The Senate sent telecom legislation to President Bush on Wed. evening in a literal 11th-hour vote. By approving HR-5419, the Senate approved 3 legislative measures and ended weeks of political infighting about everything from Congressional Budget Office scoring to appropriators’ authority and boxing regulation. Sources said the White House would sign the act, which includes the spectrum relocation trust fund, E-911 funding and a temporary fix to accounting problems in the E-rate program. The junk fax bill, HR-4600, was the only legislation that had a reasonable chance to pass and didn’t. “The legislation brings needed changes that will promote homeland security and increase wireless broadband opportunities,” FCC Chmn. Powell said.

A coalition of leading universities, hardware makers and local emergency districts is developing a new generation of Internet-based 911 technologies and standards. The I-911 initiative is a 2-year, $1.2 million project that will investigate open-standard VoIP location approaches as well as IM and on-scene video. The project is funded in part by the NTIA and coordinated by the Internet 2 Consortium.

The VoIP industry has made significant progress on 911 in the past year, the VON Coalition said Wed. Celebrating the first anniversary of the original 911 agreement with NENA (CD Dec 2'03 p1), the Coalition released a survey saying all the respondents that offer residential VoIP service also offer 911 service that allows a caller to connect to an emergency answering center. The survey covers 14 VoIP providers that either signed the original VON-NENA agreement or are VON Coalition members. It found that 60% offer E911 access with automatic call-back number and location information to emergency call centers similar to traditional wireline service. It said 30% expected to offer this service within a year, and 10% to roll out new services as the next generation I2 service is developed. “In just a year, the VoIP industry is stepping forward, making great progress and providing 911 solutions compatible with traditional E911 functionality -- a level of functionality that took the wireless industry more than a decade to begin offering,” said NENA Dir.-Operations Issues Rick Jones. He said NENA looked forward to “continuing to work collaboratively with the VoIP community in the weeks ahead to find additional steps we can take together in order to ensure continued progress on delivering E911 for VoIP.” The study also found: (1) 56% of VoIP companies allow call routing to the 10 digit number for the PSAP, and several companies provide both a 10 digit solution for nomadic users and an E911 service for fixed users. (2) 63% provide 911 as a standard feature with their service. (3) 75% of those that signed the agreement with NENA collect and remit state and local 911 fees for VoIP customers, and 25% indicate they will when they gain access to incumbent trunking and other databases. (4) All will adopt more-advanced 911 solutions within a year after standards and solutions are developed; 63% expected to do so immediately, 38 in 6-12 months. (5) All inform customers about the level of 911 service provided and 75% also inform the emergency response centers about their approach to 911 service. (6) More than 1,000 calls to 911 have been delivered to emergency personnel since Dec. 1, 2003, when the agreement was signed. (7) All believe that when fully implemented, IP-based 911 solutions can be more robust than the solutions provided by the current network.

In a move strongly supported by FCC Chmn. Powell, the National Emergency Number Assn. (NENA) kicked off its Next Generation (NG) E911 Program on Wed. It urged industry leaders to work with federal, state and local officials and NENA members to update and improve the technical, operational and policy foundations of the nation’s 911 system. NENA officials said they had approached a number of groups and organizations and now were urging them to join forces. The early program partners include SBC, TruePosition, Vonage, TeleCommunications Systems, TelControl and HBF Group.

BOSTON - VoIP industry speakers warned the FCC here that E911 shouldn’t be required of VoIP, unlike wireless. “With the technology evolving so quickly, it would be a great mistake for federal and state regulators to impose an E911 mandate based on the network topologies and capabilities of yesterday,” said MCI Vp-Federal Law & Policy Richard Whitt. He said “the preferable approach is to allow the industry to work closely with NENA and other responsible organizations to devise feature-rich and innovative emergency service applications and networks.” Alcatel Senior Vp-Research & Innovation Jack Jachner agreed, saying it would be “helpful” of the FCC to emphasize the importance of VoIP E911 and let the industry find the technologies.

