Migration, Video Calling Issues Will Remain Following EAAC Report
A report by the FCC’s Emergency Access Advisory Committee (EAAC) won’t offer the agency advice on how to migrate to a next-generation 911 system capable of better handling the needs of the handicapped, members of the committee agreed Friday. The EAAC also won’t offer any conclusions on whether emergency callers using a video phone should be able to see the call taker or will just see a blank screen.
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The EAAC is trying to ready a report to submit to the FCC Dec. 7 on technological changes required for the disabled to make emergency calls. Members of the EAAC spent almost five hours going through a draft report Friday, mostly making edits and technical changes. In July, the commission released a survey by the EAAC on the problems encountered by the handicapped in reaching 911, along with views on the use of such technologies as video and TTY. The results are expected to be used by the committee to write the report (CD July 11 p8).
The committee waited to discuss migration until the end “because until we came up with our recommendations it was hard to talk about how to do a migration to them,” said Gregg Vanderheiden of the University of Wisconsin, a member of the EAAC. “That would be a very nice topic for a follow-up report.” Migration was expected to be one of the chapters of the report.
"As we have not yet developed final recommendations, it doesn’t seem prudent to try to develop time lines and benchmarks for a migration plan,” said Cheryl King, with the FCC Consumer and Government Affairs Bureau, who is coordinating the work of the group. “We would consider it for one of the issues that we will address in 2012.”
The video question is important to those who rely on sign language or lip reading, Vanderheiden said. “There are some technical ways of addressing this that can provide both face to face [communications] and privacy,” he said. “We thought this was another good topic to defer until we have time to talk about it.” The report will note that the topics are important and will be the subject of further work by the EAAC, he said. Mark Fletcher, representing Avaya on the committee, said the report should be clear why it is putting off a recommendation on video calling. “This is not really a technology question, this is more of an operational or procedure question,” he said. “We need input from public safety answering points.”