WASHINGTON-Verizon Wireless has asked the Federal Communications Commission to waive its rules requiring location technology to be embedded in 95 percent of a carrier’s handset base by the end of the year. However, Verizon said it can meet the requirement by June-much earlier than its rivals.
Verizon Wireless said it is at 91-percent compliance today and expects to reach 93 percent by the end of the year.
“While previous FCC-imposed handset milestones relied in part on the availability of handsets in the marketplace and on carrier actions, the 95-percent penetration milestone is uniquely challenging because it depends on actions by customers to change out their handsets,” said John T. Scott III, Verizon Wireless vice president and deputy general counsel for regulatory law. “Absent relief from the current deadline, Verizon Wireless would be compelled to force some of these customers to swap out their handset, even though they are satisfied with their current one, solely to meet a numeric mandate. Compelling such disruptive action would in fact disserve customers.”
Verizon Wireless joins Alltel Inc. and Sprint Nextel Corp. in asking for waivers, but Alltel and Sprint Nextel both said they would need much longer to meet the mandate.
Nextel Communications Inc. said in July that most of its customers do not upgrade their handsets frequently, so it expects to have only 80 percent of its embedded base with location-capable phones by year-end. It officially asked for a waiver once its merger with Sprint Corp. closed.
In a separate waiver request filed in July, CTIA and the Rural Cellular Association said their members that chose handset solutions to meet the wireless enhanced 911 rules would not be able to meet the deadline. Rural carriers long have complained about the handset requirement, noting that many customers prefer their 3-watt analog phones as opposed to digital phones.
When the FCC allowed carriers to choose handset solutions to meet the wireless E-911 Phase II rules, it said that 95 percent of all handsets in use must have location capability by Dec. 31.
Handset-based solutions must be able to locate callers within 50 meters 67 percent of the time and within 150 meters 95 percent of the time.
