WASHINGTON-While consumer advocates and wireless lobbyists tie up the Federal Communications Commission in heated debate over 911 strongest-signal and text-telephone compatibility issues, Rome is burning.
Phase I wireless enhanced 911 implementation is a disaster. And it appears the FCC does not have control of the situation.
“The commission has expended an inordinate amount of their resources on single-interest issues while larger issues await action,” said John Melcher, director of information systems for Great Harris County 911 Emergency Network.
“The lack of inaction at the FCC on LEC (local exchange carrier) involvement in 911 is hamstringing deployment.”
In the eight months since the April 1 start date for Phase I wireless E911, according to industry and government officials, only a handful of U.S. localities have emergency systems in place that meet federal requirements for carriers to provide automatic number identification and cell site information for 911 calls to public safety answering points, or PSAPs.
Meanwhile, official Washington remains fixated on strongest-adequate signal and TTY controversies that remain unresolved by the FCC, despite exhaustive meetings and technical submissions in the past year.
Ari Fitzgerald, wireless adviser to FCC Chairman Bill Kennard, met with public-safety officials last week on strongest-adequate signal, while consumer advocates of strongest-adequate signal knocked heads with wireless carriers last Thursday in Baltimore without reaching a compromise.
In addition, the FCC asked for more data from the Telecommunications Industry Association on how to fix the problem of wireless 911 calls that don’t go through-a technical shortcoming in some mobile phone systems that has resulted in several deaths.
“The government has correctly moved to expand wireless emergency services. Issuing edicts, however is not enough,” said Thomas Wheeler, president of the Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association, in a Nov. 12 speech in Orlando. “In the lingo of our business, there is a need for post-sale customer support from governments charged with public-safety responsibility, especially the FCC.”
Wheeler said the FCC is partly to blame for not pre-empting local zoning decisions that deny consumers wireless 911 service.
The cellular industry has aggressively lobbied the FCC and Congress for a uniform 911 emergency telephone number and for the same liability protection from lawsuits that wireline carriers have.
Also, cellular carriers do not want to pay for a patented strongest-signal solution that they believe is inferior to other options.
E911 Phase II, which kicks in Oct. 1, 2001, requires mobile phone operators to identify the location of mobile units within a radius of no more 125 meters (410 feet). Some fear that if Phase I problems are not resolved, Phase II safety features will be denied to the detriment to the 60 million-plus mobile phone subscribers in the United States.
The reasons for wireless 911 Phase I delays are complex and many. The implementation process has turned out far more complicated than anyone imagined. Given the magnitude of the undertaking, some have suggested that perhaps E911 rollout deadlines set by the FCC are unrealistic.
In essence, wireless E911 is a federal mandate for tens of thousands of jurisdictions across the country, each with its own parochial fiscal pressures and politics.
“It’s just a huge job,” said Bill Stanton, executive director of the National Emergency Number Association. “I do think it will get done, but it will take time. The bottom line is the public has to perceive it [wireless E911] is fair and reasonable.”
While wireless 911 obligations fall squarely on wireless carriers, some say cellular, personal communications services and large dispatch radio operators are the least of the problem.
Indeed, carriers cannot proceed with Phase I implementation until requests are received from PSAPs-which must be technically capable of handling wireless 911 data-and until funding mechanisms are in place.
“The reality of what’s taking place is carriers are the drivers,” said Eric Sorenson, product marketing manager for SCC Communications Corp., a wireless E911 firm in Boulder, Colo. “Many public-safety folks have not done what they need to do to be prepared.”
PSAPs disagree, arguing they are working as hard as anyone to improve a 911 regime historically dominated by the Baby Bells and other landline telcos.
That is part of the problem, according to carriers, PSAPs and E911 service providers. They say outdated landline routing and network infrastructure equipment is weighing down wireless E911 implementation with interconnection snafus.
But PSAPs, like wireless carriers, are heavily dependent on others-state and local officials and landline telcos-to make the system work. And when carriers and PSAPs are not arguing with others, they’re fighting with each other.
PSAPs and wireless carriers are at odds over who has responsibility for choosing E911 technology. The Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association has a petition pending before the FCC that argues carriers should decide E911 technology. PSAPs reply that E911 technology choice should be a collaborative effort.
The choice of E911 technology has key economic implications for PSAPs and wireless carriers that defy easy answers.
For instance, what is cost effective for a carrier with a nationwide footprint may not be the optimal financial model for a county or state.
The 911 wireless back-up stems from a multitude of differences among carriers, PSAPs, state legislatures and federal regulators over funding, liability, technology, interconnection and other issues.
“It is no secret what the barriers are,” said Reuven Carlyle, a spokesman for Xypoint Corp., a wireless location enhanced services provider whose flagship product is E911.
Carlyle added: “There is a creeping reality within the FCC and within the public-safety community that the goal of a nationwide ubiquitous wireless E911 systems is imploding.”
Despite the slow-going, E911 is making progress in pockets of California, Washington, Oregon, New Jersey, Indiana and Colorado.
Carlyle said the E911 problems are not fatal. “They simply require time and attention, but mostly attention,” he said.
E911 gridlock has put Kennard-who early staked out a leadership position on 911-and the Wireless Telecommunications Bureau on the hot seat.
“Our understanding is that Phase I is by no means complete nationwide,” said Dan Phythyon, WTB chief.
According to a new NENA survey, only 1.5 percent or less of PSAPs have Phase 1 capabilities. NENA survey results were sent to the FCC last month.
Phythyon, who steps down Dec. 1 as bureau chief, said he is aware of some Phase I 911 obstacles. Several unresolved issues could be addressed in an upcoming reconsideration order, he added.
“I guess the question is what the FCC is going to do,” said Bob Miller, technical issues director for NENA. Miller questioned why the FCC-which declined to establish an advisory committee to oversee wireless 911 implementation-has waited so long to intervene.
“There’s no reason they [the FCC] can’t get Phase I” implemented, Miller said.
When asked whether FCC has a scorecard of where wireless Phase I 911 has taken hold, Phythyon said the bureau has only anecdotal data.
Late last week, it was learned Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle soon may weigh in on the wireless E911 issue.
