House Democrats urge FCC to deny enhanced 911 waivers

WASHINGTON—A group of 16 House Democrats on 31 July warned the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) not to grant the waiver requests of wireless carriers seeking to delay implementation of enhanced 911 (E911) Phase II services.
“The basic wireless E911 requirements have been in place since 1996. Carriers knew then that they would have to provide Phase I and Phase II capability. Many of the changes made by the FCC since 1996 were made at the carriers’ requests and provided greater flexibility as to how and when to implement E911. “In our view, there has been adequate time for wireless carriers and manufacturers to take the necessary steps which would allow them to meet these long established deadlines. Any further delays in E911 deployment may result in the loss of life,” said the members of Congress in letters sent to both FCC Chairman Michael K. Powell and Thomas J. Sugrue, chief of the FCC’s Wireless Telecommunications Bureau.
The letter was released by Rep. Anna Eshoo, who led a round of questioning on E911 during a House telecommunications subcommittee on third-generation (3G) wireless systems last month. Eshoo and others on the telecom subcommittee said they were concerned the wireless industry was putting more emphasis on implementing 3G than on E911.
Sen. Conrad Burns, ranking member of the Senate communications subcommittee, got into the action on Tuesday when he too broached the E911 topic during the Senate’s 3G hearing.
“Even though you are asking for more spectrum, we can’t get you to go ahead and deploy what we think is a vital public-service situation,” Burns told Dennis F. Strigl, chief executive officer of Verizon Wireless, which asked for a waiver on 25 July.
The FCC has granted the waiver request of VoiceStream Wireless, but as the 1 October implementation deadline approaches, the agency has been deluged by carriers requesting more time. In addition to the Verizon Wireless request, the waivers of AT&T Wireless Services, Cingular Wireless and Sprint PCS, among others, are still pending.
E911 service is being deployed in two phases.
Phase I required carriers to supply a callback number and cell-site location information to public-safety call centers. The deadline was 1 April, 1998. Reports vary, but the general consensus is that Phase I is just now being seriously deployed.
Phase II requires more precise location information. The deadline is 1 October. Handset-based solutions must be able to locate the 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 choosing a handset-based solution have until 1 October to start selling handsets with automatic location information (ALI). By 31 December, 25 percent of all new handsets activated must be ALI-capable. This number rises to 50 percent on June 30, 2002, and 100 percent on 31 December, 2002. Carriers choosing network-based solutions must deploy the solution within six months of a public-safety request, many of which have already sent in requests triggering the 1 October deadline.