The FCC voted to require carriers to file annual audits addressing how they are following best practices for 911 connections, over a dissent by Commissioner Ajit Pai, who said the order goes too far. Commissioner Mignon Clyburn, then acting chairwoman, had first circulated the order, which Chairman Tom Wheeler teed up for a vote at Thursday’s meeting.

Wireless carriers urged the FCC to proceed with caution as it considers rules requiring better location accuracy for 911 calls coming from wireless devices indoors. The carriers, responding to a Sept. 9 FCC public notice, said they have a good track record of trying to make call location as accurate as possible. An FCC workshop on the topic is slated for Wednesday. Public safety groups want the FCC to take more steps to require better indoor reliability for wireless calls to 911 (CD Sept 26 p19).

CTIA cited support from wireless carriers and the National Emergency Number Association in arguing that the FCC should alter the roaming requirement embedded in the commission’s May 17 text-to-911 order. CTIA responded directly to the Association of Public-Safety Communications Officials, which said earlier this month the requirement should stand as written (CD Aug 19 p4). The order requires all carriers and interconnected text messaging providers to send an automatic bounceback text message to consumers where text-to-911 service is not available, starting Sept. 30.

The National Emergency Number Association isn’t opposing a CTIA request that the FCC reconsider one part of its May 17 text-to-911 order and drop a requirement that even roaming subscribers get bounceback messages when they can’t text to 911. The Association of Public-Safety Communications Officials strongly opposed CTIA in comments filed last week at the commission (CD Aug 19 p4). NENA didn’t file comments in response to CTIA, but NENA Regulatory Counsel Telford Forgety explained NENA’s position in a meeting with Public Safety Bureau Deputy Chief David Furth (http://bit.ly/19LUcll). Forgety said NENA “does not oppose the petition of CTIA,” according to the ex parte filing. NENA is “convinced the long-term safety and security of the public requires a ubiquitous Text-to-911 solution that works across networks, regardless of whether a subscriber is attached to a home or roaming network,” Forgety said. “However, I also explained that CTIA’s position with respect to the limited question of which party should be responsible for delivering a bounce-back message is consistent with the understanding of the public safety community.”

ANAHEIM, Calif. -- Plan for big changes, speakers at the Association of Public-Safety Communications Officials told association members at its California meeting. They emphasized the significance of FirstNet and the technology changes inherent in next-generation 911. The changes, which will need to be harmonious, will affect how 911 call center operators and other emergency communications officials should plan and train staff, speakers said.

Major cities in California have seen a significant decrease in the number of wireless 911 calls with Phase II location information to public safety answering points (PSAP), CalNENA President Danita Crombach wrote the FCC (http://bit.ly/16fN2Dy). The Public Safety Network on the association’s behalf collected data from Bakersfield, Pasadena, San Francisco, San Joe and Ventura County to determine how often carriers managed to get Phase II location information, and they included this information in the report to the FCC (http://bit.ly/1eHfFIU). Phase I data includes only the location of the cell site with a phone number, but the geographic area can be huge, Crombach wrote Monday. In San Francisco, “as many as 80 percent of mobile calls are coming as Phase I only and the rest are Phase II,” said Lisa Hoffmann, San Francisco Department of Emergency Management deputy director, in an interview Tuesday.

CTIA and the National Emergency Number Association raised objections to a key idea for fighting contraband cellphones in prisons, proposed in a May rulemaking notice(CD May 1 p1). The NPRM asks a battery of questions about what the FCC concedes is a growing problem. A top focus of the NPRM is speeding up the licensing process for managed access systems -- systems that use wireless base stations located within the prison itself to capture and block transmissions to or from unauthorized devices. The proposal was based in part on a rule change requested in September 2011 by CellAntenna, a company that builds systems for combating the use of contraband cellphones by prisoners.

The framework specifications of NENA i3 contain many gaps that may disrupt the transition to accessible next-generation 911, said a report from the FCC’s Emergency Access Advisory Committee Monday (http://bit.ly/12uJvuR). NENA 08-003 version 2, yet to be released, may fix some of these gaps, it said, calling the NENA i3 work a “tremendous accomplishment” despite the work to be done. The report pointed to test requirement inconsistencies and lack of testing specification, how 911 call centers will be able to accept text messages as TTY during the transition, TTY limitations generally, the risk of not using terminal procedures for NG-911 handling and other aspects. The report does not claim to be comprehensive but wants its points taken into consideration in any future revision of the standards. Accessibility should be implemented from the start in NG-911, it said.

The four national wireless carriers are on target to make text-to-911 messages available to all public safety answering points capable or receiving them by a May 15, 2014, deadline, they said in reports filed this week at the National Emergency Number Association. That deadline stems from a voluntary agreement Verizon Wireless, AT&T, Sprint Nextel and T-Mobile signed with NENA and the Association of Public-Safety Communications Officials last year, under FCC pressure (CD Dec 10 p1). All four carriers said they're already transmitting bounceback messages to subscribers who try to send emergency texts before 911 call centers can handle them.

"I do know there are very many larger areas where the PSAPs are not ready to handle that,” said Chris Littlewood, project coordinator at the Allstate Center’s Center for Public Safety Innovation at the National Terrorism Preparedness Institute, of text-to-911. Education and outreach needs “to happen at the PSAP level as well,” he said. “I can tell you that it’s not just rural areas that have no idea that they need to be handling text-to-911 by the beginning of next year. … Are the PSAPs going to be able to handle that?” Different procedures will need to be in place at different levels of the 911 call centers, he said.