Baker Botts hires as partners from Taylor & Patchen Cheryl Cauley, intellectual property litigation, and Jonathan Patchen, technology litigation ... Neal Gerber names Timothy Nitsch, ex-Freeborn & Peters, partner-intellectual property, with expertise including cellular and telecom plus cellular charging ... Booz Allen taps Jerry Bessette, ex-Ankura Consulting, as senior vice president-commercial cyber incident response team.

California-based satellite delivery company Momentus wants FCC International Bureau OK for a May deployment of multiple cubesats to various orbits. In a special temporary authority request Tuesday, it said its VR-1 spacecraft will be launched on a SpaceX Falcon 9 and deploy its customers' payloads at orbits of 380 kilometers and 500 kilometers and then de-orbit within four years.

CTIA and the national wireless carriers sounded a note of caution on the timetable proposed in a draft FCC order requiring that carriers be able to identify within 3 meters the vertical location, or z-axis, of wireless calls to 911. Commissioners are to vote Nov. 22 (see 1910290054). “Further testing is currently underway and planned during 2020 to better determine the extent to which ± 3 meters for 80 percent of wireless calls as measured in the 9-1-1 Location Accuracy Test Bed is achievable by April 2021,” CTIA said in docket 07-114, posted Wednesday. The draft “presumes that technologies studied in the earlier test campaigns … are technically feasible and commercially available to meet the Commission’s April 2021 benchmark because firmware or software upgrades could load these technologies onto existing wireless handsets.” It likely “overstates the extent to which these solutions are scalable and deployable by April 2021,” CTIA said. The group and members proposed technical changes to the rules. Instead of referring to an “z-axis capable device,” the FCC could cite “any device capable of measuring and reporting vertical location with a wireless 9-1-1 call without a hardware upgrade.” The association said the text should more accurately reflect “the cautionary views” of industry and public safety groups. CTIA and representatives from AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile and Verizon met with Public Safety Bureau staff. The International Association of Fire Chiefs, International Association of Fire Fighters, International Association of Chiefs of Police, National Sheriffs' Association and National Association of State EMS Officials supported the FCC proposal Wednesday. Three meters "not only provides emergency responders with actionable location information, but it also gives the public greater assurance that when they dial 9-1-1 from their cell phones, emergency responders can find them more quickly," IAFC said.

APCO said that without "significant changes," it can't support the FCC's push for final rules requiring that carriers be able to identify within 3 meters the vertical location, or z-axis, of calls to 911. APCO had earlier voiced concerns, though the draft order asserts the group is now onboard. “APCO’s revised position aligns with the views of all other public safety commenters that adopting a z-axis metric remains an essential measure to ensure that first responders receive important location information when providing dispatchable location is not feasible,” the draft said (see 1910290054). But "the proposal does not ensure that first responders will know a 9-1-1 caller’s vertical position within 3 meters for 80 percent of calls, as the metric seemingly requires,” APCO said in a filing posted Tuesday in docket 07-114: “Worse, absent a more comprehensive approach to the z-axis metric and the location accuracy rules, carriers could comply with the rules without ensuring that public safety professionals receive actionable information.” APCO shared its concerns with staff for Chairman Ajit Pai, and Commissioners Mike O’Rielly and Jessica Rosenworcel.

Industry groups representing telcos, cable companies and telecom service bundlers endorsed an FCC draft declaratory ruling to ensure 911 regulatory fee parity between VoIP and functionally equivalent traditional phone services, in interviews last week. Commissioners will vote on the draft at Friday's meeting (see 1910040053). The ruling, on docket 19-44, is an attempt to answer a referral from the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Alabama on litigation between AT&T's BellSouth and some 911 districts (see 1909110027).

