T-Mobile to Seek Court Stay of FCC Wireless E-911 Location Rules
T-Mobile will seek a stay in federal court of new location-accuracy requirements for wireless carriers unless the FCC itself puts the order on hold, T-Mobile said in a filing at the commission. The Rural Cellular Association Monday also asked the FCC to stay the rules, which the agency approved last September (CD Jan 18 p1). The group likewise threatened court action. Sprint Nextel also is expected to ask the agency for a stay.
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T-Mobile said it supports the FCC’s longstanding goal of making certain that 911 works for wireless consumers. But the location rules were approved with “no evidence whatsoever” that they can be implemented, T-Mobile said. “In pursuing this worthy objective in this proceeding, the Commission has disregarded rulemaking requirements of the Administrative Procedure Act and imposed infeasible mandates that are unsupported by the administrative record,” the carrier said. “In light of these serious legal deficiencies, T-Mobile will seek judicial review of the new mandates in a U.S. Court of Appeals.”
Last September, the FCC approved rules for a five-year time frame under which carriers must be able to locate E-911 callers with increasing accuracy (CD Sept 11 Special Bulletin). By the end of the period, wireless carrier success in locating callers will be measured at the public safety answering point (PSAP) level rather than using statewide averaging, which allows carriers to average responses across the areas they serve. Under the first deadline, carriers must start measuring accuracy at the economic area level by September.
T-Mobile told the FCC it must go to court absent a commission stay because carriers simply can’t meet the requirements with the technology now available. “T-Mobile and other carriers would be forced to consider shutting down service and curtailing future service deployments, predominantly in rural areas,” T-Mobile said.
T-Mobile said developing a “hybrid” solution linking handset-based and network-based technologies would take at least 10 years. “A hybrid technology that could meet the Commission’s accuracy requirements is pure conjecture at this time,” the company said. “But even if such theoretical technology were a viable solution, the Commission’s five-year PSAP-level compliance deadline does not allow time for its development, let alone deployment.”