WASHINGTON-Federal Communications Commission member Michael Copps said the agency should have required greater assurance from Alltel Corp. that it will comply with the Dec. 31 enhanced 911 deadline as part of the agency’s conditional approval of the mobile-phone operator’s $6 billion acquisition of Western Wireless.
“The [FCC] order states that if the company fails to meet its E911 deployment responsibilities the commission ‘will not hesitate to take enforcement action.’ While that is positive, I believe we should have gone beyond this assertion to insist that the merged company immediately get itself on a path to full public-safety compliance. Because we do not, we could lose valuable time, and E911 deployment might suffer. I am disappointed that we do not do more today to ensure compliance with our public-safety deadline,” said Copps.
Copps has repeatedly said the FCC should be doing more to improve homeland security communications and telecom infrastructure protection.
CTIA, the U.S. mobile-phone trade group, and rural cellular carriers recently asked the FCC to waive the E911 handset deadline.
The FCC’s requirement that Western Wireless divest wireless assets in 16 markets in Arkansas, Nebraska and Kansas mirrors conditions imposed by the Justice Department last week.
Jonathan Adelstein, the other FCC Democrat, took a slightly different view of an E911 issue, which is believed to come up as well in the pending $35 billion merger between Sprint Corp. and Nextel Communications Inc.
“While I am troubled by Alltel’s apparent difficulty in reaching the 95-percent penetration level by Dec. 31, 2005, I acknowledge the recent commitment to timely address these challenges and to ensure that the merged company remains on a ‘path to full compliance,’ ” said Adelstein.
At the same time, Adelstein said he was pleased FCC Chairman Kevin Martin agreed to soon initiate a proceeding to explore the issue of roaming and the effects of consolidation on the ability of smaller carriers to negotiate access to larger networks.
Dan Gonzales, a Martin aide, did not immediately return a call for comment.
Martin, while saying the Western Wireless divestitures will help preserve mobile-phone competition in certain rural markets, was silent on the E911 issue in his statement.
