Hill Pressure Rises for FCC to Act on 911 Wireless Location Standards

"This is a public safety crisis,” Jamie Barnett, head of the Find Me 911 Coalition, told us. “I was shocked at the vehemence at which 911 professionals feel.”

He is a former FCC Public Safety Bureau chief and now co-chair of Venable’s telecom group. Venable represents TruePosition, a company that focuses on location accuracy, but Barnett stresses that the coalition does not endorse any one 911 location accuracy technology provider, whether that’s TruePosition or NextNav or Polaris.

"When Americans call for help, emergency responders should get timely and accurate information on the caller’s location,” an FCC spokesperson told us. “The FCC is examining the location accuracy of wireless 911 calls in light of changing calling patterns, particularly the increase in wireless 911 calls made from indoors. This issue is a priority, and the input we've been getting from stakeholders will help us determine next steps.”

Senate Communications Subcommittee Chairman Mark Pryor, D-Ark., convened a hearing Thursday. He first wrote to the FCC with other senators in the fall and traced his concerns back to a field hearing he held in Arkansas with FCC Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel in August. “Depending on literally where you stand in that [Arkansas 911 call] center, if you're using a wireless phone, the location accuracy varies widely,” Pryor said. “I think most consumers would be alarmed if they understood this.” He pointed to positive signs at the FCC in recent months, such as a workshop on 911 accuracy issues. Pryor said “it’s time for the FCC to make concrete steps. I call on the FCC today to initiate a proceeding to make that happen."

The House Next-Gen 911 Caucus co-chairs pressed FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler to institute a proposed rulemaking setting standards for indoor location accuracy. “We believe the Agency must do more to ensure first responders have the necessary information to locate calls made to 9-1-1 from indoor locations,” said caucus co-chairs Anna Eshoo, D-Calif., and John Shimkus, R-Ill., in a letter sent Wednesday. Eshoo had signed a letter to the FCC similar to the one Pryor had signed with House colleagues in the fall.

"The reality for the public safety world is in general it does take regulation, simply because we have a very diverse market,” Trey Forgety, National Emergency Number Association director-government affairs, told the Senate subcommittee. “The challenge ultimately is public safety operates in every corner of this country.” Both Forgety as well as APCO International President Gigi Smith testified and said “yes and soon” when asked whether the FCC should initiate a formal rulemaking on 911 wireless accuracy standards. APCO supports FCC rules requiring “improvements in indoor location accuracy over a reasonable period of time,” Smith testified.

CTIA resisted that approach. “Having lived through it, I am concerned about initiating a regulatory process when we haven’t found the technology solution,” said CTIA Executive Vice President Chris Guttman-McCabe, another witness. He pointed to the collaborative efforts of the FCC’s Communications Security, Reliability and Interoperability Council (CSRIC) and said the agency has “a bully pulpit” if it thinks the CSRIC process is not moving fast enough. Carriers have a history of moving forward “aggressively and quickly” in this space, he said. “The collaborative processes move immeasurably better.”

The Telecommunications Industry Association worries the “imposition of location accuracy mandates would be premature while such technologies remain in their nascent stage,” the association told the Senate Commerce Committee in a letter dated Wednesday. It’s also a CSRIC member.

The hearing illustrated the “stark contrast” between public safety officials like Forgety and Smith and the views of the carriers and device manufacturer Qualcomm, said Barnett, who attended the hearing but did not testify. Qualcomm Director-Technology Kirk Burroughs had testified as a witness. The discussion showcased “the thinness of the arguments” against location accuracy standards, said Barnett, calling the hearing “great” and “timely.” A part of the issue is that carriers shifted technologies to assisted GPS at least five years ago, which “just happens to be cheaper, too,” Barnett said. The issue was “invisible” until reports started coming out of the states, which collected data as part of funding questions, he said. He doesn’t blame the carriers, which likely did not realize the location accuracy implications when shifting technologies, he said. The Find Me 911 Coalition is set to deliver a petition with more than 30,000 signatures to the FCC by the end of this month backing action on a proceeding, he said. He hopes for FCC action as soon as February or March.

Burroughs sought to “clarify” all the concerns surrounding the CalNENA report, he said in his testimony (http://1.usa.gov/19xz4iX). “Currently each 911 call from a mobile device is routed to the call center that is closest to the device’s serving cell,” he said. “The call center then uses a separate communication channel to ‘bid,’ often referred to as ‘rebid,’ for a more accurate location estimate; in other words, the call center has to ‘ask’ the network to provide it with the caller’s location.” Qualcomm is working on a 4G-based technology to give more accurate results indoors. Industry has used assisted GPS technology “for more than 10 years” but he advocates for an E-911 hybrid location technology, pairing the assisted GPS with advanced forward link trilateration or specifically observed time difference of arrival, he said. Currently deployed assisted GPS tech paired with advanced forward link trilateration works “reasonably well” indoors, he said.

"Don’t you think the public has a right and legitimate expectation that there be standards in this critical area?” asked Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn. “Isn’t that the purpose of the FCC’s existence?” The topic “has legs,” he said. But Sen. Kelly Ayotte, R-N.H., emphasized the more open multistakeholder approach: “We always get the best results when we work together in a collaborate effort,” she said. Subcommittee ranking member Roger Wicker, R-Miss., noted the “straightforward goals” of making sure calls are delivered and provide accurate information: “Lives absolutely depend on it.”

Kim Bayliss, a lobbyist for Grayling, attended the hearing to monitor text-to-911 issues for multiple clients. She told us she was struck by how committed Pryor was to the issue. The big takeaways from the hearing are CTIA’s resistance to FCC action and potential liability and the advancement of technology in this arena, despite some limitations. She also pointed out how this is “a big issue” for people with hearing disabilities. “If they choose to get really involved, it could make a difference.”

"We need better, we need faster, we need vertical,” Forgety said. “Now I realize this is a lot. ... The time for further delay is past.” He said the necessary technology is here today. Burroughs emphasized the technology solutions to come. “The z axis is a bigger challenge,” Burroughs said, referring to assessing location accuracy vertically, such as which floor of a building the caller is on. “The x-y axis is being deployed in the 4G networks today.”