Wireless Carriers Face Steep Penalties for Failure to Meet 2005 E-911 Mandate

The FCC had signaled in the past it would take a tough line in the orders, based on orders addressing shortcomings of smaller carriers in meeting a similar mandate and requiring VoIP operators to make their systems E-911 compliant. Major carriers Cingular and T-Mobile provide network-based E-911 and as a result weren’t part of the FCC’s series of orders.

Most of the orders had been adopted in May and were on ice at the Commission. The Commission completed work on the Sprint Nextel and Nextel Partners on Dec. 21 and the Dobson order in Nov. The forfeitures ordered, especially for Sprint, the largest of the carriers cited, could be in the millions of dollars, sources said.

Sprint had explained to the Commission in numerous filings its shortcomings were tied to problems converting subscribers on Nextel’s legacy iDEN network to GPS handsets due to a software glitch affecting millions of Motorola iDEN phones, a problem which Nextel had brought with it into its corporate marriage with Sprint. Sprint also cited reduced subscriber churn and the desire of many customers not to trade in their aging handsets. The FCC wasn’t satisfied with those explanations. Only 81.3% of its customers had the required handsets as of December 31, 2005, climbing to just over 86% last May, according to numbers cited by the Commission.

“We find that Sprint Nextel failed to take sufficient efforts in advance of the deadline to assure timely compliance, and has not committed to taking additional steps to ensure that it achieves compliance as quickly as possible,” the Commission said. “The steps taken by Sprint Nextel to meet the… 2005 deadline were limited and ultimately ineffective in achieving 95% penetration, as evidenced by the poor penetration levels obtained by Sprint Nextel… Moreover, Sprint Nextel’s filing lacks a clear path to full compliance with the 95% penetration requirement. Sprint Nextel’s proposals for achieving compliance are notably non-specific, equivocal in some instances and rest, in large part, on measures that already have proven unsuccessful.”

The FCC acknowledged that the software defect was beyond Sprint’s control and that the carrier had responded “promptly and aggressively” in trying to engineer a fix. “Despite our acknowledgment of the software defect, it is not controlling in our analysis of Sprint Nextel’s waiver request,” the order said. “An overriding factor is Sprint Nextel’s own admission it would have fallen short of the December 31, 2005, benchmark even had it not encountered the software problem.”

Similarly, in addressing Alltel’s petition for a waiver, the FCC said the carrier hadn’t built a compelling case it was on a path to compliance. “Despite more than a five-year lead time, only 84% of Alltel’s customers had location-capable handsets” by the 2005 deadline, the Commission said. “Alltel’s request is among the longest requests received from any carrier. Alltel’s request appears to be based primarily, if not exclusively, on projections based on its past handset churn and the continued use of the same measures that have proven inadequate in the past,” the order said: “The conditional and speculative nature of Alltel’s waiver request clearly is inconsistent with the Commission’s requirement that waiver requests be specific and limited in scope. These uncertainties are insufficient to demonstrate the ‘clear path to full compliance’ within a timeframe that is as rapid as possible.”

The Commission also rejected arguments by Alltel that many public safety answering points (PSAPs) aren’t capable of handling E911 Phase II calls even if handsets were available: “Handset deployment benchmarks operate independent of PSAP readiness.”

The Commission criticized U.S. Cellular (USCC) for laying out steps it was taking to get customers to upgrade their handsets just 2 days before the 2005 deadline. “If USCC found its subscribers resistant to adopting location-capable handsets, it should have taken additional steps to ensure increased penetration levels years ago, not in early 2006,” the FCC said. The FCC rejected arguments that the carrier made about churn and PSAP readiness.

The order said USCC’s argument that some customers must use higher-power analog phones to receive calls in areas where signals are weak was notably” non-specific. “We do not know what plans USCC may have to expand digital coverage into areas where a location-capable phone may be unable to communicate with the network, or whether it has investigated the present or future availability of higher-power, location-capable phones for use in such circumstances,” the Commission said.

But in other cases the FCC showed mercy. For example, Dobson sought a temporary waiver while it struggled to integrate customers of a small carrier it bought, RFB Cellular, from a handset-based E-911 solution to its network-based solution. “Dobson acquired the assets of a bankrupt carrier that otherwise may have suspended operations,” the order said. “Under the circumstances of this case, we find that Dobson has failed to satisfy the Commission’s waiver standards… In light of the particular circumstances faced by Dobson, however, we will not pursue enforcement action.”