The National Emergency Number Association said the FCC should require carriers to be able to locate the vertical location of wireless callers. NENA opposes CTIA’s “phased in” approach (see 1910100030), it told an aide to Commissioner Geoffrey Starks, said a filing in docket 07-114, posted Friday. “Emphasizing public safety’s sensitivity to timeline slip, we noted that the proposed benchmarks have been in place since the Commission’s 2015 Roadmap,” NENA said. But NENA agrees with CTIA that the national emergency address database faces challenges. “We remain concerned that the NEAD could generate dangerously inaccurate location results for public safety, and that its compliance regime creates the potential for vast swaths of unserved 9-1-1 callers,” the group said. Top officials at NextNav met with Public Safety Bureau staff on the proposed requirement. “A major point of discussion during the meeting was the manner in which the Commission should determine compliance with its vertical location requirements in terms of handset penetration,” the company said: “The discussion included the definition of ‘z-axis capable devices’ and whether this could be defined as handsets manufactured after a certain date that include appropriate hardware components, such as a barometric pressure sensor or other capable component necessary to calculate altitude.”

Executive Vice President Brad Gillen and others from CTIA met FCC Chief of Staff Matthew Berry and Aaron Goldberger, an aide to Chairman Ajit Pai, on the agency’s regulatory framework for giving public safety answering points vertical location information for wireless calls to 911. Carriers' June comments supported a 3-meter standard for indoor wireless 911 calls but warned technological challenges remain (see 1906190011). “CTIA reiterated the wireless industry’s on-going commitment to enhancing wireless 9-1-1 location accuracy, particularly indoors, and provided a status update on the nationwide wireless providers’ efforts to meet the Fourth Report and Order’s vertical location requirements,” said a filing posted Thursday in docket 07-114. “CTIA reviewed the nationwide wireless providers’ significant efforts to work across the wireless ecosystem to deliver actionable vertical location information to PSAPs [public safety answering points] during a wireless 9-1-1 call. However, CTIA noted that third-party adoption and scalability issues remain substantial challenges to National Emergency Address Database (NEAD)-based dispatchable location solutions.”

Crosscut Strategies hires Charlie Meisch, ex-SKDKnickerbocker and ex-FCC, as senior vice president; Simon Brown, from Small Business Majority, as director; and Caitlin Krutsick, Bipartisan Policy Center, as account specialist; promotes Courtney Lamie to chief operating officer ... In closing buy of Tribune (see 1909200048), Nexstar appoints from there as executive vice presidents Sean Compton, for WGN America and WGN Radio, also director-content acquisition; Dana Zimmer, also chief distribution and strategy officer; and Gary Weitman, chief communications officer.

CTIA told an aide to FCC Chairman Ajit Pai that work remains before carriers can consistently transmit vertical location data on 911 calls to public safety answering points. "Consider a phased-in approach that reflects the nascent and evolving state of commercially available vertical location technologies that will be demonstrated in the upcoming 9-1-1 Location Accuracy Test Bed LLC’s Stage Za,” it recommended, posted Thursday in docket 07-114. Carriers' June comments supported a 3-meter standard for indoor wireless 911 calls, saying technological challenges need solving (see 1906190011).

FCC Commissioner Mike O’Rielly wants a U.S. unified nonemergency wireless number. Keep 911 for emergencies, yet "streamline the myriad of existing wireless numbers that are used in many parts of the country to report critical situations that do not rise to the level of true emergencies,” he told the Pennsylvania Chapter of the National Emergency Number Association Thursday. “These calls offload routine incidents and other non-emergencies, usually to the state police or highway patrol, while preserving 9-1-1 for more serious purposes.” Many states have a number, including #77 in Virginia, Maryland and New Jersey for dangerous driving, he said. “If you live close to state lines, jurisdictional boundaries, or travel extensively, good luck remembering all of the different short codes,” he said. O’Rielly also highlighted the work he did to fight 911 fee diversion and that colleagues of both parties are against such fee shifting. ATSC 3.0 offers “super-advanced emergency alerting” beyond what's available on most platforms, he said. “No one is quite sure how ATSC 3.0 will develop, if at all, or whether it will be a smashing success,” he said: “While a number of the larger broadcast station groups have embraced the technology and see the benefits that it can bring, the technology remains in the testing phase.”