Add to del.icio.us     Digg this

Mar. 27, 2008

Yesterday, a federal appeals court blocked the FCC’s new enhanced E-911 location accuracy rule from going into effect.

The move could potentially set the stage for the court to overturn the FCC’s decision made last year.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit said "however, we need not address the substantive issue since the participants (RCA and T-Mobile) have demonstrated a strong likelihood of success based on the order’s procedural irregularities. In particular, the serious problems with the notice. And because the other requirements for a stay are also satisfied, the motions for stay are thus granted."

In September 2007, the Federal Communications Communications clarified that mobile phone carriers must meet E-911 location accuracy requirements at the public-safety answering point level, as public-safety groups had requested.

Wireless service providers prefer state-wide averaging to determine compliance with E-911 location accuracy standards. However, their grievances with the FCC’s E-911 location accuracy ruling go much deeper than this.

In last September’s decision, the FCC ordered operators to meet interim and annual benchmarks during the next five years to ensure full compliance by Sep. 11, 2012. The first deadline was originally for Sep. 11, 2008.

As could be expected, angry wireless carriers protested, filing challenges at the FCC and the federal appeals court. The Rural Cellular Association and T-Mobile USA actually challenged on substantive and procedural grounds the FCC ruling, which directed mobile-phone operators to comply with the various benchmarks over the next several years.

On March 10, the FCC extended the first deadline six months to March 11 of next year. The deadline applies to a rule requiring wireless licensees to meet testing and measurement standards for wireless location accuracy in each economic area in which a carrier operates.

The group stated “overall, RCA is pleased that the court agreed that there are serious procedural problems with the revised rule that set new compliance deadlines and reporting requirements that are not supported by the record.

While RCA members will continue to work on improvements in E-911 location accuracy they should not be expected to perform the impossible or to go broke trying.”

Clyde Ensslin, an FCC spokesman said “we will comply with the court’s order and continue to work with public safety and the wireless industry to ensure that the public can get help in times of emergency. Today, people are increasingly relying on cellphones for more and more of their calls, including their calls to the 911 emergency service. We remain committed to making sure first responders receive meaningful information to find 911 callers quickly, reliably and accurately.”

The cellular industry and now some FCC members voiced concerns about the government effectively imposing a new E-911 regime without considering a range of specific factors.

Such factors include forthcoming findings in commission reports on the possibility of mandating a hybrid technical solution and a single wireless accuracy standard; whether to require carriers to report the height as well as the latitude and longitude of E-911 calls; and how to require carriers to measure and report compliance with the standards.

But the FCC, cellular carriers and the public-safety community have been struggling to improve wireless E-911 for more than ten years now, a situation greatly complicated by technological capability, local and state budgets and shifting trends that have Americans increasingly making mobile phones their primary communications devices.

Today, cellular operators must accurately locate emergency callers anywhere between 50 meters and 300 meters of their actual position, depending on whether GPS handset or network-based E-911 technology is used. The FCC has actually fined a number of national operators in recent years for failure to meet E-911 obligations.

Overall, the E-911 location accuracy debate has gained urgency with findings that current technology may be totally inadequate to accurately pin-point the many emergency calls made from indoors and in some rural areas.

Add to del.icio.us     Digg this

    This article was featured on Business 5.0.

Source: U.S. Appeals Court.