U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE

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ENSURING COMPATIBILITY WITH ENHANCED 911

EMERGENCY CALLING SYSTEMS: A PROGRESS

REPORT

HEARING

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON TELECOMMUNICATIONS AND

THE INTERNET

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND

COMMERCE

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED SEVENTH CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION

JUNE 14, 2001

Serial No. 107–31

Printed for the use of the Committee on Energy and Commerce

(

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.access.gpo.gov/congress/house

For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office

Internet: bookstore.gpo.gov Phone: (202) 512–1800 Fax: (202) 512–2250

Mail: Stop SSOP, Washington, DC 20402–0001

COMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND COMMERCE

W.J. ‘‘BILLY’’ TAUZIN, Louisiana, Chairman

MICHAEL BILIRAKIS, Florida

JOE BARTON, Texas

FRED UPTON, Michigan

CLIFF STEARNS, Florida

PAUL E. GILLMOR, Ohio

JAMES C. GREENWOOD, Pennsylvania

CHRISTOPHER COX, California

NATHAN DEAL, Georgia

STEVE LARGENT, Oklahoma

RICHARD BURR, North Carolina

ED WHITFIELD, Kentucky

GREG GANSKE, Iowa

CHARLIE NORWOOD, Georgia

BARBARA CUBIN, Wyoming

JOHN SHIMKUS, Illinois

HEATHER WILSON, New Mexico

JOHN B. SHADEGG, Arizona

CHARLES ‘‘CHIP’’ PICKERING, Mississippi

VITO FOSSELLA, New York

ROY BLUNT, Missouri

TOM DAVIS, Virginia

ED BRYANT, Tennessee

ROBERT L. EHRLICH, Jr., Maryland

STEVE BUYER, Indiana

GEORGE RADANOVICH, California

CHARLES F. BASS, New Hampshire

JOSEPH R. PITTS, Pennsylvania

MARY BONO, California

GREG WALDEN, Oregon

LEE TERRY, Nebraska

JOHN D. DINGELL, Michigan

HENRY A. WAXMAN, California

EDWARD J. MARKEY, Massachusetts

RALPH M. HALL, Texas

RICK BOUCHER, Virginia

EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York

FRANK PALLONE, Jr., New Jersey

SHERROD BROWN, Ohio

BART GORDON, Tennessee

PETER DEUTSCH, Florida

BOBBY L. RUSH, Illinois

ANNA G. ESHOO, California

BART STUPAK, Michigan

ELIOT L. ENGEL, New York

TOM SAWYER, Ohio

ALBERT R. WYNN, Maryland

GENE GREEN, Texas

KAREN MCCARTHY, Missouri

TED STRICKLAND, Ohio

DIANA DEGETTE, Colorado

THOMAS M. BARRETT, Wisconsin

BILL LUTHER, Minnesota

LOIS CAPPS, California

MICHAEL F. DOYLE, Pennsylvania

CHRISTOPHER JOHN, Louisiana

JANE HARMAN, California

DAVID V. MARVENTANO, Staff Director

JAMES D. BARNETTE, General Counsel

REID P.F. STUNTZ, Minority Staff Director and Chief Counsel

SUBCOMMITTEE ON TELECOMMUNICATIONS AND THE INTERNET

FRED UPTON, Michigan, Chairman

MICHAEL BILIRAKIS, Florida

JOE BARTON, Texas

CLIFF STEARNS, Florida

Vice Chairman

PAUL E. GILLMOR, Ohio

CHRISTOPHER COX, California

NATHAN DEAL, Georgia

STEVE LARGENT, Oklahoma

BARBARA CUBIN, Wyoming

JOHN SHIMKUS, Illinois

HEATHER WILSON, New Mexico

CHARLES ‘‘CHIP’’ PICKERING, Mississippi

VITO FOSSELLA, New York

TOM DAVIS, Virginia

ROY BLUNT, Missouri

ROBERT L. EHRLICH, Jr., Maryland

LEE TERRY, Nebraska

W.J. ‘‘BILLY’’ TAUZIN, Louisiana

(Ex Officio)

