Some in-building policy coordination today could reap big communications benefits in the future

This could change soon. On Oct. 22-23 in Kansas City, a proposal to alter fire-code standard would allow the battery equipment to be placed in NEMA 3R enclosures—enclosures that I’m told have all of the benefits of NEMA 4 but include much-needed ventilation. Approved proposals in Kansas City will be included in the 2018 International Fire Code.

If the NEMA 3R change is approved, it should become much more practical to deploy backup batteries from both technical and economical perspectives. 

And the implications of this could be significant, in several ways. Putting the location-related gear in a fire-code-compliant enclosures would make caller location information more reliable, not to mention the fact that it should enhance the probability that the 911 call would be completed in the first place.

With this additional reliability, it also may be practical to leverage this location information for firefighters and other first responders. Meanwhile, with first responders expected to be able to leverage LTE and other commercial technologies, there is potential for greater indoor coverage for voice and data services, if these electronics are protected in accordance with fire-code standards.

The good news is that this is at least on the radar screen at CTIA, the wireless trade association that is coordinating the 911-location testbed initiative, as the issue has been noted by fire officials on the (NEAD) board, according to John Marinho, CTIA’s vice president of technology and cybersecurity.

“While we don’t have an answer for that today, it is something that we’re working on,” Marinho said. “It is something that the fire chiefs have raised in the process that we’re going through, and it is something that we’ll take a look at.”

Meanwhile, this could be huge for incumbent carriers, from another perspective. With consumers halting subscriptions to landline phone services at alarming rates, these service providers have let the FCC know that they would like to retire traditional wireline telephony networks. However, regulators have indicated that this will not be allowed until wireless services are deemed to be as reliable as wireline offerings.

Who should pay for these upgrades? That’s always a lengthy debate, but there are several potential sources with motivation.

Carriers already have committed to a significant investment in access points and beacons under the 911 location rules, but they may be willing to invest even more, if retirement of landline networks is promised. Building owners should want those who visit their facilities to have good indoor wireless access and the safest possible environment; in addition, those who take such steps deserve better insurance rates than owners of facilities without subpar indoor coverage and location technology.

Meanwhile, all levels of government should want their public-safety personnel and citizens to be as safe as possible, so funding programs and/or tax credits to improve in-building coverage and location technology would seem to be reasonable considerations.

Would such coordination be easy? Of course not. However, making the effort now to establish rules and align incentives properly could enable myriad benefits from a single in-building-wireless investment into a facility, instead of repeatedly seeking disjointed investments in similar technology in an attempt to address multiple in-building needs separately—a process that promises to be slow, politically painful and possibly too expensive to be economically practical.