FCC PSAP Task Force Recommends Bandwidth-Based Fees To Pay for 911

Members of the task force, meeting at the FCC, said funding remains a huge issue as the IP transition continues. The report wasn't immediately available but was discussed at length by Phil Jones, a utility commissioner from Washington state, who chairs the working group. The FCC released a summary of the report.

“For me, and I think members of the working group, this is all about public safety,” Jones said. “We’re trying to ensure that 911 calls are completed and they’re funded on a sustainable basis.” The report finds the nation’s system of 911 fee collection and expenditures “is at risk,” Jones said. “I think it’s the consensus that we need to start righting the ship now.”

If diversions continue in some states “without a potential new federal grant program, the momentum toward [next-generation] 911 deployments nationally could slow, and states and PSAPs would be left to maintain dual systems, legacy and IP-based, in a difficult and challenging transition,” the summary document said.

The report discusses at length the need for federal grants to help local governments defray the costs and explores potential funding from spectrum auctions, Jones said. The report says some states continue to divert funds, otherwise dedicated to 911, he said.

The report suggests that network connection fees could help ensure that all consumers, including those with prepaid wireless plans, pay for 911 enhancements. “Although we did set out how it might work, we clarified that much further examination is needed,” Jones said of the connection fee. “This is not the exclusive option. Many details need to be examined.”

The working group's work highlighted the difficulty of getting a better handle on how different states deal with PSAP funding, Jones said. “This is a complicated maze of collection sources, departments of revenue, state 911 administrators, PSAPs,” he said. The working group said information submitted to the FCC on PSAP funding, for the agency to report to Congress, isn't always accurate, he said.

One recommendation proving controversial is to tie 911 fees to the amount of bandwidth in a customer’s plan. “If we were to tie the fees associated with 911 service to a bandwidth component … it certainly is going to be prohibitive to the consumer market that will bear the fees,” said Anthony Montani, who represents Verizon on the task force. Consumers don’t pay for more bandwidth because they want to be able to call 911 faster, they pay for it because of other apps, he said.

Jeanna Green, who represents Sprint on the task force, said her immediate family, with 20-somethings at home, is “wired to the hilt,” while her parents don’t have any Internet service. “Getting something that’s equitable to everybody, our perspective at Sprint is that capacity is not really the way to go,” she said.

David Simpson, chief of the FCC Public Safety Bureau, also raised concerns about the proposal, asking working group members to examine other alternatives. Families shouldn’t have to pay more in 911 fees because they pay for more bandwidth because they like to watch TV on the Internet, he said. Those families don't have more need for 911 services than the family that buys less bandwidth and watches over-the-air TV or cable. “It would be great to get another broadband alternative,” he said. Simpson said the task force can only make recommendations, and bandwidth fees aren't something that could or would be imposed by the FCC.

Jason Jackson, who worked on the report on behalf of the state of Alabama, said as the connection fee proposal was under development he got little input from the carriers. There was broad recognition by the group that the current per-connection fee structure is “antiquated,” he said. The bandwidth fee is meant to replace the per-line connection.

The full task force is to meet again Nov. 6. Two other working groups -- cybersecurity and optimal PSAP architecture -- are still wrapping up their final reports.