EDWARD J. MARKEY, Massachusetts

BART GORDON, Tennessee

BOBBY L. RUSH, Illinois

ANNA G. ESHOO, California

ELIOT L. ENGEL, New York

GENE GREEN, Texas

KAREN MCCARTHY, Missouri

BILL LUTHER, Minnesota

BART STUPAK, Michigan

DIANA DEGETTE, Colorado

JANE HARMAN, California

RICK BOUCHER, Virginia

SHERROD BROWN, Ohio

TOM SAWYER, Ohio

JOHN D. DINGELL, Michigan,

(Ex Officio)

(II)

2

C O N T E N T S

Page

Testimony of:

Amarosa, Michael, Vice President, Public Affairs, TruePosition .................. 12

Clark, Steve, Vice President, Network Operations, U.S. Cellular ............... 18

Nixon, James A., Senior Manager, Regulatory Affairs, VoiceStream Wireless ................................................................................................................. 27

Rimkus, Andrew J., Vice President, Airbiquity, Inc ...................................... 24

Souder, Steve, Administrator, Arlington County 9-1-1 Emergency Communications Center ....................................................................................... 35

Sugrue, Thomas J., Chief, Wireless Telecommunications Bureau ............... 40

(III)

(1)

ENSURING COMPATIBILITY WITH ENHANCED

911 EMERGENCY CALLING SYSTEMS: A

PROGRESS REPORT

THURSDAY, JUNE 14, 2001

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

COMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND COMMERCE,

SUBCOMMITTEE ON TELECOMMUNICATIONS

AND THE INTERNET

Washington, DC.

The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10 a.m., in room

2123, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Fred Upton (chairman)

presiding.

Members present: Representatives Upton, Largent, Shimkus,

Pickering, Terry, Markey, Eshoo, Green, McCarthy, Luther, Harman, and Sawyer.

Staff present: Howard Waltzman, majority counsel; Yong Choe,

legislative Clerk; and Brendan Kelsay, minority professional staff.

Mr. UPTON. Good morning, everyone. Welcome. Before we proceed with opening statements I want to show a brief newsclip from

the Fox News which shows a real life example of a 911 emergency.

Why don’t you turn off the lights. It’s about 2 minutes long.

[TV replay of newsclip.]

Mr. UPTON. Again, good morning. As subcommittee chair, I’ve

made one of my top priorities finding ways to improve people’s lives

through technology and E911 technology is certainly a class example of this.

The topic of today’s hearing is one of the most compelling to come

before the subcommittee this year. This is a topic that certainly

hits home as I’ve used my cell phone to call 911 three times, most

recently in April. While traveling through a rural part of my District, I witnessed a terrible car accident involving seven people. Everyone did survive the crash, although a number of them are still

recovering, but I can tell you one thing for sure. Because I knew

exactly where I was the County Emergency Services people were

able to respond quickly, thereby increasing the survival rate of

those involved.

But what if I wasn’t able to pinpoint the location of that accident? There’s a very dangerous false notion among many in America that when you call 911 from your cell phone, the operator on

the other end of the line knows exactly where you’re calling from.

With cellular technology becoming more and more available, nearly

60 percent of the calls made to 911 centers are made from cell

phones.

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While preparing for today’s hearing, I’ve come across many sad

stories from my State where people have died of heart attacks,

other accidents, while snowmobiling, even though they called 911.

And like many others, they assumed that because they called 911,

the operator, in fact, would be able to locate them. Well, they were

wrong. Tragically, there are hundreds of stories just like this. The

bright spot on the horizon is that technology exists to pinpoint a

caller’s location, but unlike wire line phones, automatic location

identification is not yet widely transmitted to the 911 dispatch center. But thanks to the Wireless Communications and Public Service

Act, we are getting closer to the day when this will be the standard.

