Representatives of CTIA and the four major national wireless carriers met with FCC Public Safety Bureau staff on how the carriers can provide the agency with data on their performance on wireless 911 location accuracy. “The nationwide wireless carriers discussed providing, on a voluntary and confidential basis, certain information and data involving Test Bed results and outdoor location accuracy assessments to assist the Bureau’s evaluation of 9-1-1 location accuracy solutions in use by the carriers over time,” said a filing in docket 07-114. The FCC has focused on the issue. The industry is collecting data as required by the FCC in a January 2015 order (see 1501290066).

FCC Commissioner Mike O’Rielly warned Wednesday that moving to Next-Generation 911 will be expensive, with cost estimates all over the map. O’Rielly spoke to the NG911 Institute. “Consider a 2011 FCC White Paper that put the total nationwide [public safety answering points] PSAP costs at anywhere between $1.44 billion and $2.68 billion,” O’Rielly said, say written remarks. “Compare that to one done for the State of Oregon at the same time that calculated that state’s ten-year costs at approximately $82 million. Do the math, 50 states plus the U.S. territories times $82 million and it’s over $4 billion.” O’Rielly also backed PSAP consolidation, questioning whether the U.S. needs almost 6,000 PSAPs. O’Rielly earlier made that same point to the FCC Task Force on Optimal PSAP Architecture (see 1501260063). “Is there a way to design a more efficient overall system that allows for a reduction in the number of current facilities without increasing the risk to public safety?” he asked now. “I suggest that the answer to this is most certainly, yes. In fact, it’s been done in a number of states already and others are in the middle of doing so.” O’Rielly also repeated warnings that too many states are using 911 funds for other purposes (see 1703020060). ”A number of states currently divert monies collected from consumers under the guise of funding 9-1-1 systems and transfer it to either unrelated public safety purposes or, worse yet, totally unconnected functions,” he said. “In some cases, this means a state is deceiving taxpayers by collecting more than is actually needed to fund its 9-1-1 system and redirecting the excess to other spending purposes. Alternatively, and this is actually much more reckless, the diversion of 9-1-1 fees can leave a state’s system shortchanged and potentially unable to fully meet its public safety needs, delaying necessary updates, training, worker retention, and the like.”

APCO is seeking signatures on an electronic petition to the White House asking that 911 call takers be classified as part of a “protective” occupation, in the same category as police, firefighters and other public safety professionals. “As the federal government nears a final decision on whether to update its classification system describing occupations in the United States, APCO has launched a White House petition entitled 9-1-1 Professionals Should Be Recognized for Protecting and Saving Lives,’” APCO said in a release. “The goal of this petition, timed with National Public Safety Telecommunicators Week, is to draw attention to the need to classify Public Safety Telecommunicators as Protective Service Occupations.” The petition states: "9-1-1 Professionals Should be Recognized for Protecting and Saving Lives."

The National Emergency Number Association said it's pleased wireless carriers' privacy and security plan for the National Emergency Address Database (NEAD) got general support. The FCC Public Safety Bureau sought comment on the plan; replies were due Thursday in docket 07-114 (see 1702280051). NENA said it felt compelled to respond to earlier comments by the National States Geographic Information Council (NSGIC) and its supporters. They argue access should be provided to 911 entities and their authoritative geographic information system (GIS) data providers for purposes analogous to current address validation, discrepancy reporting and error resolution, NENA wrote. “It is at least implicit in the comments, however, that NSGIC seeks access to data beyond that which was contemplated at the time E9-1-1 and/or NG9-1-1 standards were developed, beyond that which was negotiated between NENA, APCO, and the four largest wireless carriers and included in the Commission's rules, and beyond that which was designed-in to the NEAD architecture. Although NENA agrees entirely with NSGIC that address data utilized for 9-1-1 purposes must be validated in advance of use, we are compelled to reaffirm our commitment to the standards, the agreement and rules, and the significant work that has already gone into architecting the NEAD.” The New York State Office of Information Technology Services said the request to add “pre-validation of a NEAD dispatchable location, including its additional ‘subaddress’ information, as an allowable government use for 9-1-1 purposes’ to the NEAD Privacy and Security Plan” is critical to public safety answering points and GIS data providers. Both “need to confirm civic address locations within the NEAD are valid prior to their use during a 9-1-1 call so that should a call ever come from that device, its associated location is routable for 9-1-1 and usable for dispatch, which ultimately will save lives,” the agency said.

Congress should consider hitching Next-Generation 911 legislation to the $1 trillion infrastructure package under discussion this session, West Safety Services Vice President Mary Boyd plans to testify Wednesday on behalf of the Industry Council for Emergency Response Technologies (iCert). Her advocacy echoes what key Senate Democrats have said this year, a growing push that goes beyond the telecom debate about including broadband funding (see 1702280062). Witnesses plan to tell the House Communications Subcommittee of the needs of NG-911 in funding and legislative tweaks, with significant attention on the i3 standard that the National Emergency Number Association worked on.

