WASHINGTON-It has been 10 years since the Federal Communications Commission took its first steps toward a nationwide wireless enhanced 911 system, and after a long struggle, important progress is being made.
“It is an incredibly successful and positive story particularly in contrast to the wireline experience. The original petition addressed two issues-the lack of location information from wireless systems and PBXs, and here we are 10 years later with tens of millions of handsets with location technology and other carriers with network technology deployed, and the wireline folks are still arguing about their obligations,” said Michael Altschul, senior vice president and general counsel of the Cellular Telecommunications & Internet Association.
The FCC’s Wireless Telecommunications Bureau credits Congress for giving the commission the authority to oversee 911.
“There was a recognition that wireless E911 is very personal to people, and it needed a faster implementation rate than wireline. It took wireline 30 years to take root,” said WTB Chief John Muleta. “The great success of the wireless industry also helped-meaning the numbers of people. This is not about the 10 million people who have cell phones in 1993; this is about the 150 million people driving by accidents and wanting to help.”
However, getting to this point in achieving E911 service has been a bumpy road.
“I think it is a fairly complex combination. It has been to some degree a process fraught with differences of opinions on how it ought to be solved, less-specific standards than probably should have been accomplished-a presumption that it could go faster than it should have gone or probably could have gone,” said Roger Hixson, technical issues director for the National Emergency Number Association.
As of February, the six nationwide carriers had reported to the FCC that they collectively had installed almost 14,000 public-safety answering points with Phase I technology and almost 5,000 PSAPs with Phase II technology. Only two states have 90- to 100-percent deployment of Phase II. T-Mobile USA Inc. has not deployed a Phase II PSAP, but said it is on track to meet its consent decree commitments.
“We are pretty much on track with our commitments with our consent decrees. We are ahead of schedule,” said Robert Calaff, senior corporate counsel of government and regulatory affairs for T-Mobile USA.
E911 service is being deployed in two phases.
Phase I required carriers to supply PSAPs with a callback number and cell-site location information. The deadline was April 1, 1998.
Phase II requires more precise location information. It was supposed to be available in some areas by Oct. 1, 2001, but the FCC waived that requirement, giving each nationwide carrier a different implementation schedule. All carriers and all markets must be deployed by 2006, however. In Phase II deployments, 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.
Rural Cellular Corp. is lobbying Congress to extend the Phase II deadline since it claims that a GSM handset solution will not be available for it to meet the deadline, and a network-based solution is impractical because triangulation is often difficult because towers are placed in a “string-of-pearls” fashion along highways.
The first trigger for both phases is a PSAP request, at which point carriers have six months to deliver location-information to a PSAP. In 2001, what constituted a valid PSAP request came under fire. The wireless industry wanted and got specific requirements that must be in place before a PSAP can request an E911 upgrade. This was a major turning point along the road to deployment, said NENA President Richard Taylor.
“Richardson really defined PSAP readiness. We worked so hard to get the carriers ready, and we sort of forgot to get the PSAPs ready,” said Taylor. Richardson refers to Richardson City, Texas, which asked the FCC to compel T-Mobile to do the upgrade after T-Mobile said Richardson was not ready. The FCC gave specific guidelines to define PSAP readiness. The six-month clock does not start ticking until a PSAP is ready.
While the bumpy road has smoothed a bit on the carrier side, PSAPs are now faced with a funding crunch as John Melcher, then-president of NENA, told the Senate communications subcommittee last year. “Just in the last few months as things started to happen, now we find that we are ready for the technology, we are ready with the tariff and we are ready with the upgrade and there is no money,” Melcher said.
Wireless carriers and their customers are often surprised that there is no money, because most customers have for years been paying a 911 fee imposed by state and local governments to implement wireless E911. When the technology wasn’t ready, as Melcher explained to the FCC’s Wireless E911 Coordination Initiative Roundtable, the governments started using the money to cover budget deficits. “Every dollar that is being diverted is impacting deployment,” he said.
During both appearances, Melcher was lobbying for legislation that would give grants to PSAPs as long as their governments do not raid 911 funds.
“If we are raising funding for 911 and it says so on the customer’s bills, use that money for 911. If you have deployed 911 and there are still funds, then decrease the 911 tax,” said Melcher.
The House of Representatives has passed a bill that would authorize $100 million for PSAP E911 deployment. The Senate Commerce Committee has passed a bill that would authorize $500 million. The Senate bill is still waiting for action on the Senate floor. Earlier this month, the Association of Public-safety Communications Officials said it is encouraging its members to send letters urging passage of the Enhanced 911 Emergency Communications Act of 2003.
Meanwhile, states and localities continue to tax their residents for 911 services. For example, the six nationwide carriers have formed a coalition in Rhode Island to stop a 26-cent tax hike that government said is necessary to complete a statewide digital mapping project that will aid location technology. Carriers argue that their customers have already paid for the upgrade to E911 and shouldn’t be asked to pay more. Indeed, Rhode Island is often touted as the first state to reach Phase II compliance.
Moving forward, the FCC has tasked the Network Reliability & Interoperability Council with examining the technical obstacles to 911 deployment, including 911 service using voice over Internet Protocol. NENA recently announced various principles for integrating VoIP into the 911 system, so people can call 911 from anywhere on any device and still be located.
