Congress should consider legislation to withhold federal funds from states that spend 911 money for unrelated purposes, said a public safety coalition including the National Emergency Number Association. In a letter Wednesday to House and Senate Commerce Committee chairmen and ranking members, the coalition said states including Georgia, Maryland, New York and Wisconsin “raided or diverted” money last year in violation of federal restrictions. “In the current budget climate, the message should be clear that Congress will not provide federal funds for 9-1-1 and homeland security to a state that does not properly spend money already in its coffers,” the coalition said. Congress could require the FCC to share results of its annual report on state 911 activities with the Office of Management and Budget and all federal agencies that run public-safety grant programs, it said. “This information could then be taken into consideration as a factor when determining eligibility for federal public safety grants.” Congress should ask the FCC what additional steps the commission can take to prevent the practice, the coalition said. “For example, while the FCC is tasked with enforcing ’truth in billing’ requirements on commercial licensees, the Commission could also enforce a requirement that states be truthful about the fees they impose on consumers that are collected by carriers."

A proposed Emergency Response Interoperability Center (ERIC) would be housed at the FCC in the Public Safety Bureau and would come under a Public Safety Advisory Board, according to a concept paper posted on the FCC website. Meanwhile, public safety groups and companies that serve them said they liked what they heard at Thursday’s FCC meeting about public safety recommendations coming in the National Broadband Plan -- especially a recommendation on the need for a next-generation 911 network.

The FCC was flooded with more than 100,000 comments and other filings on its October rulemaking notice that would deepen the FCC’s oversight of net neutrality as well as expand the rules to cover wireless. There were few surprises, with lines long drawn in the battle. Some major industry players including AT&T and Verizon are hinting at a legal challenge if the rules are adopted as proposed. A few traditional opponents found room for compromise.

AT&T and Sprint Nextel urged the FCC to abolish a telecom relay service rule requiring conventional Teletype TRS providers to automatically and immediately call the appropriate public safety answering point when they get a 711 emergency call from an interconnected-VoIP user. In separate comments last week at the FCC, AT&T and Sprint said such users make too few of the calls to justify the costs of building the system needed to comply. But consumer groups said “people with disabilities must have the same access to emergency services as any person without disabilities.”

Working-group leaders reported progress on privacy and location, emergency communications and IPv6 specifications, in discussions at an international meeting of the Internet Engineering Task Force in San Francisco. The conclusions of working group sessions at the meeting all last week are subject to broader discussion on its e-mail list and then approval by the Internet Engineering Steering Group. The open, volunteer organization runs by so-called rough consensus: Action requires the support of the great majority of those taking part.

As FairPoint brings new back-office systems on line in the coming weeks, scammers may try to hoodwink customers into revealing confidential information, the Maine Public Utility Commission warned. “We've received reports of businesses getting calls saying that their account numbers are needed right away to help with the transition,” said Sharon Reishus, who chairs the agency. “It’s not true.” The shift involves major data transfers from former Verizon New England systems to FairPoint’s updated hardware and software. Consumers should educate themselves about how this may affect phone service, Reishus said. “No one should lose their telephone service as a result of the system changes, and E-9-1-1, repair and storm recovery services should go on as usual.” According to FairPoint, between Jan. 23 and Feb. 9, the company won’t be able to process orders for new phone service, transfer service to new locations or add new options to existing service. The company expects to resume processing of such orders after Feb. 9, but fulfillment may be delayed if, as expected, a backlog develops, the company said. Some non-FairPoint customers may be affected if their phone companies contract with FairPoint, the commission said. It’s paying close heed to the cutover, getting periodic updates from FairPoint, which will alert members to any issues that arise, it said.

The Maine Public Utilities Commission Jan. 21 ordered the state Department of Public Safety to file new rate proposals for 911 call-answering and dispatch services to political subdivisions. The department has until Jan. 29 to comply. A 2008 state law mandates equitable payment for 911 services, directing the commission to establish a proceeding to set fees that the safety department may charge for such services. The ruling disallows some revenue the department proposed to recover from municipalities in its initial two- year, $16.2 million budget, the commission said. The regulator’s action will reduce that budget at least $1.96 million, or 12 percent, it said. “This case presented some novel challenges for the Commission,” said Sharon Reishus, who chairs the Commission. The Legislature required the commission to analyze the safety department budget as if it were that of a regulated utility, although the commission can’t order budgetary changes by a state agency as it can for regulated utilities, she said: “Today’s decision will allow DPS to recover costs it rightly needs to maintain reliable E 9-1-1 service for Mainers. … At the same time, we sought to ensure that municipal taxpayers do not pay more than their fair share.” The costs that safety officials sought to recover from municipalities, but which the commission disallowed, include some associated with retroactive pay for unionized safety department workers, those associated with the proposed relocation of the Orono Regional Communications Center and construction of a new communications tower and salary costs for added positions not yet approved by the legislature. Work has not begun on the Orono center relocation or the new communications tower, the commission noted. In its order, the commission also required DPS to calculate and remove from its request the cost of running the Orono center, which now does not directly serve any municipalities. Commissioners made clear that should safety officials have to change their 911 services budget, expedited review will be possible.

