Rural Carriers to Take FCC to Court over Wireless E-911 Rules
The Rural Cellular Association (RCA) will seek a federal court stay of new location-accuracy requirements for wireless carriers, which the FCC approved last September, the group said in a filing Thursday at the commission. The association said it will ask the court to review the rules. At least one large carrier is considering supporting the lawsuit.
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Last year, the FCC approved a five-year deadline, with benchmarks, for measuring success in locating wireless E-911 callers at the public safety answering point (PSAP) level rather than using statewide averaging (CD Sept 11 Special Bulletin). Under a preliminary deadline, carriers must start measuring accuracy at the economic area (EA) level by September. Carriers prefer statewide averaging and are concerned that technology won’t allow them to meet the FCC’s standard at many PSAPs.
“Some RCA carrier members face extraordinary challenges in attempts to comply with rules… concerning location accuracy,” RCA told the commission. “While the Commission, without any doubt, was well-intended in adopting a series of deadlines leading to carriers’ achieving the required levels of accuracy at the public safety answering point level by Sept. 11, 2012, rural wireless carriers face technical and financial obstacles that appear impossible to overcome in order to meet even the first of the deadlines.”
RCA said the FCC probably “envisioned a ’sliding scale’ of smaller and smaller areas for accuracy compliance,” but many small carriers serve only part of one or more economic areas. As a result, starting in September, RCA members will be “forced to average accuracy results over areas much smaller than EAs and typically only over the most rural portions of those EAS,” RCA said. RCA disclosed its plans to appeal the order in an ex parte filing on a meeting that executives of the organization held with FCC Commissioner Robert McDowell and his legal advisers John Hunter and Angela Giancarlo.
Wireless E-911, meanwhile, was a major theme Thursday as FCC bureau and office chiefs offered their reviews of progress made in 2007 during the FCC’s January agenda meeting.
Commissioner Michael Copps noted the large number of Americans who have “cut the cord” and have only a cellphone. “I'm just wondering if… these Americans have a good idea of how accurately their phones will transmit their location if they call 911 and what steps we at the commission can take to ensure that consumers have reasonable expectations,” Copps said.
“I don’t think Americans necessarily know what their phones are going to do,” said Public Safety Bureau Chief Derek Poarch. “That’s why the commission’s recent action on E-911 location accuracy, which was also supported by the public safety community, was so important as a first step to start fixing this problem… Lives depend on the ability of first responders… to quickly locate people in distress… We will maintain our focus to ensure that they are able to do so.”