FCC Delays First Deadline for New Location Accuracy Rules
The FCC Public Safety Bureau, acting on wireless carrier complaints, delayed for six months the deadline for carrier compliance with new E-911 location accuracy rules. Commissioner Jonathan Adelstein said the order changing the deadline shows the commission’s original order to be flawed. Carriers said the stay provides little help.
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!
At the first deadline, originally Sept. 11, carriers are to meet testing and measurement standards for wireless location accuracy in each economic area (EA) served (CD Sept 11 Special Bulletin). The four major national carriers and the Rural Cellular Association had asked the commission to stay the order pending review by the Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.
The change order is “proof positive of the failure to get these rules right the first time,” Adelstein said. “I am concerned that the majority’s insistence on plowing forward with compliance benchmarks without a full record, rather than conducting this proceeding in a more thoughtful and deliberate manner, does not truly advance E911. Instead, we find the advancement of our public’s safety entangled in legal uncertainties.” Adelstein said the delay is “nothing more than a temporary Band-Aid that does not cure the underlying deficiencies embedded in the Report and Order.”
“A six-month extension of time for carriers to meet the first benchmark for accuracy does not remedy the errors in the rulemaking process,” David Nace, counsel to RCA, said: “It does not eliminate the need for carriers to begin immediately devoting unrecoverable resources to attempted compliance, using technology that in many cases will be orphaned when near-term network changes are implemented.” Nace said the group nonetheless “welcomes all relief” from deadlines “improperly adopted as a part of the rule.”
The Association of Public Safety Communications Officials opposes an extended delay but not the “limited extension” the FCC granted “which reflects the delay in Federal Register publication of the rules.” APCO President Willis Carter said, “This does not change the fact that PSAP- level accuracy will dramatically improve the 911 calltakers’ ability to locate and send appropriate resources to the growing number of callers using wireless phones.”
The appeals court agreed to an expedited schedule for the case. The FCC told the court it had issued the stay. Earlier this week, the FCC said in a pleading that wireless carriers did not make a sure case for a stay. “The Commission followed proper procedure in adopting the Order, and its requirements were amply justified by profound public safety considerations,” it said.