Verizon, Safety Groups Submit Revised Location Accuracy Plan
The National Emergency Number Association, APCO and Verizon Wireless together proposed revised E-911 location rules with new targets and a new timetable. The rules would apply the same standard to GSM and CDMA networks and allow an exception for heavily forested counties where systems wouldn’t work as well as elsewhere. Industry sources said the plan emerged in talks between public safety groups and the two largest carriers - AT&T and Verizon Wireless -- held at the urging of FCC Chairman Kevin Martin. AT&T didn’t sign on to a letter that Verizon Wireless and the associations filed at the FCC. AT&T is expected to submit a separate letter on the proposal.
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The filing is unusual: Agreements of this kind are usually offered by a broad group of carriers rather than by the public safety organizations and a single company. The rules approved last year drew a federal court challenge from carriers, who viewed them as unrealistically tough.
“What’s happened here is the two larger carriers peeled off separately at the behest of the chairman to negotiate something,” said a wireless-industry source. Martin thought broader industry-wide negotiations weren’t moving fast enough, industry sources said. Officials with NENA, APCO and Verizon Wireless did not respond by our deadlines to requests for comment.
“The joint letter reflects a consensus solution that is technically feasible and appropriate for Verizon’s handset- based technology,” AT&T said. “Such consensus is exactly how complicated issues such as E911 location accuracy should be addressed. AT&T supports such solutions as opposed to ongoing litigation on these issues.”
Under the new proposal, within two years of adoption 67 percent of Phase II E-911 calls would have to be accurate to within 50 meters in all counties and 80 percent accurate within 150 meters measured. A carrier could exclude up to 15 percent of counties from the 150-meter requirement “based upon heavy forestation that limits handset-based technology accuracy in those counties.”
Within eight years. measured county by county, 67 percent of Phase II calls would have to be accurate to within 50 meters in all counties and 90 percent accurate to within 150 meters. Unlike under previous rules, CDMA carriers, which have handset-based systems, and GSM carriers, with network based systems, would be treated the same. Rules that the FCC approved last year held CDMA carriers including Verizon Wireless and Sprint Nextel to a tougher standard than GSM carriers like AT&T and T-Mobile.
Under the rules approved last year, within five years carriers must be able to locate wireless emergency callers with 95 percent accuracy -- within 150 meters for carriers with handset-based systems and within 300 meters for those using network approaches (CD Sept 11 Special Bulletin p2). Carriers would have to satisfy the requirement for each public-safety answering point rather than by averaging results across a state.