APCO’s CEO is pleased with several signs from the National Emergency Number Association board, he told us. NENA took aim in a statement last week at the way APCO characterized language in a draft Senate NG-911 bill from Senate Commerce Committee ranking member Bill Nelson, D-Fla., and Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn. (see 1702280062 and 1703060020). Both groups said they back the draft legislation. NENA cited a message on the draft Senate bill that APCO sent to members March 17 that “attempts to cast doubt on NENA’s NG9-1-1 architecture standard, Detailed Functional and Interface Standards for the NENA i3 Solution,” known as i3. “APCO’s characterizations of the i3 standard are simply wrong," NENA said. "By sowing doubt about the best way forward, APCO has endangered the timely roll-out of NG9-1-1 systems for the American public whom we serve.” Now "that NENA has confirmed that i3 is incomplete and not an accredited standard, that helps to clear the record for 9-1-1 professionals and industry,” APCO CEO Derek Poarch said in a statement Friday. “I also appreciate NENA’s public commitment to finally put its i3 through the ANSI [American National Standards Institute] accreditation process to completion. It is our hope that at that point, i3 can become a build-to standard, and 9-1-1 professionals can rely upon it to ensure full interoperability.”

Non-service initialized (NSI) phone calls “are a growing burden and must be addressed if PSAPs [public safety answering points] are to provide acceptable service levels to the public,” said the Greater Harris County 9-1-1 Emergency Network. The Texas group met with the FCC Public Safety Bureau March 1, said a March 20 ex-parte letter in docket 8-51. NSI phones are retired wireless devices that can still make 911 calls because the FCC requires it. The commission asked comment last year on dropping the policy (see 1609140030). NSI calls are at least 10 percent of total call volume, but they are seldom emergencies, Harris County said. The county doesn’t seek to inhibit anyone from calling 911, “but with the growing numbers and the fact there is no subscriber information or ability to place a callback, the service to the public is not adequate,” it said. The county, which includes Houston, warned the FCC that 911 app developer claims that their apps provide better information to the public are often inaccurate or misleading. On the Next-Generation 911 transition, it said it's “imperative … that a competitive choice-driven market is fostered and maintained.”

Caller overload at the Dallas 911 center, coming soon after a widespread AT&T wireless 911 outage, shows that maintaining the emergency-number service must be a priority for industry and government, 911 officials said Friday. The FCC said it will provide an update on the AT&T outage at commissioners' Thursday meeting, and 911 officials said they look forward to learning more information. Meanwhile, a few state legislatures are moving bills that could direct funding to 911 systems. And at the Nebraska Public Service Commission, industry said "no" to state requirements for 911 reliability exceeding what the FCC requires.

CTIA and Verizon separately urged the FCC to reject a request by the Maine Public Utilities Commission to clarify where the point of demarcation is between carriers and the state’s Next-Generation 911 network for message session relay protocol (MSRP). CTIA also disagreed with several states in the initial comment round (see 1702090021), in docket 11-153. The PUC said the lack of clarity was delaying Maine's adoption of the technology and making it difficult to assess costs (see 1701090027). “The record assembled supports CTIA’s initial comments that the Bureau should not disturb the established cost allocation norm for the interim text-to-911 environment,” CTIA replied. The PUC insists wireless providers should bear the costs of connecting from the text-control center to Maine’s ESInet because the FCC “placed the obligation to provide interim text-to-911 on the service providers, not on the PSAP,” CTIA said. “This mischaracterizes the Commission’s framework for interim text-to-911 and ignores that [public safety answering points] have their own set of obligations once they choose to request text messages from wireless providers.” Verizon said the Maine state agency correctly called attention to the need for collaboration. “However, it would inappropriately alter the interim framework developed between industry and the public safety community that launched the successful and still-growing deployment of text-to-911 throughout the country,” Verizon replied. The Boulder Regional Emergency Telephone Service Authority supports the PUC’s plea for clarity. “This proceeding concerns the anomaly in which providers of telephony services are responsible for delivery, and the cost of delivery, of their customers’ calls; except the most important calls their customers make: calls for emergency assistance,” it said. “The Commission should not further excuse providers from responsibility for delivery of their customers calls and messages to 9-1-1, and thus not permit providers to transfer to PSAPs or 9-1-1 authorities the costs of transport and routing of intrastate 9-1-1 calls and messages to and from nationally or regionally consolidated MSCs [mobile switching centers] or NG9-1-1 Data Complexes.”

The FCC is investigating a widespread outage of 911 service affecting AT&T wireless customers for about 90 minutes Wednesday, the agency confirmed. Industry officials said Thursday they don’t necessarily expect the FCC to take enforcement action against the carrier or contemplate new rules unless the investigation uncovers major problems. The FCC usually doesn’t issue a fine as a result of 911 outages, former officials said.