DENVER-Qwest Wireless last week filed to change its Enhanced 911 Phase II solution from a network-based solution to an assisted Global Positioning Satellite-or hybrid-solution.
Qwest in November was one of the 14 carriers to file with the Federal Communications Commission for a network-based solution. Fifteen carriers chose handset-based solutions, seven carriers chose hybrid solutions and 10 carriers, including AT&T Wireless Services Inc., said they were not in a position to make a decision. That line of thinking has apparently played out over the past several months, with a variety of carriers changing their E911 decisions or filing for deadline extensions.
Qwest said it became disenchanted with network-based location technologies during the course of its E911 tests.
“While other carriers may have had different, more favorable experiences, we no longer have confidence in those representations as applied to our network,” Qwest wrote in its FCC filings. “We have found it difficult to persuade vendors to participate with us in other than the most controlled of testing environments. Lacking strong performance data in a live network environment (whether ours or other carriers’ networks), we are no longer willing to pursue a solution with-at best-an unpredictable (if not unproven) ability to conform to the commission’s mandates and the public’s expectations.”
Stephanie Boyet Colgan, manager of regulatory affairs for the company, said Qwest couldn’t find any network-based E911 technologies that could perform outside of a laboratory.
“It’s not really a real guarantee it’s going to work,” she said during the Intelligent Networking for Wireless Architectures conference in Denver. “We’ve become disenchanted with the network solution.”
Instead, Qwest said it would try for a A-GPS solution, which combines aspects of the network- and handset-based solutions. The system uses trilateril network data and GPS data to locate callers, and works well in rural, suburban and urban environments, according to Qwest.
However, Qwest said even with the change in its E911 solutions, it still would not be able to meet the FCC’s October deadline. On the handset side, the company said E911-compliant phones would not be available by the deadline, but it anticipates that Kyocera Wireless Corp. phones with Qualcomm Inc. A-GPS-capable chipsets would be available by December.
“We’ve been assured by at least one vendor that they will have handsets ready for us,” Colgan said.
On the network side, Qwest said its switches made by Lucent Technologies Inc. would meet the October deadline, but switches from Nortel Networks Corp. wouldn’t be E911 ready until the third quarter of next year.
“In light of this, we are confident that the waiver we will seek from the commission will be targeted and limited,” Qwest wrote in its filings. “We believe that the grant of the waiver request will best serve the public interest, particularly in light of the fact that for our network and our customers, the A-GPS location-technology is superior to that of a network solution from a public-safety perspective.”
Qwest said Qualcomm’s apparently successful Snaptrack GPS technology, along with Nextel Communications Inc.’s decision to switch to a hybrid E911 solution, led the company to its hybrid choice. Qwest said it would conduct live network trials of the hybrid solution until September. The company said it expects 25 percent of all handset sales will be A-GPS-compliant by March of next year, and 100 percent of new handsets will be compliant by March 2003.
Also at the Intelligent Networking for Wireless Architectures conference, an executive for Leap Wireless International Inc. said the company was considering changing its E911 solution. But unlike Qwest, Leap is considering moving from a handset-based solution to a network-based solution.
“We are really circling back to see if we can do a network solution,” said Laurie Itkin, Leap’s director of government affairs.
E911 is being deployed in two phases.
Phase I required carriers to supply a call-back number and cell-site location information to public-safety answering points, while Phase II requires more precise location information. Handset-based solutions must be able to locate a caller within 50 meters 67 percent of the time and within 150 meters 95 percent of the time. Network-based solutions must be able to locate the caller within 100 meters 67 percent of the time and within 300 meters 95 percent of the time. Carriers using a handset-based solution have until Oct. 1 to start selling handsets with automatic location information, and 25 percent of all new handsets activated by Dec. 31 must be capable of delivering automatic location information. This number rises to 50 percent on June 30, 2002, and 100 percent on Dec. 31, 2002. Carriers that choose network-based must deploy the solution within six months of a request from a public safety answering point like a 911 call center.
