WASHINGTON-The FCC’s Enforcement Bureau on Friday said it wanted to evaluate test results by the Wireless Consumers Alliance that claimed that none of the 33 mobile phones tested by the group meet the government’s 911 strongest-signal rules adopted in 1999.
“The Federal Communications Commission takes compliance with our 911 rules very seriously. As a follow-up, we here formally request that you provide us a copy of your studies, including the FCC identifiers and serial numbers of the units, test results and methodologies as soon as practical so that we can make a determination as to whether there have been any violations of our rules,” said David Solomon, chief of the FCC’s Enforcement Bureau, in a letter faxed to WCA and made available to RCR Wireless News.
WCA plans to reply with the request. “What they want, they get,” said WCA President Carl Hilliard, who met with FCC staff earlier in the week to lay out test results and explain why WCA is filing a series of lawsuits.
The first lawsuit against Sprint Corp. and Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. filed Nov. 15 in the U.S. Court for the Southern District of New York 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.
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 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 (called A/B technology). 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 rules. Samsung received a limited waiver from the FCC, but that waiver has expired, Hilliard said.
Samsung, Sprint, AT&T Wireless and Cingular declined to comment.
On another front last week, the FCC was digesting comments filed on the Hatfield Report, authored by Dale Hatfield, former chief of the FCC’s Office of Engineering and Technology, which examined the state of enhanced 911 deployment.
Rural carriers have different implementation challenges than nationwide carriers, as acknowledged by Hatfield. The Rural Telecommunications Group, in its comment, took it one step further and suggested the FCC change its rules to recognize those differences.
“Arguably, rural carriers are expected to provide more accuracy in rural areas than nationwide carriers. … Such a regime is contrary to [FCC] intent to set a consistent accuracy standard for all carriers and their customers. … In light of the report, RTG suggests that the commission re-examine its accuracy standards and develop an accuracy standard that reflects the difficulties small, rural carriers have in achieving the same accuracy results that are achievable in urban areas. Since small, rural carriers cannot use any urban-based accuracy results to average out inherently less-accurate results in rural areas, the [FCC] should allow small, rural carriers to meet a `rural’ accuracy standard,” said RTG.
AT&T Wireless was one of the few carriers to file comments. “Because wireless carriers are but one (albeit important) component of E911 implementation, increased regulation of the wireless industry would do nothing to further the [FCC’s] goals. Indeed, virtually all of the E911 compliance burden currently falls on [commercial mobile radio services] providers, yet many of the problems and obstacles to E911 deployment cited in the are completely beyond the control of wireless carriers,” said AT&T Wireless.
Verizon Wireless did not file comments leaving that chore to its parent company. “If you look at Hatfield’s suggestion, he correctly identifies that 911 is attacked in a hodge-podge way. It is our view he attacks it in a hodge-podge way,” said Michael O’Connor, director of public policy for Verizon Communications Inc., in an interview with RCR Wireless News. Suggesting a multi-step process, O’Connor continued, “The advisory group would come up with technical standards and policy recommendations and then the FCC could coordinate with the Department of Homeland Security rather than the variety of ways mentioned by Hatfield.”
Verizon is ready for E911 deployment within the six-month window, said O’Connor.
O’Connor objected to one conclusion in the Hatfield report. Hatfield said that local exchange carrier systems were antiquated. O’Connor was quick to point out that Hatfield cites comments made by Intrado Inc., which offers 911 services as a competitor to Verizon. “The notion that the [LEC] system is antiquated is self-serving,” he said.
Funding the deployment of E911 has been a sticking point for a long time. Verizon suggested public funding. “It is a tax any way you look at it. It is a tax on telecom users or a tax on society,” said O’Connor.
The Senate is also re-engaging in E911. Sen. Conrad Burns (R-Mont.), incoming chairman of the Senate communications subcommittee, has asked Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) to join him in chairing a Senate E911 Caucus to advocate for the deployment of E911. The former first lady has accepted.
