WASHINGTON-An 11th-hour effort to pass the wireless enhanced 911 funding bill was struggling against a senatorial objection that stopped the frenetic activity to get the bill passed. Still, supporters remained hopeful the bill would be considered before Congress leaves town for the election.
The bill would create a grant program for states to deploy wireless E911 service. Grants would be withheld from states that use money from 911 taxes collected from wireless customers to solve budget problems.
With Congress hoping to leave town by the end of the Columbus Day holiday weekend, lawmakers are scurrying to pass all of their pet projects. Sen. Conrad Burns (R-Mont.) is in negotiations with House leaders in “a pre-conference.” In other words, rather than passing a bill in the Senate and then going to conference with the House to deal with differences between the two bills, the Senate would consider an amended version of the 911 legislation, pass it, send it to the House to pass it and then send it to the White House.
The National Emergency Number Association tried to give the bill a push by releasing a letter sent Thursday to Sens. Burns and Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.).
“While others may have long forgotten your efforts to improve our nation’s E911 system, we have not. We remain steadfast in the belief that a robust nationwide E911 system is one of the highest priorities to promote national security and public safety. We know firsthand the need for close coordination among public-safety officials, the communications industry and relevant government officials for accomplishing a ubiquitous E911 system,” said NENA President Bill McMurray.
The grant program in the Senate bill totaled $500 million, while the House bill set aside $100 million. The pre-conference negotiation had settled on $250 million, but at least one senator said that was too high.
Throughout the week other issues too tripped up the bill.
“The Cellular Telecommunications & Internet Association is trying to work with all concerned parties to address their issues and get the bill passed before Congress leaves,” said John Walls, vice president of communications of CTIA.
It was unclear whether efforts by Sen. Trent Lott (R-Miss.) to amend the bill to eliminate the 95-percent handset penetration requirement had been successful. Under the Lott proposal, carriers that chose the handset solution to comply with the Federal Communications Commission’s wireless E911 Phase II rules would not be required to have complete deployment by Dec. 31, 2005, as is required today.
Lott appeared to be pushing the amendment on behalf of CellularSouth Licenses Inc. Lott’s staff did not respond on the amendment.
“We want the bill to pass, and we want E911 to be ubiquitous. But it is CellSouth’s belief the deadline may be inadvertently jeopardizing rural America’s access to reliable wireless-phone service and critical emergency responses services,” said Gwen O’Brien, representative for CellSouth.
Nextel Communications Inc. said it supported Lott’s efforts but is not pushing the amendment.
“We are aware of it. It didn’t come from us, but we are supportive. We have been on record for several years saying that the 2005 deadline needs to be modified,” said Leigh Horner, Nextel director of policy communications.
Verizon Wireless and Sprint PCS also chose a handset solution. Sprint PCS said it had not taken a position on the amendment. Verizon Wireless said it was not supporting the amendment. “We are not supporting this effort. We continue to work closely with the public-safety community to bring emergency location services to our customers quickly,” said Jeffrey Nelson, Verizon Wireless executive director of communications.
Expected to be included in the bill is a House provision that the FCC take six months to review the accuracy standards for rural carriers.
Rural carriers-most of which chose TDMA technology for their digital networks-cannot meet the compliance requirements using their network-based solutions because they do not have an urban core to average non-compliance with compliance. Nationwide carriers take advantage of the averaging component of the law to counteract where their networks are not as built out. For rural carriers, this is more complicated because towers have been built along roads in a “string of pearls” fashion, making triangulation difficult, if not impossible. Handset manufacturers backed away from an E911 solution for TDMA when the nationwide carriers began migrating off that air interface.
Some rural carriers like CellSouth have chosen a handset solution but complain their customers do not want to upgrade to digital technology.
“This is an unfriendly consumer mandate because it forces consumers to give up their handset to get a new one. In many cases, they are going to question the requirement,” said O’Brien. “This particular regulation doesn’t incent consumers to participate in E911 and public safety. In other words, they need to be educated about the benefit and make the choice for safety.” RCR