Today, we’ll find out just how close we are to that day. We know

that the FCC has set October 1 of this year as the day when wireless carriers are required to begin providing automatic location

identification as part of Phase 2 E911 implementation. What will

all of this mean once it’s up and running? Based on the required

Phase 2 accuracy standards, handset solutions should be able to

provide location information within 50 meters for 67 percent of the

calls and 150 meters for 95 percent of the calls. For network based

solutions it should be within 100 meters for 67 percent of calls and

300 meters for 95 percent of the calls. To those observing outside

of Washington, at first blush today’s hearing may seem technical

and abstract, but it’s not. As we go forward today I would like to

put the panel’s testimony in context. I want to put a face on the

issue. It’s the face of the loved ones who might be saved when E911

is there to assist emergency services personnel in finding those in

trouble.

I should note that this is an ambitious plan. The U.S. is a leader

in this area and it’s absolutely the right thing to do. Adding E911

to our arsenal of rescue capabilities will even further distinguish

our country in that regard. I understand that there are financial

burdens on both carriers and local governments, not to mention

significant long-term planning which factors into all of this. For

sure, the technology is complex and evolving and the complexity is

compounded by the variety of options which wireless carriers are

mulling over as they plan for the next generation of services, making the tangled web of decision all the more daunting with October

rapidly approaching.

We cannot ignore those realities and we cannot let the realities

take our eye off the ball either. We know that some carriers have

already requested waivers. Some have not. Some still may and I

would imagine that a number of our 911 emergency centers at

home will be ready to roll much quicker than perhaps some others.

But today we want to get a status check on all of that to find out

where we are today and what, if anything, needs to be done to ensure what we are doing to reach the goal line and save lives in as

timely a manner as possible.

I look forward to the testimony today and I yield to the ranking

member, Mr. Markey.

Mr. MARKEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I want to commend

you for holding this hearing today. The Federal Communications

Commission first adopted wireless E911 rules 5 years ago. This

government-driven effort was intended to spur the deployment of

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life saving technology, technology that would help locate wireless

callers during emergencies.

In 1995, when the rules were first adopted, there were roughly

30 million wireless consumers in the United States. Today, there

are well over 100 million wireless consumers. While the Commission’s rules are in place, the end of the first 5 year developmental

period is coming to a close and the phase in of E911 technology is

due to commence on October 1, 2001. The FCC and Congress have

used these 5 years wisely, in my view. The Commission adjusted

its rules as technology evolved to permit not only the use of network based location technology, but also handset based technology

which typically employ use of global positioning system technology

in the wireless device.

Congress, meanwhile, moved to enact legislation that designated

911 as the national number for wireless emergency calls promoted

limited liability protection for carriers and establish privacy protection for consumers. Without question, there are challenges involved

in deploying any new technology in a timely fashion across a market base of tens of millions of consumes. A number of carriers have

sought waivers from the October 1 deadline and at least one carrier

has received a limited waiver. When there are truly compelling reasons to grant such waivers, I am confident that the Commission

will give such requests all due consideration. I would suggest, however, that the industry should not seek nor should the Commission

grant waivers to the rule merely for corporate convenience. We

should not allow such an important policy effort to be undermined

by a man ̃ ana syndrome. I have no doubt many carriers would prefer not to expend resources now if they can postpone it to another

quarter. That is understandable, from a corporate perspective, yet

we need to keep this issue in context.

The wireless industry often markets their phones as safety devices. Millions of consumes become subscribers with safety as a

leading rationale for their purpose. There are many cases already

where wireless phones have enhanced public safety and saved

lives. We’ve already heard about some of those instances this morning. We want to build on that record. It is important for the industry which every day endeavors to become an indispensable agent

of the new economy and a fungible substitute for traditional wire

line technology to deliver on the promise of what this technology

can do to save lives.

Second, the wireless technology requires to make location of callers available to public safety officials already exists. There are a

number of companies that took the FCC’s initiative and deadlined

seriously and began to develop products and to innovate. These

companies have already expended millions of dollars to develop

these products based upon the FCC’s rules. We have witnesses

today from a couple of such companies to testify to this fact this

morning. In addition, while some in the industry seem to wring

their hands over costs and the technological impediments to deployment of E911 systems, they seemingly have no such concerns when

it comes to the costs of technological impediments to mass market

deployment of new technology when it comes to 3-G, a so-called

third generation wireless technology. The wireless industry doesn’t

want the government to wait for man ̃ ana when it comes to 3G.

