Time Now for PSAP-based E-911 Measurements, APCO Tells FCC
The Association of Public Safety Communications Officials fired back at wireless carriers that told the FCC it should go slow in requiring tougher standards for E-911 location accuracy. In reply comments, APCO took particular exception to comments from at least two companies (CD July 9 p5) that said by requiring carriers to meet identification requirements measured on a public safety answering point (PSAP) basis, rather than through statewide averaging, while other rules are under development the FCC would be “putting the cart before the horse.”
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
Communications Daily is required reading for senior executives at top telecom corporations, law firms, lobbying organizations, associations and government agencies (including the FCC). Join them today!
“APCO would argue that the FCC is finally putting the horse back in front of the cart where it belongs,” the public safety group said. “The original E-911 rules require wireless carriers to provide location information that meet certain average levels of accuracy. However, without clearly defining the geographic area in which those average measurements are to be taken, the rules leave the door open for a wide variety of interpretations, and a great deal of variation and uncertainty regarding the accuracy of information received at each PSAP.”
Tougher standards for E-911 identification are meaningless unless measured at individual PSAPs, APCO said. “The Commission is trying to set the rules straight, by clarifying what in hindsight should have been done first when the rules were adopted,” the group said. “Whether PSAPs across the state (or across the nation) are getting accuracy within the [mandated] levels is of no relevance to a PSAP receiving very poor, useless levels of accuracy.”
But carriers said the comments show that requiring them to meet PSAP-level standards would be impossible. “No party identified a technology that was currently capable of satisfying the proposed requirement,” AT&T said. “Rather, they confirmed that existing technologies have limitations that would make it impossible to satisfy the existing accuracy requirements on a PSAP basis in all environments.” Verizon Wireless and T-Mobile agreed.
“Wireless carriers are unanimous in their assessment that the proposed new accuracy standard, while commendable, cannot be achieved with current technology,” Sprint Nextel said. “The vendors that provide wireless carriers the systems to perform location calculation are likewise in agreement that existing systems do not permit this level of accuracy.”
The Rural Telecommunications Group said the record shows that requiring carriers to meet PSAP-based standards would be “an expensive, technically difficult, and unenforceable prospect.” The group said the challenge would be greatest in rural America. “RTG’s members, all of whom are Tier III carriers, can confirm that meeting the FCC’s accuracy standards at the PSAP level with network-based systems can be cost prohibitive,” it said. “Rural cellular networks are oftentimes constructed in an economical ’string of pearls’ fashion which makes the triangulation necessary to provide location information impossible without the construction of multiple new, prohibitively expensive cellsites.”