Where is Wireless E-911?
By Michael Fickes
As the year-end 95 percent penetration deadline looms for wireless carriers who rely on handsets to provide Phase II location capabilities, the Federal Communications Commission, the wireless industry, public safety officials, and consumers are struggling to strike the appropriate balance related to implementation issues. Implementing the FCC’s wireless E911 requirements has proven to be far more complex and costly than any of the stakeholders anticipated when the Commission first defined these requirements nearly 10 years ago. While the wireless industry has made enormous progress toward meeting its obligations by investing substantial resources toward deploying E911, especially the Phase II location capabilities, significant hurdles still remain from achieving a fully operational E911 system.
Faced with tight state and local budgets, public safety authorities have not kept pace with industry in the task of upgrading the Public Safety Answering Points (PSAPs) to receive and process the location information wireless carriers now are capable of providing. Wireless carriers pursuing handset solutions are finding
it difficult to convince many of their customers to replace their current handsets with those that are “location capable,” especially in markets where consumers might not benefit from the new technology due to inadequate PSAP funding. In addition, carriers have also found many customers are perfectly satisfied with their existing handsets; these customers do not want to go through the hassle of physically exchanging their equipment; they do not want to reprogram the phone numbers in their speed dial memories; nor do they want to replace costly accessories, including chargers, cases, and car kits.
Along with the challenges presented by the FCC’s handset penetration deadlines, there is a simmering dispute — despite the agreement by a consensus of the stakeholders, including carriers, PSAPs, and suppliers — about how E911 Phase II accuracy should be tested and measured. All of this over advanced location
capabilities on which wireless carriers have spent more than $1.2 billion, according to George Mason University Professor Jerry Ellig.
Why has wireless E911 implementation proven so challenging? “This is a hell of a difficult problem,” says Dale Hatfield, a telecommunications consultant based in Boulder, Colorado, and author of a major report commissioned by the FCC on the technical and operational issues affecting the creation of wireless E911 services. “It is extremely complex, involving multiple stakeholders such as equipment providers, PSAPs, first responders in overlapping political jurisdictions, carriers, and others. There are numerous issues related to technical standards, nationwide systems engineering, and evolving generations of technology. There are funding issues for PSAPs, carriers, and everyone else.