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They want spectrum today. They stipulate that it is a national priority. It is such a priority that they want the government to take

spectrum allocated to other users away and move other users in

order to reallocate it for 3G services. That’s some request and the

government is prepared to move on that request. I am supportive

of obtaining more spectrum for 3G. I would simply like to see the

same alacrity and aggressiveness in deployment of public safety enhancing technology that I see in their 3G efforts.

As a final point, I want to make two statements to commend the

FCC and the industry. First, the wireless industry needs to commended for the way in which they have handled the thorny issues

surrounding privacy and the new wireless location technology. I

offer the amendment to the E911 legislation that required carriers

to obtain prior express authorization of the consumer before location data on wireless consumers could be collected used or disclosed. The wireless industry has embraced this policy and has

worked diligently, in my view to make it work.

I look forward to the FCC’s implementation of the statute and

my provision and to working with the wireless industry subsequently at the Federal Trade Commission to ensure that all marketplace participants operate under equitable and pro-consumer

privacy rules.

Finally, I would like to commend the FCC and the Wireless Bureau, in particular, for their proactive efforts to make E911 a reality for the nation. Next Tuesday, this committee will be holding

a hearing on the Ford Explorer Firestone tire issues. What became

evident to many of us last year was that the Federal agency responsible for this industry failed to adequately protect the public

and was woefully deficient in proactively promoting public safety.

Such has not been the case at the Federal Communications Commission. There are few areas in telecommunications policy where

we can see a direct causal connection between policy decisions we

make and the benefit to individual Americans. This is one of those

areas. The FCC initiative, without question will save lives. It will

help police and fire officials to do their job better. I encourage the

FCC to stay the course and to keep moving forward on this issue.

Again, Mr. Chairman, I want to thank you for holding this hearing

today.

Mr. UPTON. Thank you, Mr. Markey. Mr. Terry from Nebraska.

Mr. TERRY. Thank you. I’ll make my remarks succinct, hopefully.

I will start with a conclusion and that conclusion is that cell

phones have been adopted by our society as a basic safety tool. I’ll

give two experiences to back that up. I come from a City Council,

Omaha, Nebraska City Council. I spent 8 years to help develop our

911 Center. As I was putting that together, going to a unified approach, 800 megahertz and all of that, one of the interesting things

I found out is what happens when an accident occurs in the city.

We get about 30 calls all at one time. What that means to me is

that people travel with their cell phones with the intention of using

them as a safety device. Fred, you mentioned the experience you

had on three occasions using it. Likewise, I had an experience coming from our family cabin in Colorado. I’m on I-70 in the middle

of nowhere in the middle of the night and up ahead of me you have

that gut wrenching experience of all of a sudden seeing headlights

5

go up and then sideways in clouds of dust, right in front of you.

I didn’t know exact location. This happened about four summers

ago, by the way. I had our cell phone. I dialed 911. It was a bizarre

experience. Because what I got was a county operator who grew

frustrated that I didn’t know where I was other than saying I think

I’m about 45 minutes outside of Denver maybe an hour, traveling

east. Well, that isn’t our jurisdiction. You have to either call this

number, not a 911 number, but started reading a series of phone

numbers that I was supposed to call until I hit the right jurisdiction and that was the best that they could do for me. In the meantime, my cell phone battery is getting that little bleep in there and

I could not connect to the right jurisdiction at that time. While

there are bodies laying on the highway, literally, I’m not exaggerating, people unconscious laying in the highway in front of me

and I had to go through a miserable process of trying to get them

help. Fortunately, someone else had a cell phone at the same time

and they were able to go through the correct litany and finally help

arrived, helicopters, the whole nine yards. But it told me that not

only again reinforcing that cell phones are a basic tool and integral

part of safety tool in our society today, but that we have to encourage the advancement of technology so that we can locate people,

that we can more helpful in making sure that in the middle of nowhere, whether it’s a car accident on I-70 in eastern Colorado or

the hills of Michigan when you’re snowmobiling that you can get

help there in a timely manner and they know where to go.

