WASHINGTON-Rural Cellular Corp. is asking Congress to extend the deadline for wireless enhanced 911 Phase II service.
“The solution to ensure that rural communities receive the same assurances of their E911 system as their urban counterparts would be to allow for a two-year extension of the Phase II deadlines for rural wireless carriers with TDMA/GSM systems,” said RCC. “It is estimated a handset-based solution for GSM phones will be available in the next two years.”
RCC told Sens. Sam Brownback (R-Kansas) and John Sununu (R-N.H.) that it worries it will not be able to meet the accuracy requirements for network-based systems.
“In one month in Vermont, only 26 percent of calls with location information were located within 100 meters of the call’s origin. Of all E911 calls placed only 8.4 percent had any location information at all,” said RCC.
Rural carriers tried unsuccessfully to get language to delay the mandate included in the E911 bill when it was considered by the House Commerce Committee. Instead the House passed a bill requiring the Federal Communications Commission to report on the successes and challenges of rural deployment.
The National Emergency Number Association was incredulous that RCC would attempt to delay E911 implementation at the same time the Senate is waiting to consider legislation meant to accelerate deployment. The Senate version does not contain any rural-related language.
“NENA has come to the table with rural carriers in good faith, asking what they can do in a case-by-case basis. Asking for a blanket wavier and two-year delay through the current legislative process appears to be less about improving E911 and more of strategy for Washington lobbyists. It’s not like E911 is a new issue, to have the rural carries advocate for this kind of delay, at this point of the game is capricious at best,” said Stephen Seitz, NENA director of government affairs.
Even as wireless E911 is still being slowly deployed, NENA recently said it does not want the 911 system to be degraded as communications migrate from circuit-switched networks to Internet platforms so it released six principles designed to aid the E911 process.
The main catalyst behind NENA’s call to action is the emergence of Voice over Internet Protocol systems and the concern that as these systems are developed for mobile devices that the location problem that arose with the growth of cell phones will not happen again. It has been more than 10 years since a need for wireless E911 was recognized and yet a system is not fully in place.
NENA’s six principles are:
c Establish a national E911 VoIP policy;
c Encourage vendor and technology neutral solutions and innovation;
c Retain consumer-service quality expectations;
c Support dynamic, flexible, open architecture system design process for 911;
c Develop policies for 911 compatible with the commercial environment for IP communications;
c And promote a fully funded 911 system.
Emergency services should not only be part of the migration to IP services but a priority in the development of these services, according to NENA.
“NENA supports a vision, and position of collaboration, to explore what must be done to ensure our nation’s 911 system is not only part of the `digital revolution,’ but a priority in providing any Internet-based voice service and application,” according to a position paper from the group.
