WASHINGTON-Only 24 states told congressional investigators that they plan to meet the 2005 deadline for wireless enhanced 911 Phase II deployment.
“Implementation of wireless E911 is several years away in many states, raising the prospect of piecemeal availability of this service across the country for an indefinite number of years to come,” said the General Accounting Office in a report released last week.
The Federal Communications Commission has mandated that wireless carriers be ready to deliver Phase II location information to public-safety answering points by Dec. 31, 2005.
E911 service is being deployed in two phases and has been marked with numerous delays. All carriers and all markets must be deployed by 2006. It is estimated the implementation will cost $8 billion over the next five years.
In other 911 action, the FCC declined to mandate specific rules for telematics 911 calls and 911 calls from multi-tenant buildings. The commission is requiring mobile satellite service carriers to set up 911 call centers, but is not requiring them to deploy Phase II technology at this time.
The rules drew sharp criticism from the mobile-phone industry, which has been struggling to deploy Phase II technology by the deadline.
“Today’s wireless products come in many shapes and sizes, and may be sold by any number of retailers. Yet, only the phones sold directly by wireless licensees are required to locate callers when they dial 911 in an emergency,” said Steve Largent, president and chief executive officer of the Cellular Telecommunications & Internet Association. “Certainly, it makes sense that any device capable of dialing 911 should also be capable of delivering location information to emergency responders.”
CTIA added that it is against expanding E911 rules to emerging technologies, where the burden of a new and expensive mandate might reduce innovation.
Earlier this month, the House of Representatives passed a bill creating a $100 million annual grant program to help speed E911 deployment. States that have used 911 money collected from consumers for other purposes would not be eligible for the grants. A Senate bill is awaiting floor action. The Senate bill is more generous, authorizing $500 million annually.
Congress became energized about the issue earlier this year when an E911 Congressional Caucus was created. The caucus is chaired by Sens. Conrad Burns (R-Mont.), chairman of the Senate communications subcommittee, and Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.), Reps. John Shimkus (R-Ill.) and Anna Eshoo (D-Calif.).
Burns asked GAO to for the status report on wireless E911 deployment.
“My primary concern is to improve the level of America’s public safety in a post-Sept. 11th world, and I believe this is best accomplished through the creation of a seamless emergency response infrastructure,” said Burns.
Finally in separate action on Nov. 10, the FCC changed the rules on how a non-service initialized mobile phone must be identified to a PSAP.
“The standard recommended by the Emergency Services Interconnection Forum provides a powerful solution, which will allow 911 callers-many facing urgent, life-and-death situations-to provide a callback number to 911 call centers when relying on a non-service initialized or 911-only wireless phone,” said Susan Miller, president and chief executive officer of the Alliance for Telecommunications Industry Solutions. ESIF is an ATIS subcommittee.
In the event that a 911 call is cut off, PSAPs were concerned that non-service initialized phones made it difficult for PSAPs to call the 911 caller back to verify and determine the extent of the emergency because the phone was not attached a specific telephone number.
Originally, the FCC had said that non-service initialized and 911-only phones needed to be programmed with a series of consecutive numbers to alert the PSAP that the call was coming from a phone that could not be called back. ESIF pointed out to the FCC that this would needlessly use global roaming numbers. The new rules call for the phones to be programmed to read 911 plus a seven-digit number that will indicate it is from a non-service initialized or 911-only phone. The new rules should be effective in about six months.
