Nationwide wireless carriers alter proposed roadmap to improve location accuracy for indoor 911 calls

“APCO supports these additional commitments [proposed by the carriers], because they provide increased confidence that the carriers will implement a dispatchable-location solution, and are thus preferable to alternatives offered in the record,” the APCO filing states.

“The roadmap, with additional assurances, is the superior way to achieve improved wireless location accuracy. Further, any additional assurances the commission may consider should be technology-neutral and break public safety out of the cycle of reliance on imperfect, single-source or proprietary solutions to solve 911 problems.”

NENA also expressed a measure of support for the amended carrier roadmap—calling it “a material improvement over the initial terms of the roadmap”—but acknowledged that the FCC may adopt rules that differ from the carrier proposal.

 “We recognize that the commission is bound to consider the entirety of the record as it formulates final rules,” the NENA filing states. “Likewise, NENA is cognizant of the concerns expressed by our colleagues from other public-safety associations who call on the commission to include additional assurances and metrics for evaluating carrier compliance with the terms of the roadmap and with the ultimate goal of locating callers in need.

“While NENA continues to believe strongly  in  the  many  virtues  of  the  roadmap,  we  are  prepared  to  support,  in principle, elements of a report and order that may yet be required to adequately address the reasonable and understandable concerns of the broader public-safety community. In crafting its final rules, NENA urges the commission to align any such elements with the structural framework of the roadmap as closely as practicable while still discharging its legal obligations arising from the record.”

Barnett said he does not believe the carriers’ amended roadmap should cause the FCC to alter its planned course of action.

“This ploy by the carriers is so weak and so late that I think the commission should not consider it,” Barnett said. “It is really a last-ditch effort to delay or try to derail what has been a two-year, open process, where everybody got to comment on what everybody else was saying and doing.

“The fact that they’ve made yet another change—throwing spaghetti against the wall—at the last minute, this should be ignored. Quite frankly, it’s not worthy.”

But NENA CEO Brian Fontes said that the carriers’ amended roadmap was developed in reaction to the FCC.

“The four carriers signed this ex parte today in large part in response to the bureau asking questions of the four carriers,” Fontes said during an interview with IWCE’s Urgent Communications. “So they responded just for clarification.”