WASHINGTON-A seemingly well-scripted House hearing to launch a watered-down E911 bill and a
beefed-up privacy bill disintegrated into a fracas last week over the National Park Service’s handling of antenna-siting
applications and the prospect of extending the October 2001 requirement for carriers to provide automatic location
identification.
What emerged from last Wednesday’s hearing was a glimpse into the bloody, high-stakes battle for a
multibillion-dollar wireless E911 market that is shaping up among proponents of network-based solutions, handset-
based approaches-including those based on global positioning system technology-and hybrid systems.
Indeed, the
flap over Phase II E911 implementation overshadowed the real prospect of Congress passing two important wireless
bills this year-one of which helps lay the foundation for the kind of bloodletting among E911 vendors that surfaced last
Wednesday.
Tough questioning by House telecom subcommittee Chairman Billy Tauzin (R-La.) and others of
Maureen Finnerty, associate director of Parks Operations and Education at the Interior Department, was
expected.
Tauzin and Rep. Edward Markey (D-Mass.) have been closely monitoring frustrating efforts by Bell
Atlantic Mobile and others to erect antennas in Washington D.C.’s Rock Creek Park.
Finnerty told Tauzin the
National Park Service and Bell Atlantic Mobile had reached a siting agreement, but the deal needed to await an
environmental impact review.
What came afterward was not expected, though-certainly not by those on the
receiving end of tough questioning by House lawmakers on E911 Phase II implementation.
Cellular
Telecommunications Industry Association President Thomas Wheeler and Thomas Sugrue, new chief of the Federal
Communications Commission’s Wireless Telecommunications Bureau, were blindsided by queries from Reps. Mike
Oxley (R-Ohio), Bart Gordon (D-Tenn.) and Eliot Engel (D-N.Y.).
The lawmakers grilled Wheeler and Sugrue over
why federal regulators were considering granting waivers to carriers to extend the October 2001 Phase II compliance
date.
E911 Phase II requires that carriers locate subscribers within 410 feet by October 1, 2001.
Phase I, which
kicked in last April, requires automatic call back and identification of the cell site closest to emergency wireless
callers.
But because of problems associated with liability, funding and interconnection, only a fraction of the
nation’s carriers and public safety answering points (PSAPs) provide E911 features required by Phase I rules.
The
dustup over Phase II rollout, which put Wheeler and Sugrue on the defensive, appears to have been orchestrated by
TruePosition Inc. and other providers of network-based E911 wireless services.
Questions asked by lawmakers on
the FCC’s consideration of E911 Phase II compliance date waivers were stapled to some copies of written testimony of
Michael Amarosa, vice president of TruePosition Inc., a vendor of network-based E911 service.
Planting questions
with lawmakers prior to hearings is not unusual, but that it was made obvious not only was embarrassing but added to
the fireworks that TruePosition set off.
Amarosa and other network-based E911 firms are furious at the FCC for
toying with the idea of granting waivers to wireless carriers that cannot meet the October 2001 date if they deploy a
handset-based solution rather than a network-based E911 location system.
The FCC concedes it assumed during the
crafting of E911 rules that automatic location identification would be accomplished through network
upgrades.
However, some parties complained the policy was not technologically and competitively neutral because
it precluded GPS- and other handset-based solutions.
The FCC last week received comments on guidelines for filing
E911 Phase II waivers.
Amarosa, despite criticism by some in industry, refused to apologize for the issue being
brought up at last week’s hearing. He said he has been one of the strongest supporters of wireless E911
legislation.
“I don’t know where delay is in the interest of anybody at this time,” said
Amarosa.
Regarding the suspected planting of questions, he added: “I have no control over what [lawmakers]
say or don’t say.”
With network-based technology, all 68 million wireless phones would have automatic
location identification capability in home and roaming markets by 2001.
In contrast, handset-based approaches
would work only for subscribers that buy new handsets with built-in GPS technology. Another potential shortcoming is
handset-based technology cannot accommodate roamers from systems using infrastructure-based E911 location
identification.
On the other hand, a GPS handset user in a roaming market with network-based technology can be
located in an emergency.
“Clearly, the commission has taken a major step back,” said Chuck Hinkle,
president of KSI Inc., a network-based E911 vendor.
Some, though, have questioned whether network-based
location technology can accommodate Code Division Multiple Access technology, which is used by AirTouch
Communications Inc., Sprint Corp. and several Baby Bell wireless carriers.
Others suggest GPS is more precise, and
the policy trade-off weighs in favor of granting waiver extensions to carriers that want GPS E911 location
technology.
Nearly lost in the brouhaha were two bills that were the subject of the hearing.
The E911 bill, owing
to opposition by local officials and lawmakers’ strong desire to pass legislation this year, was stripped of federal land
antenna-siting provisions that would have used a portion of siting fees paid to government agencies to upgrade state
and local emergency dispatch centers, automatic vehicle crash notification technology and cancer research.
But key
telecom lawmakers and wireless industry leaders concluded the possibility of the bill being blocked by county
commissioners, environmentalists and conservationists dictated removal of antenna-siting language in order to salvage
other important provisions that would make 911 the universal emergency telephone number and give wireless carriers
liability protection roughly on par with wireline carriers.
The wireless privacy measure, championed by Heather
Wilson (R-N.M.), would improve existing law by extending eavesdropping protection to users of paging, personal
communications services and other commercial wireless services and by cracking down on individuals that alter radio
scanners to intercept private conversations.
