WASHINGTON-None of the 33 mobile phones tested by the Wireless Consumers Alliance meet the Federal Communications Commission’s 911 strongest-signal rules adopted in 1999, WCA charges in a series of lawsuits filed by the group.
The first lawsuit against Sprint Corp. and Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. filed in the U.S. Court for the Southern District of New York on Nov. 15 is only one of several lawsuits already filed or in the process of being filed.
Lawsuits also are under way or have been filed in federal court in Washington state against AT&T Wireless Services Inc. and Nokia Corp., and in the U.S. Court for the Central District of California against Cingular Wireless L.L.C. and L.M. Ericsson. Lawsuits in state courts have been filed or are being planned for New York, New Jersey, Texas and California against manufacturers.
A separate California lawsuit encompasses all of the allegations and asks for injunctive relief to bar the carriers from selling the phones, which appear to be most, if not all, of the phones offered today by four of the six nationwide carriers. Verizon Wireless Inc. and Nextel Communications Inc. are not named in any of the lawsuits.
WCA President Carl Hilliard helped create WCA to fight for strongest-signal rules, which enable phones calling 911 to search for the carrier with the strongest signal so the emergency calls can get through, regardless of which carrier is the caller’s service provider. The FCC gave the carriers and their manufacturer partners several options on how to implement the rules. Under one option, the phone must inform the caller that a 911 call has been placed by both an audible message and a message on the phone screen and the phone must connect to the preferred carrier within 17 seconds or switch to the non-preferred carrier. All phones with an analog mode were required to comply with this rule as of Feb. 13, 2000.
WCA claims that the phones in question were supposedly equipped with A/B technology, but do not abide by at least one of the two conditions.
“Defendants have engaged in an ‘unfair’ business act or practice in that the justification for selling products and services based on the false representations and omissions of material fact detailed above, and absent the material disclosures discussed above, is outweighed by the harm caused by such falsely advertised products and services, particularly considering the alternatives available to defendants, and offends public policy, is immoral, unscrupulous, unethical and offensive, threatens to significantly harm competition or causes substantial injury to consumers,” according to the California complaint.
WCA said it approached Samsung after it discovered that Samsung’s phones were not compliant after the Feb. 13, 2000, effective date of the FCC’s 911 strongest-signal decision. Samsung received a limited waiver from the FCC, but that waiver has expired, Hilliard said.
Samsung could not be reached for comment at press time.
Hilliard on Wednesday met with FCC staff but he doesn’t expect the FCC’s Enforcement Bureau to look into the situation.
“Why should they [the FCC] send the case to enforcement? We’re doing the lion’s share of the work. … My expectation is they will sit back and wait for the court to act,” said Hilliard.
