Senate subcommittee explores location data for wireless 911 calls

Forgety said that there has been “intense innovation” in the effort to improve location-accuracy information for wireless calls to 911 and called for the FCC to initiate a rulemaking “soon” to establish rules that reflect the improvements made in technology.

 “We need better; we need faster; we need vertical. Technology is available today to improve our ability to respond to emergencies, to improve the ability of wireless networks and devices to locate consumers. The time for further study, the time for further delay, has passed. It’s time we improve our ability to locate consumers when they are in trouble and the ability of public safety to get to them when they’re in need.”

Kirk Burroughs, senior director of technology for Qualcomm, expressed optimism that location capabilities enabled by 4G technologies such as LTE can improve XY location data immediately but said that getting vertical-location data is a “bigger challenge” in the near term.

Christopher Guttman-McCabe, executive vice president for CTIA—a trade association for wireless carriers—said he believes an FCC rulemaking would make sense if a workable technology solution already had emerged, but he believes the current collaborative efforts between industry and public safety will be more productive than a regulatory rulemaking.

How do you set indoor location-accuracy requirements when you just did a testbed and, of the three entities that chose to participate … none of those three were materially better, in terms of the ability to deploy in a timely basis and the ability to find people accurately?" Guttman-McCabe said.

“I am fearful, to some extent, that [if] the FCC starts a [rulemaking] process, they will develop standards based on vaporware or assurances from vendors that won’t come to pass. We’ve seen it before. That’s where our concerns lie—not with ultimately setting standards, once we have the capability and technology that’s able to deliver on that … I just don’t want to see the cart get before the horse.”

But Forgety said that implementing these new technologies still would be an improvement compared to the existing methods of delivering location data for wireless calls to 911.

“Having the technology [being tested] today is clearly better than having nothing,” Forgety said. “So, having something that is better, but maybe not perfect, is still good. From the public-safety standpoint, we don’t want the perfect to be the enemy of the good and therefore delay technologies that are available.”

Claude Stout, executive director for Telecommunication for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing, expressed support for the FCC to initiate a rulemaking on location accuracy for 911 wireless calls.

“I believe it is time for the FCC to get on to a rulemaking on this process,” Stout said, speaking through a sign-language interpreter. “Honestly, we can’t wait. We’re going to lose more lives. And those people—our consumers—need to be protected. They need to be saved.”