VoIP provider Vonage said it’s now able to provide R.I. subscribers with E-911 location service, a step one FCC official said was “a terribly exciting development for public safety.” However, Vonage CEO Jeffrey Citron said R.I. was a unique case, noting that both the regulatory and technical structure of the 911 system will make it challenging to provide E-911 to other districts. Because R.I. owns the selective router for 911 and has only one public safety answering point (PSAP) for the entire state, there were fewer complications to bring E-911 online, Citron said Thurs. Since most states have numerous PSAPs and most 911 selective routers are controlled by ILECs, achieving access to the 911 system is difficult. Citron said each state could change rules on accessing the 911 system, but having to appeal to each state would be tedious and could produce inconsistent results, Citron said. “We need a national plan,” said Citron, who said the FCC could establish the access rules that are needed. Vonage utilizes services from Intrado, a leading emergency communications provider, to help R.I. determine a caller’s location. The system relies on Vonage subscribers to supply home location information; the system doesn’t determine location based on where the VoIP call originated. Mary Boyd, Intrado vp-govt. affairs, said until a national policy is developed, each state would have to “step up one at a time.” Meanwhile, the National Emergency Number Assn. (NENA) said it would host a “next generation E-911 forum” to further examine and develop E- 911 service. The forum will include “all 911 stakeholders” and will be held in Washington Nov. 17. The forum will include a technical roundtable, a policy roundtable and an operational/educational roundtable.

The National Emergency Number Assn. (NENA) said Mon. that Sen. Sununu (R-N.H.) had issued a hold on S-1250, E- 911 funding legislation sponsored by Senate Communications Subcommittee Chmn. Burns (R-Mont.) Last week, Senate sources said Sununu placed the hold because he thought the bill allocated too much money. Sununu has in the past said there were several federal programs from which public safety organizations could draw funding for E-911 enhancement and additional funding wasn’t needed. Congress recessed for the elections without approving the E-911 bill. Burns, who originally asked for $500 million in annual funding for E-911, is now asking that a $250 million version of his bill be considered. The version that passed the House (HR-2898) would designate $100 million be spent.

The Dept. of Homeland Security (DHS) is launching an Office of Interoperability & Compatibility, DHS Secy. Tom Ridge said Mon. DHS said the office would “oversee the wide range of public safety interoperability programs” spread across DHS, but critics were quick to ask whether the announcement was largely political.

With Vonage v. Minn. PUC oral arguments expected in Oct., Vonage urged the FCC during an ex parte meeting last week to act “expeditiously” on its pending petition concerning the jurisdictional nature of its service. “If the FCC chooses to act later, the [U.S. Appeals Court, St. Louis,] will render the decision prior to the FCC, and the Commission will be bound by the court decision,” Vonage attorney William Wilhelm told us: “If the FCC wants to set a precedent, it would have to act on the matter before the court ruling.” The 8th Circuit is expected to issue its decision this year. With respect to VoIP 911 services, Vonage said it continued to “devote substantial resources toward the development of standards and technology necessary to facilitate VoIP 911 services.” It said it was “a signatory to the NENA Statement of Principle with respect to the development of VoIP.” But it said it “concurs with NENA’s opposition to the fragmentation of 911 and agrees that consumer expectations for 911 are national and therefore require jurisdictional leadership and resources from the Federal Government.” Noting that the FCC promised to provide that leadership in its IP services rulemaking, Vonage said it would support Commission action that would endorse “a national approach to IP 911 that would marshal the regional expertise of the public safety community but preclude disparate state approach.” It urged the Commission to approach the development of VoIP 911 “just as it oversaw the national deployment of 911 for commercial mobile radio services.”

The National Emergency Number Assn. (NENA) endorsed the Cingular-AT&T Wireless (AWS) merger in a filing at the FCC. “We are pleased that Cingular and AWS continue to make progress in their E911 deployment,” NENA said. “Through FCC compliance efforts, Cingular and AWS have adhered to existing consent decrees governing E911 Phase I and Phase II obligations… We believe that capabilities of each company to implement and improve 911 services will be strengthened by their merger.”