WASHINGTON-Facing deadlines to implement location-based wireless 911 technology, two major vendors and an advocacy group presented wireless carriers a plan to give carriers extra time to deploy enhanced 911 Phase II service in exchange for providing disaster-warning alerts to the phones of subscribers.
“We made this proposal two years ago,” said Douglas Weiser, immediate past-president of the Cellular Emergency Alert Services Association. Weiser has been a thorn in the side of industry in recent years because of his dogged advocacy of a service that would send via wireless phones alerts of impending tornadoes and other natural disasters, chemical spills, hostage situations and other emergencies that could put wireless subscribers in harm’s way,
Weiser said he floated the proposal two years ago to the wireless industry, when officials conceded to him then they would be unable to meet E911 deadlines set-and since revised by-the Federal Communications Commission. At the time, he was rebuffed by the industry. Recently he again floated the idea after receiving indications that carriers-specifically AT&T Wireless Services Inc. and Cingular Wireless Inc.-may file for additional waivers from the revised guidelines.
Last September, the FCC substantially changed its implementation rules for E911 Phase II handset deployment when it granted a waiver to VoiceStream Wireless Corp. that will permit it to offer its hybrid solution on a different schedule.
For carriers that chose a handset-based solution, the implementation schedule was changed to reflect manufacturers’ concerns that they could not meet the deadline. Carriers now have until Oct. 1 to start selling handsets with automatic location information, or ALI. Previously, carriers were supposed to start selling these handsets March 1.
The new schedule calls for 25 percent of all new handsets activated by Dec. 31, 2001, to be ALI-capable. This number rises to 50 percent on June 30, 2002, and 100 percent on Dec. 31, 2002.
Cingular chose the handset option for its GSM markets and a network-based solution for its TDMA markets. Because Cingular is the combination of the various wireless properties of BellSouth Corp. and SBC Communications Inc., its network uses a mix of GSM and TDMA technologies.
The CEASA program, which Weiser said has the support of two major mobile-phone vendors he declined to identify, would be underwritten by exclusive TV promotion licensing rights.
Thus far, even in the face of government reports urging the use of new technologies to expand a national emergency alert system developed for Cold War threats and heavily dependent on television and radio broadcasts, the mobile-phone industry has resisted calls by CEASA and others to embrace reversed 911.
Weiser spoke last week with Thomas Wheeler, president of the Cellular Telecommunications & Internet Association. Wheeler confirmed he had spoken with Weiser but said he has not made a decision on whether to seek support from the CTIA board on the proposal.
At least initially, it does not seem as if agreeing to add CESA would be enough of an incentive for the FCC to grant a waiver unless the public-safety community also supported the proposal/waiver request.
“I would hope the carriers would be talking to the public-safety folks. The public-safety folks are the folks that are essential partners in our 911 program,” said James D. Schlichting, deputy bureau chief of the FCC’s Wireless Telecommunications Bureau.
Right now, the public-safety community does not appear to be on board. “The two are not connected and I don’t see a benefit. … Frankly this could be provided today. So why don’t they,” said Thera Bradshaw, executive director for the 911 emergency communications department of the City of San Francisco and first vice president of the Association of Public-Safety Communications Officials Inc.
AT&T laid the groundwork for a waiver when it filed its 911 report on Dec. 6. In its filing, it made the commission aware of its plans to overlay a GSM system over its TDMA system in preparation for third-generation wireless service and its impact on the deployment of 911 services.
“During the phase-out of AT&T’s TDMA network, it makes sense to have a consistent solution across air interfaces [because] the burden of implementing multiple solutions in different markets-and possibly in different areas of the same market-has the serious potential to slow the deployment of Phase II technology to all AT&T customers. As the commission is aware, the move from Phase I to Phase II is a monumental task and likely will demand resources far beyond those currently contemplated. Contending with two different sets of vendors and two completely different technologies could put an unbearable strain on those resources,” said AT&T.
AT&T’s plans are to include the enhanced observed time difference of arrival handset hybrid solution in its GSM network as it is deployed. While the company has not released publicly a full GSM deployment schedule, it plans to cover 40 percent of its population by the end of the year.
The country’s third-largest carrier has yet to file a waiver, but is laying the groundwork to do so. AT&T believes that since the FCC granted a waiver to VoiceStream to use EOTD technology, it will grant it a similar waiver.
The VoiceStream waiver was not a slam-dunk. In fact, two of the commissioners, Gloria Tristani and Susan Ness, dissented from the majority decision to grant the Voice-Stream waiver requiring the GSM carrier to comply with network-based accuracy standard initially and then to come into full compliance with the more stringent handset standard within two years.
While the deployment of E911 Phase II service would be delayed if AT&T is granted a waiver, this was lost on the company’s chief executive officer when he spoke at the National Press Club last week.
When asked how the transition to GSM technology would impact the deployment of 911 location services, Armstrong replied, “It really shouldn’t impact the 911 emergency services, if that was the intent of the question.”
Cingular Wireless Inc. has hinted that it, too, may convert its TDMA markets to GSM technology, but has yet to make a decision and so would not comment on what impact, if any, such a change out would have on the deployment of 911 service.
In the meantime, Cingular is moving forward with E911 deployment and is not seeking a waiver, said Brian F. Fontes, Cingular vice president for federal relations.
“We are still working as if Oct. 1, 2001, is a finite date, but there are still people that must work cooperatively to make that happen,” said Fontes, noting that the company plans to keep the commission and public-safety officials regularly up-to-date on 911 implementation issues.
As part of this ongoing process, Cingular filed a letter with the FCC late last month saying that it might have problems meeting the Oct. 1 deadline for offering handsets.
“Cingular Wireless, in consultation with handset-solution vendors, has come to believe that our ability to meet FCC time schedules with marketable products may well be problematic. The purpose of this letter is not to raise undue alarm about E911 deployment, but simply to inform you of developments regarding potential difficulties associated with handset-based solutions for GSM.”
Cingular did not update the status of its TDMA markets, but the deadline for that rollout is later anyway because it chose a network-based solution.
Other carriers that chose the handset solution also may have difficulties in rolling out product by the deadline, but Sprint PCS said it is still moving forward to meet the deadline.
“We have not filed a waiver because our goal is to meet the deadline. As we stated in our status report on Nov. 9, that will be contingent on our vendors’ ability to deliver equipment that we would need to deploy,” said Nancy Sherrer, a spokeswoman for Sprint PCS.
The natio
n’s largest wireless carrier, Verizon Wireless, chose a network-based solution so after Oct. 1 it too must deploy a system within six months of a PSAP request.
