WASHINGTON-Lost in the hoopla over the enactment of wireless 911 legislation last week is the growing prospect that the rollout of position location for the nation’s 80 million mobile-phone users will be seriously delayed in the same way that caller identification is far behind schedule.
The coming train wreck in enhanced 911 is being fueled in large part by confusion and controversy in how carriers and public safety answering points recover the cost of implementing Phase I and Phase II E911 wireless service.
Given that, the Federal Communications Commission is expected this month to change the cost-recovery rules to allow for a “bill-and-keep” mechanism that would have carriers paying to implement E911 service.
The FCC’s Wireless Telecom Bureau would not confirm the “bill and keep” plan but said the agency is working on a a plan for this month’s meeting.
“We would be ready for November’s agenda,” said WTB Chief Thomas Sugrue in October.
Such a rule, allowing “bill-and-keep” likely would shift the financial burden of E911 to carriers and might make it unnecessary for state legislatures to enact wireless E911 cost-recovery laws.
Since the burden may be shifted to carriers, the wireless industry is not keen on the idea. Neither are some public-safety organizations, but for different reasons. They fear carriers, lacking state taxpayer money, will be inclined to cover their own costs and not necessarily those of PSAPs.
Disputes abound about what is causing delays in E911 service being implemented and what is the solution.
Carriers have argued the lack of 911 liability protection is an impediment, but that is no longer the case since President Clinton last week signed into law the Wireless Communications and Public Safety Act of 1999.
Also, E911 technology choice and interconnection with local telephone companies are complicating factors.
But the main reason cited by public-safety officials is the current cost-recovery scheme.
Under current FCC rules, Phase I and Phase II E911 only have to be implemented when a carrier gets a request from the PSAP and a cost-recovery mechanism is in place. It is generally understood that states need to put in place 911 cost-recovery mechanisms.
Today, 27 states have approved 911 cost-recovery. Even at that, it is unclear what level of funding those 27 states can cover.
The Association of Public-Safety Communications Officials International has lobbied aggressively for a “bill-and-keep” approach whereby carriers pay for E911 by building the cost into subscribers’ monthly bills.
Joe Hanna, president of APCO, said strict dependence on the whims of state legislatures for 911 cost-recovery legislation is slowing progress and giving carriers an easy out for not implementing E911 features.
“Initially, the carriers have not shown a willingness to give at all” in negotiations to liberalize cost-recovery mechanisms, said Hanna.
The Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association, the Personal Communications Industry Association, the National Emergency Number Association and the National Association of State Nine One One Administrators are leery of “bill-and-keep.”
“We really think there is an unknown in how they [the FCC] would articulate such a change,” said Jim Goerke, president of NANSA and executive director of the Texas commission on emergency communications.
The FCC said it wants to improve E911 implementation without disrupting the progress that is under way.
“We have a series of concerns. The FCC continues to change the rules on the basis of no evidence, no facts, no nothing that cost recovery has harmed E911,” said Brian Fontes, senior vice president of policy and administration at CTIA.
The FCC said it plans to provide such evidence in its ruling.
There have been concerns about the slowness of the rollout of Phase I 911, which went into effect April 1, 1998, and required carriers to provide PSAPs with call-back and cell-site (or base station) information when 911 is dialed.
However, only a small percentage of carriers have implemented Phase I service.
Phase II, which requires wireless carriers to provide PSAPs with automatic location information accurate to 410 feet, has different implementation deadlines for network-based technologies and for handsets using global positioning system technologies.
Originally, Oct, 1, 2000, was the Phase II E911 deadline for the wireless industry. But the FCC modified that in September to accommodate different E911 technologies. Now carriers must decide by that date which Phase II E911 technology they will deploy.
Carriers choosing to implement network-based technology still need a PSAP request and a cost-recovery mechanism in place. From there, carriers have to implement 50 percent of their Phase II solution within six months of PSAP requests and 100 percent with 18 months of the request.
For carriers that embrace a GPS handset-based solution, PSAP requests and cost recovery are not factors. As such, those carriers are required to begin selling phones with automatic-location-information capability by March 1, 2001. The phones will be phased in until Dec. 31, 2004, when all subscribers must be equipped with ALI-capable mobile phones.
