment in September, the agency has met with carriers to make sure they realized that now they must make a choice and that the FCC is expecting an honest answer as to the status of Phase II implementation, said Sugrue.
“We hope that in their written filings that the lawyers don’t get a hold of it and they become so qualified [as to be meaningless]. It is sort of like the canary in the coal mine. If there is a problem, we want to know about it,” said Sugrue.
Sugrue’s comments came during a press briefing held last week to discuss upcoming issues in the wireless bureau.
In addition to 911, the wireless bureau is also working on a notice of proposed rule making to examine the spectrum cap, which limits the amount of spectrum a carrier can control in a geographic area to 45 megahertz in urban areas and 55 megahertz in rural areas.
Sugrue said he is concerned about any relaxation that would allow for less than four carriers in a market.
“I would be worried about going to three [carriers in a market] but we don’t want to inhibit the development of advanced services,” said Sugrue.
The wireless bureau is also working with the FCC’s International Bureau on the license-transfer application for VoiceStream’s mergers with Powertel Inc. and Deutsche Telekom AG.
Sugrue does not believe the DT/VoiceStream deal will create competition concerns but that there may be national-security issues.
“There are national security issues that tend to come up when a foreign company wants to acquire, even apart from government ownership, so those would be present,” said Sugrue.
Further down the road, the wireless bureau will also be preparing to auction off TV channels 52-59 by Sept. 30, 2002. This spectrum is being returned to the government as part of the digital TV transition.
Another swathe of the same spectrum, channels 60-69, has run into a series of problems with moving the TV broadcasters out so that wireless carriers can get access to the spectrum after it is auctioned on March 6.
TV broadcasters do not have to relinquish their “analog” channel until 2007 or when 85 percent of the homes in their coverage area have digital receivers.
