WASHINGTON-The Federal Communications Commission could make a decision on the strongest-signal debate as early as this month at the public meeting, said senior FCC officials last week.
While the details of the decision are still uncertain, it seems the cellular industry’s efforts to convince the FCC to “let the marketplace decide” may not have been successful. “I think it is fair to say I wouldn’t characterize it as the marketplace (decision),” said Thomas Sugrue, chief of the Wireless Telecommunications Bureau.
That is not to say consumer advocates have won, either. The question before the FCC is not a marketplace decision, but a technical one, Sugrue said, adding that the question is whether the FCC would mandate one technology or a set of criteria for different technologies. “I am confident that whatever the [FCC] adopts will improve call completion,” he said.
The Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association and consumer advocates- in the form of the Ad Hoc Alliance for Access to 911 and the Wireless Consumers Alliance-have been locked in trench warfare for more than a year over the issue.
The dead-zone problem refers to the lack of coverage in some areas where only an A- or B-side cellular carrier offers service. An A-side customer traveling in a B-only area cannot receive or place calls in dead-zone areas. The problem becomes particularly acute if the call being placed is to 911.
The Ad Hoc Alliance asked the FCC in 1995 to require carriers to install a chip in handsets that would search and place 911 calls using the strongest-control channel-regardless of which carrier serves the customer. The proposal has since been modified to “adequate signal.”
CTIA would rather the FCC adopt A over B roaming. Under this proposal, the phone first would search the preferred side-the subscriber’s carrier’s side-and only place the call on the non-preferred side if no signal could be found. CTIA’s proposal would allow 65 seconds to elapse before the call would be dropped unless the customer cut off first.
Throughout the last year, the two sides have debated various points, At the heart of the most recent debate is the definition of marketplace. WCA believes carriers are the marketplace for handsets, not consumers, because carriers, for the most part, order phones from manufacturers and sell them to consumers bundled with service.
WCA in an April 23 letter urged the FCC to unbundle handsets from service if the FCC was going to choose a criteria approach for different technologies.
“Wishful thinking that the carriers’ selection between various alternatives allegedly intended to overcome the dead-zone problem will be influenced by an unbiased decision for the benefit to the consumer is clearly contradicted by the record in this proceeding. Therefore, if the [FCC] now allows the ‘market to decide’ between these alternatives, it must at the same time order the complete unbundling of equipment and services,” the letter said.
Untying the service from the handset would allow a customer interested in a strongest-signal feature to buy a phone that includes it.
CTIA believes handset tying arrangements are legal, producing 1991 comments from the Justice Department that support bundling handsets with service.
