April 26, 2005

The FCC's Enforcement Bureau said Alltel Communications is not subject to a consent decree that Cingular Wireless L.L.C. entered into with the Federal Communications Commission regarding its deployment of enhanced 911 Phase II.

"Following the transaction, Cingular and Alltel will both continue to operate as competing, independent, going concerns in all of the subject markets, each with their own assets and customers.

Thus, Alltel will not simply be stepping into Cingular's shoes and 'substantially continuing' Cingular's business operations.

Accordingly, we find that Alltel's acquisition of the select wireless properties from Cingular will not render it a successor or assign for purposes of the consent decree," said Linda Blair, deputy chief of the Enforcement Bureau.

"We do not believe that our finding will undermine the objectives of the E911 rules or the consent decree. The consent decree arose out of investigations of Cingular and AT&T Wireless Services Inc. for potential violations of their E911 Phase II obligations and by their terms were applicable to those carriers' GSM and TDMA networks.

No similar findings of potential violations by Alltel of its E911 Phase II obligations are at issue here."

Alltel recently purchased spectrum in 18 markets from Cingular-a transaction necessitated by Cingular's acquisition of AT&T Wireless.

At the time the FCC approved the Alltel/Cingular deal, Alltel asked the commission to declare that it was not obligated to adhere to Cingular's consent decree.

"It looks like the FCC approved our request, and we are pleased," said Alltel spokesman Andrew Moreau.

Both AWS and Cingular entered into consent decrees after concerns were raised that the carriers were not going to meet their E911 obligations because handset location technology is not yet available for GSM technology.

Since Alltel is a CDMA carrier and plans to transition the subscribers it gained in the transaction with Cingular from GSM to CDMA networks, the consent decree is not applicable.

E911 service is being deployed in two phases. Phase I required carriers to supply public-safety answering points with a callback number and cell-site location information.

The initial deadline was April 1, 1998, or six months after receipt of a valid request from a PSAP, whichever is later.

Phase II requires more precise location information. It was supposed to be available in some areas by Oct. 1, 2001, but the FCC waived that requirement, giving each carrier a different implementation schedule.

All carriers employing a handset-based location solution must ensure that 95 percent of their subscribers have location-capable handsets by 2006 and must fully deploy Phase II in any particular area within six months of receiving a valid PSAP request.

Carriers employing a network-based location solution must deploy Phase II to 50 percent of a PSAP's area within six months after receiving a valid request, and must finish deploying in the PSAP's area within 18 months.

In Phase II deployments, network-based solutions must be able to locate the caller within 100 meters 67 percent of the time and within 300 meters 95 percent of the time.

Handset-based solutions must be able to locate the caller within 50 meters 67 percent of the time and within 150 meters 95 percent of the time.

The FCC's Wireless Telecommunications Bureau said in January that it expects that by the end of the year, 95 percent of the handsets used by customers of carriers that have chosen the handset solution will comply with the FCC's rules.

Source: RCR News