WASHINGTON-Voters across the country had a decidedly mixed view about whether their telecommunications bills should increase to upgrade their local 911 systems.
The most-watched vote was the rejection in California of a 3-percent increase for emergency services.
“Wireless consumers have said enough is enough. Consumers sent a clear and unambiguous message to policy-makers: Stop taxing my wireless phone. Yesterday’s vote demonstrates that wireless customers pay very close attention to public policy initiatives that increase the cost of their wireless service,” said Steve Largent, president of CTIA-The Wireless Association.
LaSalle County, Ill., rural residents who currently do not have a 911 system approved a $1.60 per-network charge, said the Times-Press. In Justice, Ill., voters rejected a 75-cent increase but the town board decided Wednesday to go ahead with the upgrades anyway, according to the Daily Southtown newspaper.
Channel 13-WHOTV reported that voters in Polk County, Iowa, approved a $1 tax for upgrades to radios, mobile computers and 911. Voters in other parts of the country considered sales and property-tax increases to finance 911 upgrades.
In Huntington, W.V., voters were not asked to decide whether to raise the 911 tax but telecommunications customers could still see an increase depending on an impending vote of the Cabell County, W.V., council. The council is set to vote to increase the 911 tax by $2, according to the Herald-Dispatch. If approved, $1 will be added March 1, raising rates to $2.50. The second dollar will be added July 1.
Just before Congress left town last month for the elections, efforts were under way to push through a 911 bill that would provide grants for 911 upgrades if a state or locality didn’t raid the funds collected by telecommunications users.
The bill would create a grant program for states to deploy wireless E911 service. Grants would be withheld from states that use money from 911 taxes collected from wireless customers to solve budget problems.
With Congress scurrying to leave town, Sen. Conrad Burns (R-Mont.) set out to negotiate with House leaders in “a pre-conference” to get the 911 bill passed. In other words, rather than passing a bill in the Senate and then going to conference with the House to deal with differences between the two bills, the Senate would consider an amended version of the 911 legislation, pass it, send it to the House to pass it and then send it to the White House.
Burns’ effort failed when a senator objected.
The grant program in the Senate bill totaled $500 million, while the House bill set aside $100 million. The pre-conference negotiation had settled on $250 million, but at least one senator said that was too high.
Other issues also tripped up the bill including an effort by Sen. Trent Lott (R-Miss) to amend the bill to eliminate the 95-percent handset penetration requirement. Under the Lott proposal, carriers that chose the handset solution to comply with the Federal Communications Commission’s wireless E911 Phase II rules would not be required to have complete deployment by Dec. 31, 2005, as is required today.
Expected to be included in the bill is a House provision that the FCC take six months to review the accuracy standards for rural carriers.
Rural carriers-most of which chose TDMA technology for their digital networks-cannot meet the compliance requirements using their network-based solutions because they do not have an urban core to average non-compliance with compliance. Nationwide carriers take advantage of the averaging component of the law to counteract where their networks are not as built out. For rural carriers, this is more complicated because towers have been built along roads in a “string of pearls” fashion, making triangulation difficult, if not impossible. Handset manufacturers backed away from an E911 solution for TDMA when the nationwide carriers began migrating off that air interface.
