AT&T Says FCC Made ‘Legal Error’ in E-911 Measurement Deadlines
AT&T warned that the FCC is on perilous legal ground in approving rules for E-911 location measurement before it wrapped up a broader rulemaking. Carriers are widely expected to challenge the Sept. 11 order in federal court (CD Sept 11 Special Bulletin). Carriers were upset last week when the FCC established a five-year deadline, with benchmarks, for measuring success in locating wireless E- 911 callers at the public safety answering point (PSAP) level rather than using statewide averaging. The FCC action was stage one of a two-part E-911 rulemaking, which focused on measurement standards. Reply comments in the next phase, looking at broader E-911 issues, were due this week.
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
If your job depends on informed compliance, you need International Trade Today. Delivered every business day and available any time online, only International Trade Today helps you stay current on the increasingly complex international trade regulatory environment.
AT&T hinted at a legal challenge in its reply comments to the FCC. “Although the text of the stage one order has not yet been released, it is clear that the aforementioned stage two issues have already been resolved,” AT&T said. “The FCC’s prejudgment of crucial issues reserved for the stage two proceeding was legal error. The FCC is obligated to ‘adhere to its own rules and regulations.'”
AT&T also said the FCC failed to follow its rules requiring that decisions be based on “a consideration of the relevant factors” and rest on “reasoned decisionmaking” and analysis. “This analysis requires the Commission to take into account the comment record and address significant issues that are raised,” AT&T said. “This principle has been violated here. The Commission has adopted PSAP-level compliance benchmarks before the conclusion of the comment cycle specifically created to address this issue. Thus, there can be no relationship between the facts found and the choice made.”
SouthernLink also questioned the legal validity of the Sept. 11 order, in its replies. The order “raises significant legal and public policy concerns, including the Commission’s compliance with the Administrative Procedure Act,” it said.
T-Mobile said work needs to be done on remaining E- 911 questions. “The Commission now should conduct the intensive engineering, scientific, and economic inquiry that it declined to undertake before adopting the new PSAP-level rules and benchmarks,” the carrier said. “Such a review should examine what is technically possible both today and in the foreseeable future and the trade-offs that will have to be made with respect to any additional mandates.”
Meanwhile, carriers said broad consensus is that tougher regulations must be developed by an industry- public safety forum and not by the commission without the advice of the yet-to-be-established forum. “CTIA is concerned that the FCC may prematurely adopt technical standards before a full and adequate record is established,” said the group. “Mandating unachievable location accuracy requirements… will chill the deployment of new technologies that can improve current capabilities, yet fall short of the proposed requirements.”
Sprint Nextel also pointed to general agreement on the need for an industry forum. “Support for such a forum comes from wireless carriers, equipment manufacturers, location technology vendors, public safety and other interested parties,” the carrier said. “Moreover, as indicated by their separate statements released in conjunction with the adoption of the Report and Order on September 11th, three of the five FCC Commissioners believe further technical collaboration would benefit this proceeding,”
The National Emergency Number Association said it and the Association of Public Safety Communications Officials agree that the FCC should convene a forum to discuss how to make E-911 more effective. But NENA said the forum should not stop the commission from establishing new rules for emergency calling.
“The agency itself played host in 1999 to a public safety/wireless carrier/vendor roundtable on issues of wireless emergency caller location,” NENA said. “Other similar FCC conferences have been held since. The existence of accuracy rules in 1999 and after did not preclude these gatherings, but instead made them more important. The same is true now in the wake of the Commission’s Sept. 11th decision.”