SnapTrack Inc., together with U S West Wireless, last week staged a live demonstration of its location technology designed to meet phase II requirements of the Federal Communications Commission’s enhanced 911 mandate. SignalSoft Corp. and SCC Communications Corp. also participated in the trial.
The FCC has required wireless carriers by 2001 to provide emergency dispatchers with the location of callers to within 127 meters, 67 percent of the time. While carriers have more than three years remaining to deploy location technologies, some SnapTrack executives said they believe location technologies will be deployed as early as next year.
Officials at the Denver public safety answering point where the trial was held are anxious to see location technology deployed. The Denver PSAP receives nearly 500,000 911 calls each year, with wireless calls accounting for 10 to 15 percent of that number.
“With the volume of wireless calls we receive, 2001 is too far away to wait for some mandate to kick in,” said Capt. Ed Conners, Denver’s Communications Bureau commander. “This trial proves that the technology is available now, and it should be deployed as soon as possible.”
Last week’s trial simulated E911 calls in Denver and neighboring Adams County, which added a rural element to the mix.
Test phone calls were made to the Denver Combined Communications Center to simulate the performance of the technology in a variety of situations. Calls were made in open spaces, inside a three-story residence and from an urban canyon on a street in downtown Denver. The accuracy of the call-back number as well as the location were checked.
The actual location of each caller was measured against the locations SnapTrack’s system generated for each call. The system pinpointed the location of a call made from an open space to within 13 meters of the actual location. For comparison, testers simulated that Phase I technologies would have located the caller 1,200 meters away from his actual position. Phase I technologies convey only the call-back number and cell-site location to emergency dispatchers.
SnapTrack’s system located the call made from an interior room of a three-story residence to within 32 meters and the call made from downtown Denver to within 34 meters.
SnapTrack said accuracy testing of its system indicates reliable location fixes were generated 89 percent of the time in a high-rise building, 94 percent of the time within the interior of a masonry office building and 100 percent of the time in other environments.
The company’s testing so far has included 550 test calls.
SnapTrack’s Cellular-Aided GPS system is a handset-based solution that works with wireless networks to improve on some of the global positioning system’s traditional shortfalls in locating handsets. Conventional GPS systems, for instance, require a minimally obstructed view of the sky, have long acquisition times, drain power from the handsets and are susceptible to multipath interference.
SnapTrack’s system minimizes some of those problems by determining a general location using information from the wireless network and then pinpointing locations using the GPS system. Because it is a handset-based solution, SnapTrack’s system relies on sales of new phones equipped with its software.
Although the company has not yet signed any contracts with domestic carriers, it has plans to trial the system with seven Code Division Multiple Access carriers, including AirTouch Communications Inc., GTE Wireless Inc., Ameritech Cellular, PrimeCo Personal Communications L.P. and Sprint Spectrum L.P. Those trials are expected to be completed in the first half of next year.
The company also recently announced an agreement with Japan’s NTT DoCoMo, which will use the system for revenue-generating services based on location information, such as directions and mobile Yellow Pages.
