WASHINGTON-With an Aug. 31 deadline looming, a Texas state commission has asked the Federal Communications Commission to intervene in assisting them to compel wireless carriers to deploy enhanced 911 Phase I services.
Under Phase I, a call-back number and cell-site information is delivered to a public safety answering point when a caller dials 911 from a wireless phone. Many jurisdictions have wireline E911, which provides the PSAP with a call-back number and the address from which the call is placed.
The implementation deadline for Phase I standards was April 1, 1998, but deployment did not really get under way until the FCC last year removed the requirement that cost-recovery mechanisms for carriers be in place.
The Texas Commission on State Emergency Communications sent a petition to the FCC July 12, urging FCC staff oversight and suggesting that fines might be warranted if the Aug. 31 deadline is not met.
“TX-CSEC respectfully requests FCC emergency oversight to facilitate wireless carrier compliance with the six-month deadline in the FCC’s wireless E911 Phase I service rules and the Aug. 31 appropriation deadline mandated by the Texas Legislature. TX-CSEC hopes that this FCC compliance oversight will result in all wireless carriers within the TX-CSEC program areas [in] Texas being operational by Aug. 31, 2000,”said TX-CSEC which coordinates emergency communications for the rural parts of the state as well as Austin and Corpus Christie.
TX-CSEC will lose $3 million at the end of the month if 75 percent of its program area is not covered by Phase I.
Under the new rules established by the FCC last year, carriers have six months to deploy Phase I services after receiving a request from a PSAP.
There is a bit of confusion as to when some of the carriers may have received their requests. Jim Goerky, TX-CSEC executive director, said all of the requests were sent last fall so the six-month deadline has passed. However, a person who participated in an FCC-sponsored conference call Aug. 9, said TX-CSEC representatives said some of the letters were not sent until February or March. The TX-CSEC document confirms the latter account.
Carriers that don’t comply with the six-month deadline can be sanctioned by the FCC, although the TX-CSEC is adamant that the purpose of the petition was not to complain about inaction but rather to spur the FCC to action.
“Our greatest concern is that we reach the 75-percent requirement by the end of August,” said Goerky.
It seems to have worked.
“The FCC is actively monitoring the status of the situation and is working with all of the parties to bring this matter to a successful resolution,” said Kris Montieth, chief of the policy division of the FCC’s Wireless Telecommunications Bureau.
As part of its monitoring, the wireless bureau staff arranged a conference call/meeting (some people were in person at the FCC while others participated via phone), so it could ascertain where wireless carriers were in the deployment of Phase I and some of the obstacles to meeting the Aug. 31 deadline.
A major obstacle seems to be the lack of trunking available from the incumbent local exchange carriers, Southwestern Bell Telephone Co. and Verizon Communications (formerly GTE of the Southwest Inc.).
“Wireless carriers are and have been each diligently working to timely deploy Phase I E911 in their respective service areas. However, as the CSEC is well aware, an inability to obtain the necessary trunk lines from [ILECs] despite repeated request for provisioning has posed an insurmountable obstacle to deployment of Phase I E911 to date,” said a group of carriers in a filing on July 25 that seems representative of the sentiments presented in the Aug. 9 meeting.
For its part, Verizon is working to fill the trunking orders as quickly as possible but a spokesman noted that when the original orders were filed not all of the information that Verizon needed was available. “We are working closely with the wireless carriers to make sure they are in compliance,” said Bob Bishop.
Additionally, the Texas Public Utility Commission on Aug. 10 committed to TX-CSEC that it would do everything it could to help it meet the deadline. The Texas PUC has regulatory authority over the ILECs.
