WASHINGTON-T-Mobile USA Inc. Thursday agreed to pay a fine of $1.1 million for failing to deploy wireless enhanced 911 services on its GSM network in a manner consistent with a waiver it received in 2000.
The consent decree wraps up the outstanding issues regarding the use of enhanced observed time difference of arrival technology for E911. EOTD is a hybrid network/handset-based technology for GSM systems that never met the location benchmarks in the Federal Communications Commission’s rules.
T-Mobile, and later AT&T Wireless Services Inc. and Cingular Wireless L.L.C., consistently argued for more time for EOTD to prove itself, but death for the technology came last year when Cingular Wireless said it was suspending EOTD testing, and AT&T Wireless said it was reviewing its options. These two larger carriers earlier agreed to fines and an aggressive deployment schedule of network-based technology.
But T-Mobile kept hoping the FCC would allow EOTD testing to continue and then allow the carrier to deploy it on a slower schedule, but the FCC did not agree. T-Mobile was forced into negotiations that allow it to not admit to being guilty of violating the FCC’s rules. The alternative would have been an enforcement action that would have labeled T-Mobile as non-compliant.
In addition to agreeing to the fine, T-Mobile agreed to a schedule that allows it nearly two years to deploy network-based technology to those public-safety answering points that have requested the service. If it misses these deadlines it could face millions of dollars in additional fines.
In the meantime, T-Mobile is continuing to test network-based technology and will keep the FCC abreast of the results of the tests.
T-Mobile will also join the rest of the wireless industry in filing quarterly progress reports. When it received its waiver in 2000-more than a year before the other nationwide carriers-T-Mobile (then known as VoiceStream Wireless Corp.) was given a semi-annual reporting schedule that was out of sync with the rest of the industry once the other waivers were granted.
