Wireless 911 Service Slowly Appears

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Wireless industry and public safety agencies should step up their work on a new "location technology" that helps emergency dispatchers precisely locate 911 calls from wireless phones, a Senate committee urges.

Currently, conventional 911 calls from fixed lines can be automatically traced to an address. Wireless callers can be tracked only to the nearest cell phone tower. The caller must supply more precise information.

Wireless location technology has been a Federal Communications Commission goal since 1996. The FCC has been working with wireless companies and public safety officials to put wireless location technology into widespread use.

After years on the back burner, the so-called Enhanced 911 was brought to the fore by the September 11 terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, D.C. In the days after the attacks, the number of 911 calls more than doubled in those cities, says Michael Amarosa, vice president of True Position, which markets location technology.

Behind Schedule

The FCC's original deadline for implementation of Enhanced 911 was October 1, but all of the wireless companies, including Verizon, Cingular, Sprint, and AT&T, applied for deadline waivers, saying the technology necessary to meet FCC requirements is not yet available.

The FCC granted extensions, but its chief of wireless telecommunications, Thomas E. Sugrue, told senators Tuesday that the final deadline of December 31, 2005, has not changed. Under the FCC's requirements, all emergency dispatchers must be able to locate 95 percent of all 911 callers by that date.

Sugrue defended the decision to waive the deadline. Companies must present an alternative plan, explaining what they are doing and would do to meet the 2005 deadline, he said.

"This is not a case where they can be sitting on their hands and dilly-dallying," Sugrue said. "Efforts to reach full compliance must be redoubled."

Senators on the telecommunications committee wanted to hear why the October 1 waivers were granted and how the FCC, wireless industry, and public safety agencies plan to be ready by 2005.

"The government needs to do anything possible to avoid lowering the bar again and again," said Democratic Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon.

Wireless technology is widespread and clearly successful, noted Senator Conrad Burns, R-Montana, saying "the use of wireless has exceeded all expectations." But he urged the parties to "get the timetable accelerated" for completing Enhanced 911. He said he first realized the importance of Enhanced 911 after forest fires wiped out all but wireless communication in parts of Montana last year.

Growing Need

The need for Enhanced 911 goes beyond times of widespread crisis, panelists said.

About 30 percent of all 911 calls are made from wireless phones, and the percentage is higher in heavily populated areas, said John Melcher, vice president of the Emergency Number Association. In a crisis, callers flood the airwaves, blocking each other's calls and overwhelming emergency dispatchers, he said.

Technology is available and call centers are equipped, but wireless companies don't want to spend the money to implement Enhanced 911, Melcher charged. Implementation would cost between $400,000 and $1 billion, depending on the company's size, he said.

The FCC's Sugrue agreed that technology is available, but said the necessary equipment is scarce.

"The development and delivery of some of [the] equipment lags behind what we originally thought," Sugrue said. "The equipment is now in production."

Rural residents need the technology desperately, because each call center takes calls from a wide area, said Jenny Hansen, Montana's 911 program manager. Determining the precise location of a caller in a rural state, especially if the caller is hundreds of miles away from the nearest call center, delays emergency response, she added.

Wireless companies recognize the need for Enhanced 911 and also see the commercial value of producing it as soon as possible, said Tom Wheeler, chief executive of the Cellular Telecommunications and Internet Association.

"We committed ourselves to go and do that," he said.

Wheeler said the October 1 deadline required companies to "have things going" to be working toward the 2005 deadline. "We will deliver on that," he added.