E911: calling all carriers
Wireless enhanced 911 has been a political hot potato since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and the increased focus on homeland security. Statements from Congress and the Federal Communications Commission in recent months indicate wireless operators have little breathing room to miss E911 deployment schedules in the future.
To wit, FCC commissioners Kathleen Abernathy and Jonathan Adelstein told a Senate Commerce subcommittee on telecommunications in March that the commission has granted too many waivers to carriers when it comes to deployment milestones. Adelstein said those waivers will be harder to come by and would be granted only in the narrowest of circumstances. Carriers who already have been granted waivers will have an especially difficult time getting additional waivers, Abernathy added.
Such news doesn’t bode well for three of the nation’s top wireless operators. AT&T Wireless, Cingular Wireless and T-Mobile — all Global System for Mobile communications network operators — in recent months abandoned their initial E911 technology choices midstream and are starting all over with new technology deployments.
All three carriers had initially chosen a handset-based location technology known as enhanced observed time difference of arrival, or E-OTD, to meet the Phase II federal mandate.
E911 service is being deployed in two phases. Phase I required carriers to supply public safety answering points (PSAPs) with a callback number and cell site location information by April 1, 1998, or six months from a PSAP request. Phase II involves more detailed information using newly deployed E911 technology that will physically locate callers.
E-OTD technology uses certain algorithms in a handset to determine a caller’s location based on different base stations in a certain area. A lack of commercial equipment and questions surrounding the technology’s accuracy because of the lack of GSM footprint in the United States led critics to question whether these operators would be ready by the FCC’s Oct.1, 2003, accuracy deadline.
“All of these carriers were counting on E-OTD and listening to sales pitches from location people and believing them,” said Allen Nogee, principal analyst with Instat/MDR. “They went with the cheapest system they could … and it fell through.”
AT&T Wireless, Cingular and T-Mobile are now opting for a more expensive yet less accurate network-based technology known as time difference of arrival, or TDOA, which AT&T Wireless and Cingular already are using in their TDMA networks. Network-based solutions have less accuracy requirements than the handset-based solutions such as E-OTD and assisted global positioning system (GPS) solutions U.S. CDMA carriers and Nextel are deploying. Network-based solutions such as TDOA are required to locate wireless 911 callers within 100 meters for 67 percent of calls and 300 meters for 95 percent of calls. Handset-based technology requires calls to be located within 50 meters for 67 percent of calls and 150 meters for 95 percent of calls.
AT&T Wireless was slapped with a $2 million fine last fall for failing to sell E911 capable handsets and entered into a consent degree with the FCC that spelled out a new and aggressive timeframe for TDOA deployments (see related chart).
Cingular Wireless and T-Mobile are negotiating for new deployment timeframes and face possible fines from the FCC’s Enforcement Bureau.
Most large wireless operators missed the Oct. 1, 2001, deadline that required them to begin rollouts of Phase II emergency services. In December, the FCC rejected urgent requests from Cingular and T-Mobile to extend their waivers. The two carriers argued that they needed more time to deploy E-OTD technology because of the lacking commercial equipment. The FCC referred their case to the Enforcement Bureau.
T-Mobile was the last E-OTD holdout and was expected to become a showcase for the technology in the United States until it notified the FCC in late March that it was abandoning the technology. The company has yet to choose a TDOA vendor.
In addition, the FCC has proposed that T-Mobile pay a $1.25 million fine for not providing Phase I within six months for more than 450 PSAP requests.
Waiting for a comment from T-Mobile to insert here on Monday.
“T-Mobile has made this decision after considering a number of factors,” said the carrier in a letter to the FCC regarding its decision to drop E-OTD technology. “These include the practical likelihood of continued strong vendor commitment to implement and upgrade E-OTD to meet the October 2003 accuracy standard given the decisions of both AT&T Wireless and Cingular Wireless to shift away from E-OTD for their GSM networks, the likelihood that those decisions by AT&T Wireless and Cingular Wireless will draw vendor time and resources away from further E-OTD development, and the commission’s imperative that carriers deploying handset solutions achieve 95 percent penetration of location-capable handsets throughout their customer base by December 2005.”
Still, a question mark lingers over TDOA’s viability as well. The proprietary technology has never been deployed wide scale on a GSM network to date. A recent report from Telecom Trends International indicates GSM carriers remain concerned about the impact and cost of TDOA equipment and whether as a proprietary system it can be deployed rapidly. TDOA requires a significant amount of equipment at each cell site location and mobile switching center.
Lack of accuracy was an issue three years ago, when all U.S. operators were deciding on their E911 technology choice. Verizon Wireless and Qwest Wireless in June 2001 petitioned the FCC to change their decision from network-based solutions to AGPS solutions, citing their concern about accuracy compliance. TDOA requires signal timing information from at least three different antenna sites. If these sites are not proximate enough to the base station, or in other words, are not at locations conducive to decent triangulation, the system is less accurate.
