Wireless Carriers to Look to Hill If FCC OKs Tough E-911 Measurement Standard
Wireless carriers may take their case to Congress if the FCC mandates that within a year they must meet E-911 location accuracy standards at the public safety answering point (PSAP) level, carrier sources said. But the order is a work in progress. Some commissioners fear no carriers can meet that deadline and that the order would be challenged in court. Carriers are in a holding pattern on a Hill strategy until the FCC acts, most likely at its Sept. 11 meeting.
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In similar circumstances, carriers beat back a mandate that they broadcast Emergency Alert System (EAS) warnings to cellphones, by convincing Congress to pass the WARN Act. That law made the warnings voluntary, creating the commercial Mobile Service Alert Advisory Committee to examine a feasible system for broadcasting alerts.
Carriers repeatedly have asked the FCC to form a similar committee to study new rules for wireless E-911. Creation of such a body with expedited deadlines is a likely area of discussion at the commission.
The FCC sought comments in two stages. The first focused on an Association of Public Safety Communications Officials (APCO) request to measure carrier success in identifying callers at the PSAP level, not statewide averaging. In stage two, the FCC sought more general comment on making wireless E-911 more accurate.
In a surprise move, FCC Chairman Kevin Martin circulated an order on the APCO petition and on requiring PSAP-level measurement before addressing matters raised in the second stage of the rulemaking. Even public safety expected the FCC to act first on stage two.
A carrier source said wireless E-911 calling has made people safer and industry is willing to work with the FCC and public safety to improve emergency calling’s accuracy. “The one year is ridiculous. Our view all along has been the commission is doing this backward,” the carrier official said. “Stage two is asking the questions on what technologies are available, how would we go about doing it, how can we improve accuracy. They're going to act on stage one of the NPRM, which adopts the standard, which adopts the rule. Our view has always been, you do stage two first, figure out what’s available, before you impose a mandate that everybody says is not technologically feasible and is surely not technically feasible within a year, not even close.”
“No one believes that there is technology that will allow them to be ready in a year,” a wireless industry official said of carriers. “The FCC has done this in the past, set unreasonable deadlines, and then what you see is an entire industry applying for waivers. Waivers should be for exceptions. When the entire industry needs a waiver, the appropriate thing is to have a rule that the industry can comply with.”
Small carriers are highly concerned about the order now circulating at the commission, said an attorney representing them. “One year to comply when there is not a technology solution is a major problem,” the source said. “We are talking with legislative consultants to see if we can get help from the Hill, but with public safety in issue, the challenge is considerable.”
It’s counterproductive to threaten carriers with fines for failing to comply, said a wireless attorney. “It’s a shame that all the fine money that will be collected just goes to the Treasury,” the source said. “The money would be better spent on deployment efforts or PSAP deployment.”
Meanwhile, Verizon Wireless and the Rural Cellular Association sent the FCC a letter late Friday warning that if the agency proceeds as expected the order will violate the Administrative Procedures Act, perhaps triggering a court challenge. “It is undisputed that there is no record basis demonstrating that PSAP-level compliance is technically feasible with current technology, much less within a short period as apparently contemplated by the Commission,” the letter said. “Indeed, since well before release of the NPRM, public consensus among industry and public safety recognized the limits of location technologies as measured within certain geographic areas, including PSAP service areas. Nothing filed in response to the NPRM calls into question that consensus.”