NG911 Network Requires ‘Fresh Thinking,’ Liability Protections, Carriers Say

"Industry continues its substantial progress toward NG911 deployment and availability, using standards that are being developed with public safety, and additional regulatory obligations for commercial networks are unnecessary,” Verizon said (http://xrl.us/bn6io3). Progress is being made, the carrier said. “Verizon is separately working with many [public safety answering points] to begin upgrading their networks and equipment to IP-enabled platforms to handle existing 911 and E911 calls, a necessary first step toward the deployment of an IP-enabled NG911 system,” the carrier said. “And public safety stakeholders continue to make progress in defining the required capabilities and processes for their networks.” One key step is that Congress enact nationwide liability protections, Verizon said. “As Verizon has previously explained, current law provides important liability protection for NG911 participants, but the degree of immunity varies from state to state and remains subject to the vagaries of common law tort actions."

Now is the time to ask the hard questions about the deployment of NG911 networks, even if difficult issues remain, NENA said. “Next Generation 911 systems or components are already being deployed, and all stakeholders -- consumers, vendors, carriers, lawmakers, and regulators -- need the certainty provided by a considered legal framework to ensure that these deployments do not encounter cost-inflating delays or disabling roadblocks,” NENA said (http://xrl.us/bn6iq5). The states and local governments can manage the transition to NG911, but require a federal push, NENA said. “Although we do not endorse a comprehensive federal role in the planning, coordination, and deployment of NG911, we do recommend that the Commission, the National 911 Office, and Congress take specific steps to facilitate the deployment of NG911 by the states, and to ensure that state deployments are timely and effective.” Among the steps NENA recommends is that Congress designate the FCC as the agency in charge of establishing national NG911 policy. “The FCC should launch an advisory committee tasked with conducting a comprehensive review of state regulations with an eye toward identifying those that may impede NG911 deployment,” NENA said. To that end, the FCC should “provide Congress with some archetypal examples of regulations that may impede the deployment of NG911,” the filing said.

Success will require “fresh thinking” at all levels, AT&T said (http://xrl.us/bn6isn). “At a minimum, this fresh thinking should embrace revisiting and strengthening limitation-of-liability protection for all parties in the provisioning chain -- not just service and network providers, but manufacturers and vendors, as well, regardless of network or technology,” the carrier said. “The existing limitation-of-liability protection is inadequate to the task because it is not consistent nationwide and leaves parties uncertain as to the extent that protection is provided (if at all),” AT&T said. “Limitation-of-liability protection for all in the 911 provisioning chain should be clear and unambiguous, comprehensive, standardized, nationwide, and applicable to all equally -- regardless of technology involved. Congress needs to address this issue immediately to encourage across-the-board participation at all levels in introducing advanced services into the NG911 service space.”

T-Mobile, meanwhile, said several steps by the government are necessary to speed the buildout of what it calls IP-based Emergency Services Internet Protocol networks (ESInets). Liability protections should be uniform and national, funding mechanisms adequate to do the job and NG911 requirements should be limited to transmitting data from wireless devices to PSAPs, T-Mobile said. “Just as with Hurricane Katrina in 2005, the last two years have seen emergencies and disasters that show once again how imperative it is that we migrate our existing legacy 911 system to IP-based NG911,” the carrier said (http://xrl.us/bn6itd). “Both the mid-2011 East Coast Earthquake and Hurricane Sandy in the fall of 2012 demonstrate the need for interconnected and interoperable regional, or even national, ESInets that will permit public safety officials to shift 911 call answering capabilities from one physical location to another when a PSAP is rendered unavailable or to spread the task of responding to a larger scale regional event over a broader array of PSAPs.”