A recent Federal Communications Commission notice may give some momentum to vendors offering
handset-based solutions for wireless enhanced 911 compliance.
The FCC has mandated that wireless carriers by
Oct. 1, 2001, be able to locate wireless 911 callers to within 125 meters 67 percent of the time. Several vendors have
devised systems to determine the location of wireless callers. Those vendors fall into two general camps-handset-based
solutions and network-based solutions.
At the heart of the handset-based solution is the interaction between a
wireless handset and the Global Positioning System satellite network. Wireless handsets must be equipped with GPS
receivers for handset-based solutions to work. Advocates for handset-based solutions feared the 2001 deadline would
not allow sufficient time to replace enough handsets to reach 67-percent reliability.
“A primary concern with
applying these rules to handset-based technologies is that carriers may only be able to provide Phase II [automatic
location identification] for new handsets or handsets that have been upgraded to support the chosen technology,”
said the FCC notice. “It may not be possible or economically feasible for carriers to provide ALI for the
embedded base of handsets that have not been upgraded on the date set by the current commission rules.”
The
commission said it is willing to consider proposals that call for E911 solutions to be phased in over time, especially in
situations where the end result would be increased ALI capabilities. The commission also indicated it might consider
applying the phase II requirements only to new wireless phones.
“A commitment by a carrier to provide a
significantly higher level of accuracy could, as the commission indicated, help justify a phase-in of ALI over time,
through upgrading or replacing handsets,” said the commission. “Another way in which the goals of the
rules might be achieved would be if the carrier began implementation of ALI capabilities before the Oct. 1, 2001,
deadline, by offering ALI-capable handsets to customers at an earlier date, and offering only ALI- capable handsets no
later than the date when all conditions for phase II requirements are met.”
“It’s a trade-off between
having an acceptable solution for having 67 percent of the base covered by Oct. 1, 2001 and having the same quality
for 67 percent on Oct. 1 2004,” said Ellen Kirk, vice president of marketing and strategic planning at SnapTrack
Inc., which provides a handset-based solution for locating wireless calls that works with wireless networks to increase
accuracy. “With handset-based solutions you have a higher degree of precision, and if you start earlier you’ll have
some percentage of the base covered in 2001, but by 2004, you’ll be approaching 90 percent of the population with high
precision.”
The commission raised concerns about what might happen to wireless E911 callers who roam into
a network that has only a handset-based solution for E911 and their home network uses a network-based technology.
Feasibly that caller would not be able to be located.
Kirk said that is why SnapTrack believes it makes sense for all
new handsets across the board to be equipped with GPS receivers. The roaming problem does not work the other way
because network-based solutions locate all wireless handsets regardless of what type of location technology is deployed
in their home network.
