WASHINGTON-Living up to a warning it made in 2004, Sprint Nextel Corp. asked for a waiver for its iDEN network of the enhanced 911 rules requiring some carriers to have 95 percent of their in-use handsets capable of locating 911 callers by the end of the year.
The issue of compliance with the E-911 location-enabled handset rule was brought up during Nextel Communications Inc.’s recent merger with Sprint Corp., but the merger was not conditioned on compliance with the rule.
Sprint PCS’ CDMA network was the first to offer handsets with global positioning system software, but Nextel’s iDEN technology has had a much harder time developing location capabilities.
Nextel said in July that most of its customers do not frequently upgrade their handsets, so it expects to have only 80 percent of its embedded base with location-capable phones by year-end. The waiver filed late Thursday asks for an additional two years to meet the 95-percent threshold.
In a separate waiver request filed in July, CTIA and the Rural Cellular Association said their members that chose handset solutions to meet the wireless E-911 rules will not be able to meet the deadline. Rural carriers long have complained about the handset requirement, noting that many customers prefer their 3-watt analog phones as opposed to digital phones.
When the FCC allowed carriers to choose handset solutions to meet the wireless E-911 Phase II rules, it said that 95 percent of all handsets in use must have location capability by Dec. 31.
As Sprint Nextel was filing its waiver request Thursday, FCC Chairman Kevin Martin was appearing on Capitol Hill. In response to a question about deadlines for public-safety communications interoperability, Martin said, “Deadlines are often helpful in public-safety issues.” He specifically cited 911.
Handset-based solutions must be able to locate a caller within 50 meters 67 percent of the time and within 150 meters 95 percent of the time.
