Beleaguered Alaskan telco Adak Eagle Enterprises, whose requests for waiver of the FCC’s new Universal Service Fund rules have been roundly denied by the Wireline and Wireless bureaus (CD July 17 p14), pleaded with the commission to reconsider. In a filing Wednesday the company and subsidiary Windy City Cellular characterized themselves as “tiny companies that worked tirelessly against the odds” to offer phone service in the Alaskan wilderness “when no one else would” (http://bit.ly/1hcWStf). They urged the agency to stop its ceaseless requests for more supplemental information, which have ravaged the carriers: “The FCC is now on the verge of completely destroying the companies.” The Alaskan congressional delegation sent a letter to acting Chairwoman Mignon Clyburn last week warning of the harm that could befall the Adak community if the commission lets its decision stand.
There’s no stopping the transition to IP-enabled services, and the FCC needs to step up its game, AT&T Senior Executive Vice President-External and Legislative Affairs James Cicconi plans to tell the House Communications Subcommittee Wednesday. According to written testimony (http://1.usa.gov/16sWLlM), he will emphasize consumer demand for wireless and IP-enabled services, which he will tie to the virtues of the IP transition that AT&T has urged the FCC to focus on. Stakeholders will debate before the subcommittee what principles and timeline should accompany this transition.
The New Jersey Office of Emergency Telecommunications Services approved the Association of Public-Safety Communications Officials’ solution to “electronically triage” emergency medical dispatch (EMD) calls, said Smart Horizons and APCO in a news release Wednesday (http://yhoo.it/1fZZEUu). It said APCO’s 9-1-1 Adviser, developed in partnership with Smart Horizons, will serve public safety answering points in the state with EMD, law enforcement, fire and missing and exploited children guidecard sets.
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).
The Association of Public Safety Communications Officials urged the FCC to act to improve location accuracy for wireless calls to 911, in response to Sept. 9 FCC public notice. The issue is the topic of an Oct. 2 workshop at the commission. “APCO has frequently urged the Commission, wireless carriers, and location technology providers that improvements must be made in location accuracy for 9-1-1 calls made from indoor locations,” the group said, saying it plans to take part in the Oct. 2 workshop. “More and more American homes are ‘cutting the cord’ and relying exclusively on wireless devices for all of their voice communications. Recent data suggests that nearly a third of U.S. households may no longer have wireline service.” The “predominant” technology for most of the calls is Assisted GPS (A-GPS) APCO said (http://bit.ly/18q16aO). “However, as the technology implies, A-GPS relies in large part on having direct line-of-sight for GPS signals, which do not penetrate buildings well in most cases,” the group said. “Thus, it is indisputable that a wireless 9-1-1 call from an indoor location will generally provide significantly less accurate location information than a call from an outdoor location.” The International Association of Chiefs of Police (http://bit.ly/1bGg95g) said the commission’s Communication Security, Reliability and Interoperability Council has looked at “evolving indoor location accuracy technologies,” which “represent a significant advancement and offers consumers and first responders a valuable tool to improve the capabilities of our nation’s public safety system.” The International Association of Fire Chiefs said it’s time for the FCC to update its wireless location accuracy rules. “Currently, the FCC’s rules establish an automated location information and accuracy standard for PSAP calls and contacts, including those initiated using wireless handsets outdoors, but not for wireless calls initiated indoors,” the group said (http://bit.ly/17139nd). “The majority of emergency calls placed to Emergency 911 are made from indoors and large and growing shares of emergency calls are made from wireless communication devices."
The incentive auction the FCC plans will be critical for funding the billions of dollars required by FirstNet, said North American Number Association CEO Brian Fontes in a Wednesday op-ed for The Hill (http://bit.ly/1eiHv3x). “This is the best and perhaps only opportunity to raise the necessary funds for investment in a network we so desperately need,” he said. “We cannot settle for half-measures and incremental moves -- the FCC must take decisive steps and set up an auction that delivers the resources needed to empower our public safety officials.” Fontes backed an auction in which all bidders are allowed to participate. “A limited spectrum inventory will reduce funds generated from the auction, and jeopardize the future of FirstNet and funding for Next Generation 9-1-1,” he said.
The NG-911 Institute has “made a real difference as a clearinghouse,” FCC Public Safety Chief David Turetsky said Sunday at an institute reception in Anaheim during a meeting of the Association of Public-Safety Communications Officials. The institute is a nonprofit that supports the Congressional NextGen 9-1-1 Caucus. Turetsky said, “911 has to be modernized.” APCO President Terry Hall described “the hard road ahead of us” in that transition, talking about the difficulty in bringing stakeholders together and in negotiating with Congress.
Verizon’s proposal to replace wireline services on a portion of Fire Island, N.Y., with its Voice Link fixed wireless service concerns the Association of Public-Safety Communications Officials, it said in comments Monday (http://bit.ly/12YtOfJ). “APCO’s principal concern in this regard is to ensure that all subscribers in the affected area have 9-1-1 service comparable to the wireline service being replaced,” it said. While it “takes no position” on Verizon’s specific request, APCO urged the commission to take into account the inferior level of reliability of wireless services compared to copper wireline services. They're susceptible to disruptions from extreme weather, and damage to a single cell site could “leave large numbers of customers stranded,” APCO said. “If the Commission grants Verizon’s request, it should require that Verizon take appropriate steps to increase the reliability of the wireless networks used for Voice Link communications in the impacted areas,” APCO said. For example, cell sites could be “hardened and equipped with substantial backup power,” additional cell sites added, and 911 calls be given priority, the association 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.
Tennessee’s Metro-Moore County E-911 upgraded its next-generation 911 system, said Emergency CallWorks, which provided what it called “a new user experience and enhanced functionality for ... call taking, emergency incident response workflow, GIS and decision support.” The upgrade “provides users with a more intuitive, web browser-based interface making it easy to manage the entire emergency response incident from call to resolution,” the company said Thursday (http://bit.ly/1876Mue). “The software is built to allow faster innovation, lower cost, fault tolerance and needs substantially less hardware than typical 9-1-1 systems.”