WASHINGTON-While most of the nation’s 90 million mobile phone subscribers are still without enhanced 911 wireless service two years after the federal deployment deadline, there are signs of progress as a result of key legislative and regulatory actions.
“I would say Phase I is beginning to take off,” said Norm Forshee, 911 coordinator for St. Clair County, Ill., and next president of the National Emergency Number Association.
Forshee and others said the past six months have seen a marked increase in the number of requests by public safety answering points (PSAPs) to mobile phone carriers for wireless E911 service.
“It’s finally heating up. The wireless industry and the public-safety community are finally sitting up and paying attention to Phase I implementation,” said John Melcher, deputy director of Greater Harris County 911 Emergency Network in Texas and a candidate for second vice president of NENA.
At the same time, Melcher and others concede progress has been slow and that obstacles remain.
A big problem that Texas public-safety officials brought to the attention of the Federal Communications Commission last week involves mobile phones donated by the cellular industry to needy groups. Such phones sometimes have only emergency 911 calling capability, which creates problems for emergency 911 dispatchers because there is not a valid call-back telephone number.
In addition, rural cellular operators say they will be financially hurt by revised FCC rules designed to foster fledgling E911 implementation.
Asked whether he felt wireless E911 should be further along, NENA’s Forshee replied, “I’m disappointed that it’s not.”
“This is really not a technical issue. It’s a team-building issue,” said Melcher.
According to industry and public-safety estimates, E911 service is available only to a small percentage of mobile phone subscribers served by an industry striving to be competitive with landline telephone companies. More than 98,000 wireless 911 calls are made daily. Last year, about 43 million wireless 911 calls were made in the United States.
For sure, there has been an uneasy relationship between the wireless industry and the public-safety community over the timely implementation of wireless E911. But the process of improving mobile phone safety capability requires the involvement of a variety of different stakeholders with different agendas.
Some in the public-safety community privately express anger at E911 implementation delays-accusing wireless carriers of dragging their feet-but are reluctant to go public with their grievances because they must work with wireless carriers.
Implementation of Phase I E911 service, which provides emergency dispatchers with the caller’s mobile phone number and the location of the cell site nearest to the caller, was to begin April 1, 1998.
But legal, technical and funding problems severely stifled the rollout of Phase I E911, prompting controversy and finger-pointing among carriers, manufacturers and public-safety officials. Given that, concerns were raised that Phase II E911-requiring the location of mobile phone callers within several hundred feet-also will be delayed at the expense of wireless consumers.
So Congress and federal regulators stepped in.
Last October, Congress passed and President Clinton signed legislation giving wireless carriers and E911 vendors the same limited liability protection as wireline telephone companies. The bill also made 911 the universal wireless emergency telephone number.
The FCC last fall relaxed deadlines for implementing Phase II E911 service and injected flexibility into E911 funding and deployment requirements. The original deadline for Phase II E911 was Oct. 1, 2001, but that date was based on network-based location technology.
With the prospect of integrating global positioning system satellite technology into phones, the FCC revised its rules and established different implementation and compliance schedules for carrier rollout of network- and handset-based Phase II E911 solutions.
While wireless carriers must declare their Phase II E911 technology choice by Oct. 1, the actual implementation of subscriber-location service is at least several years out.
Yet, in spite of all the confusion and controversy, there appears to be accelerated movement to put wireless E911 in place. This may be due, in part, to improved cooperation among the various stakeholders and the fact that location services can be a safety feature as well as a commercial revenue generator.
Barbara Winters, vice president and general manager for wireless services at SCC Communications Corp., said carriers and vendors are aggressively contacting PSAPs and urging them to order service.
“I don’t see them [large carriers] sitting back and twiddling their thumbs,” said Winters. At the same time, Winters predicted E911 implementation among small and mid-sized wireless carriers will be slower and will require more education.
