The Federal Communications Commission is coming under increasing pressure from the wireless industry to put on hold new enhanced 911 location accuracy guidelines, with court appeals virtually guaranteed.
On the sixth anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the FCC clarified that wireless service providers must meet E-911 location accuracy requirements at the public-safety answering point service-area level as opposed to state-wide averaging. There are about 6,000 PSAPs in the United States. The agency directed cellular operators to meet interim benchmarks – the first, Sept. 11 of this year for each economic area served – as well as annual benchmarks over the next five years to ensure full compliance by 2011.
The Association of Public-Safety Communications Officials International and the National Emergency Number Association lobbied for the PSAP-level E-911 location accuracy rule. Democratic Commissioners Jonathan Adelstein and Michael Copps as well as Republican Commissioner Robert McDowell, voiced strong concerns about the FCC ruling in last year’s vote. The cellphone industry said the regulatory process to arrive at the decision was flawed and the result was unrealistic insofar as technological achievability in the timeframe set by the FCC.
Different directions
Now, the wireless industry is in action mode. T-Mobile USA Inc., Sprint Nextel Corp. and the Rural Cellular Association last week petitioned the FCC to promptly stay the effectiveness of PSAP-level accuracy rule, pending judicial review. The carriers said they support the FCC’s goal of improving wireless E-911 location accuracy, but assert the agency is going about it the wrong way.
“In pursuing this worthy objective in this proceeding, the commission has disregarded requirements of the Administrative Procedure Act and imposed infeasible mandates that are unsupported by the administrative record,” stated T-Mobile USA. “In light of these serious legal deficiencies, T-Mobile will seek judicial review of the new mandates in a U.S. Court of Appeals. Unless stayed pending judicial review, these mandates will not only fail to achieve their stated objective, but also will cause substantial and irreparable harm to consumers and – ironically – will likely harm wireless consumers by reducing their access to emergency calling services.”
E-911 service has been plagued with problems for years, initially with wireless carriers struggling to comply with FCC location accuracy requirements and PSAPs scrapping for funding. More recently, light has been shed on the growing problem of locating emergency wireless callers inside buildings and in rural areas. The in-building E-911 problem is becoming more serious because up to 50% of wireless calls are made indoors.
The cellular industry is subject to a split E-911regulatory regime today. CDMA carriers that embrace GPS-handset solutions must adhere to one set of requirements (location of the caller within 50 meters 67% of the time and within 150 meters 95% of the time) and are largely in compliance. Sprint Nextel has CDMA and iDEN wireless operations. GSM carriers, like T-Mobile USA, that use network-based solutions have found it more of a challenge meeting similar parameters.
The FCC wants to examine whether there should be one, technology-neutral standard for wireless E-911 accuracy, an issue for which no consensus exists. A few companies, Polaris Wireless, TruePosition Inc. and Rosum Corp., would stand to gain commercially if such a hybrid standard is adopted.
Sprint Nextel said E-911 PSAP-level in economic areas will not alter the actual operational features of GPS handset technology, but will create a significant cost burden. “The diversion of funds away from network infrastructure and into an unproductive testing protocol will undermine the safety of the public,” Sprint Nextel stated.
Rural carriers accused the FCC of ignoring “the comments of wireless carriers who provided overwhelming technical evidence … that they cannot achieve PSAP-level compliance by the commission deadlines.”