The FCC Office of Engineering and Technology at our deadline released a report on AWS-3 interference tests conducted at the Boeing Lab in Seattle, witnessed in part by OET engineers. Industry officials said the release of the report likely means FCC Chairman Kevin Martin plans to ask commissioners to vote on AWS-3 rules as early as the Nov. 4 meeting. Industry officials were still evaluating the conclusions drawn. OET said in two key conclusions that for a desired signal level of -95 dBm or greater, an AWS-3 UMTS handset, under static conditions, “can safely operate with maximum [equivalent isotropic radiated power] of about 23 dBm/MHz without causing disruption of service to nearby AWS-1 handsets.” A WiMAX AWS-3 handset “can safely operate with an EIRP of about 33 dBm/MHz without causing disruption.” But OET noted that test conditions were not ideal since no AWS-3 handsets are yet available. Still, OET noted, interference generators of the type used in tests generally result in higher out-of-band energy levels “than would typically be produced using an actual handset.” In a Friday letter to the FCC, the National Emergency Number Association voiced public safety concerns over the risk of interference to AWS-1 incumbents posed by a free broadband service in the AWS-3 band. The letter was sent before release of OET test results. T-Mobile and others predict that AWS-3 operations will cause significant interference to AWS-1 handsets, NENA noted. “If these claims are accurate, this interference could prevent some 911 calls from being set up and delivered, as well as increasing the incidence of dropped and degraded calls,” NENA CEO Brian Fontes said. “Wireless consumers cannot be in a position in which the most important calls they make, 9-1-1 calls, are disrupted or blocked. Therefore, we encourage the Commission to take into consideration the potential impact on 911 service for consumers and public safety operations as you consider your technical rules in the AWS-3 proceeding.” “We will read the report in detail to determine if they have correctly evaluated the extensive record from multiple parties that have expressed concern about interference,” T-Mobile said in a statement. “Given the importance and complexity of these technical issues, the FCC needs to provide for sufficient time for comment on their report before any FCC action on these rules.”

T-Mobile asked the FCC not to adopt new requirements for dual-mode CMRS-VoIP phones as the commission revises rules for VoIP E-911. The dual-mode phone issue loomed large last month as commissioners debated a rulemaking required by the NET 911 Improvement Act. Other commenters said the dual-mode issue appears unique to T-Mobile and asked the FCC to table the issue to focus on the Act’s main thrust: Ensuring that interconnected VoIP providers have access to E911 services.

The National Emergency Number Association, APCO and AT&T together proposed revised E-911 location rules. In a Monday letter to FCC Chairman Kevin Martin, the parties said they “worked together to develop technologically feasible compliance measurements that improve the ability of providers to locate customers making calls to 9-1-1 from wireless phones.” The proposal doesn’t compete with a similar one (CD Aug 22 p2) made last week by Verizon Wireless, NENA and APCO, but covers different technologies. AT&T’s proposal relates to tracking via cellphone tower triangulation, whereas Verizon’s involves GPS tracking. The AT&T plan would measure wireless 911 location accuracy at the county level, said AT&T, NENA and APCO. However, “it is not technically feasible for carriers to meet the current accuracy standard in all counties using location accuracy technology currently available,” they said. “Any location accuracy rules that the Commission adopts for carriers that employ network-based solutions must be limited” to metrics and schedules in the group’s proposal, they said. AT&T and other carriers using network-based location solutions “may be expected to deploy handset-based solutions as an overlay to existing network-based solutions in order to meet the more stringent county-level requirements,” the group said. Their proposal would allow network-based carriers to “elect to use a system of blended reporting for their accuracy measurements,” or to report “based solely on the handset-based accuracy standards,” the group said.