“Time to deploy technology to meet the FCC’s mandate is short, and we should be seeing carrier confidence in their selected technology,” said Naqi Jaffery, president of Telecom Trends. “However, concerns are being raised now about TDOA that first emerged three years ago. Fundamentally, the technology remains unproven in large-scale GSM rollouts, unsupported by GSM vendors and its impact in deployments terms is concerning.”
Nortel Networks has become the only vendor so far to publicly state its intention to switch its resources from E-OTD technology to TDOA technology.
AT&T Wireless indicates that while it has met its first benchmark for the technology by deploying TDOA at 1,000 cell sites by Jan. 31, 2003, it still hasn’t completed testing of the technology with all of its equipment vendors. AT&T Wireless recently told the commission that it is relying on from its vendor, Grayson Wireless, to say that TDOA actually satisfies the commission’s accuracy requirements. AT&T Wireless faces mounting fines if it doesn’t meet its new technology deployment milestones. Grayson could not comment for this story by press time.
“Today we have over 3,000 GSM cell sites equipped with network-based technology. We expect to roll out Phase II in May,” said Karl Korsmo, an AT&T Wireless representative speaking at the E911 Coordination Initiative Meeting hosted by the FCC late last month. “We do still have a few technical hurdles to overcome on our GSM network although we’re confident we are getting those solved.”
GSM: deploying dual technology equipment in our cell sites as we deploy phase two. We will have as many GSM cell sites as possible ready for full phase service. Today, we have over 3,000 GSM cell sites equipped with network based. Testing in fort Meyers, testing Nokia, Pennsylvania, Ericsson equipment. Expect to roll out phase two in May. Few technical hurdles remain, our engineers are working diligently and we expect to solve them.
Cingular Wireless indicated in December it had successfully completed field testing of Uplink-TDOA technology from TruePosition in Wilmington, Del., with results that exceeded the FCC’s accuracy requirements for network-based solutions. Testing occurred over a two-day period in October involving stationary, moving and in-building calls. Of the 1, 529 calls made, 67% were located within 47.1 meters and 95% were located within 112.2 meters. Cingular declined to comment for this story.
“You’re looking at a technology that is proven, it does work and is being implemented on a national basis with Cingular,” said Mike Amarosa, senior vice president of public affairs with TruePosition. “Our testing in Delaware showed phenomenal results that matched handset-based accuracy … The physics for GSM isare a lot more conducive to bringing this [accuracy] down than other technologies.”
At any rate, E911 technology deployments have taken much longer than what the FCC had anticipated and fines may not make carriers move any faster considering that the service could cost carriers millions or even billions to implement. But the public safety industry and Congress have been putting more pressure on the FCC to enforce the issue. Carriers also are struggling with local exchange carriers who haven’t upgraded their landline networks to accommodate Phase II wireless technology and have prevented wireless carriers and PSAPs from proceeding with timely deployment. In addition, PSAPs face funding issues and some have even begun withdrawing requests. The FCC’s E911 Coordination Initiative last month was designed to address these issues.
“We continue to expect carriers to make it a priority and take aggressive steps to meet the mandate,” said an FCC spokeswoman. “Many parties need to work together to make E911 a reality for consumers, and we have been encouraging all these parties to work together actively to move implementation forward.”
The String of Missed Deadlines
October 2001
FCC grants waivers allowing many carriers to miss Oct. 1 Phase II deadline
February 2002
Sprint PCS and Verizon Wireless say they are on schedule for Phase II
May 2002
Cingular Wireless makes $100,000 contribution to the U.S. Treasury for missing Phase II deadlines on its TDMA network.
June 2002
AT&T Wireless agrees to pay U.S. Treasury $100,000 for missing E-911 deadlines on its TDMA network.
October 2002
AT&T Wireless agrees to pay U.S. Treasury $2 million fine for not meeting E911 deadlines on its GSM network. Enters into consent decree with the FCC for new E911 deployment timeframes.
December 2002
The FCC rejects urgent pleas from Cingular Wireless and T-Mobile to extend their E911 Phase II waivers, referring the carriers to the FCC’s Enforcement Bureau. Both carriers are negotiating new deployment timeframes and face possible fines.
December 2002
Sprint PCS requests six-month extension to meet handset sale requirements of E911 capable phones. Sprint PCS did not meet the commission’s benchmark of 100% GPS enabled handset activations by Dec. 31, 2002.
March 2003
FCC proposes $1.25 million fine for T-Mobile for not providing Phase I within six months for more than 450 PSAP requests.
AT&T Wireless’ Consent Decree of October 2002 regarding TDOA deployment
AT&T Wireless was required to deploy Phase II compliant technology at a minimum of 1,000 cell sites by Dec. 31, 2002. The company has met this milestone.
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2,000 cell sites by March 31; Unknown if it has met this milestone.
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4,000 cell sites by June 30;
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6,000 cell sites by Dec. 31;
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8,000 cell sites by June 30, 2004
Should AT&T Wireless miss any of these benchmarks, it has agreed to pay $450,000 for the first miss, $900,000 for the second miss and $1.8 million for each subsequent missed benchmark.