While it wasn’t mentioned in the report, the agreements negotiated during the focus
group’s meetings also call for cell and sector level accuracy testing after maintenance, significant changes in network configurations, or when PSAPs identify problems. “NENA provided the FCC with comments about these agreements in early July,” Hixson says.
The lone dissenter to the NRIC recommendations came from the Association of Public Safety Communications Officials (APCO) International, a public safety trade group whose members dispatch emergency responders. The Association is adamant in its opposition. “Phase II services are requested at the local level, specifically at the PSAP level,” said Wanda McCarley, President-Elect of APCO International in a statement to NRIC. “In most cases, contracts between wireless carriers and PSAPs are initiated at the local level. Phase II services are deployed at the local level. Phase II services are utilized at the local level and responses to calls are initiated at the local level by local authorities. APCO-International asserts
that accuracy testing should logically be conducted at the local level.”
Those that favor the NRIC recommendations, including NENA, say that the focus group aimed to balance the need to build out the wireless E911 system with reasonable testing responsibilities for the carriers.
“What would it cost to conduct statistically sound accuracy tests in each of 6171 PSAPs in the country?” asks Hixson. “My understanding is that valid testing process requires 300 to 500 tests. If you tested for accuracy in each of the nation’s 3200 counties, you would have to run well over a million tests. You can say in theory that the carriers have deep pockets, but that’s not really the way things work. A more workable solution is to conduct periodic testing at the national and state level, which I’m told would involve as few as a hundred thousand tests.”
“In the end, we decided that it would better serve the public’s interest to use the available resources to finish rolling out Phase II, instead of siphoning off significant resources to do (local level) accuracy testing,” Hixson says.
When it comes to wireless E911, the devil lurks in the details. “It is a monumental
task, much more so than anyone realized at first,” concludes Hatfield. “Still, I think the industry has made remarkable efforts to get where it is today.”