In that regard, how we transition this technology, waivers, whatever, I will always keep in mind that this is public safety that

we’re looking at and the technology in order to improve public safety. Sure, there can be give and take and yes, there can be compromise, but you’ve always got to keep in mind those people laying

on the side of the road or by their snowmobile tragically hurt that

need help. So that will be my focal point as we discuss this important issue today and I yield back.

Mr. UPTON. Thank you. Mr. Sawyer.

Mr. SAWYER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will submit my opening statement for the record, but I would like to make a couple of

observations. I think it’s important to recognize that 911 has been

with us for a relatively brief period of time. It was marginally within the last 20 years that most of this has been implemented across

the United States. That technology has improved markedly the

ability to in many, particularly urban jurisdictions to develop appropriate jurisdictional identifiers, to transfer responsibility for answering calls or implementing mutual assistance arrangements

among jurisdictions, all have been on the human side of going toward making this technology a useful tool in public safety and law

enforcement for that matter.

The technology that we’re talking about in terms of whether it’s

triangulation of geopositioning technology, you have to remember is

an imperfect technology applied to an imperfect technology. How

many of us have had the frustration of sitting there talking on the

phone and someone on the other end saying I simply can’t hear

you. The real concern that I have is that in implementing the technology that people understand that the simple dialing of a number

may not make the connection that you need and that if you are in

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a particularly dire circumstance, that you may actually have to go

through and make a personal connection in order to carry out the

kind of contact that the technology suggests ought to be easy.

That’s not to argue against timely implementation of this, but it is

rather to recognize that all of us have an obligation to make users

of cell phones who seek to implement 911 contact aware that it

may not have been a success and that they need to verify it’s completion.

With that, Mr. Chairman, I yield back.

Mr. UPTON. Thank you. Ms. Eshoo.

Ms. ESHOO. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and first I want to thank

you for having the hearing and second for the goals that you set

forth as Chairman of our subcommittee. It’s refreshing to hear that

the applications of technology, as you stated them for the betterment of the people of our country. I mean we say we want that and

today’s hearing is really all about that, so I want to thank you for

both.

It’s really of the utmost importance that we examine why the

American public may be forced to wait even longer for access to the

lifesaving technology that we’ve seen demonstrated, both on the

screen this morning, that’s been referenced by my colleagues.

Wire communications have been a boon for safety and to safety

and if there are two things that we’re responsible for in this country in the public sector it’s public health and public safety, certainly in Congress, the defense of our nation, but these two principles we really need to make good on. And I’m afraid that we’re

lagging on both fronts. Today, we talk about minutes. We have

made progress because it wasn’t all that long ago that we talked

about hours. It’s pretty clear that wireless technologies can and do

save lives.

By now, we’ve heard numerous stories about people’s lives that

have been saved and I know that the Wireless Foundation honored

heroes from all over the country, all 50 States for their use of cell

phones and getting emergency service to those in need very recently, so I want to point that out because I think it’s very important that they do it and that it highlights both the technology and

how people are using it.

However, with the significant increase in emergency calls made

from cell phones we also hear about the unfortunate people and the

unfortunate stories made from cell phones where they didn’t work

or they didn’t make the connection that they needed to make in the

time that was at hand. So oftentimes the accident area is known,

as my colleague just talked about, but the specific location is not

and that can mean life or death, so the need for location technology

is really immense.

The need is also not new. Five years ago, as a new member of

this committee, I introduced legislation to require location monitoring in every cell phone. The FCC decided to act. They established October of this year as the deadline when mobile phone carriers must provide automatic location information to at least 50

percent of the population served by the Emergency Call Center, so

goals were set, legislation was introduced that nudged and the FCC

picked up on that and I was thrilled. Every time the FCC came beVerDate 11-MAY-2000 14:33 Aug 10, 2001 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00010 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 73728.TXT HCOM2 PsN: HCOM2
7

fore the committee, regardless of the issue, I would ask them on

an update in this effort.

So as we approach the deadline, I don’t think we’re seeing compliance, but rather waivers and we know that waivers equal delay.

The FCC has received waiver requests from companies asking for

extensions of time. I think today we want to examine why. Is it

simply delay, not enough resources put into this? Is it, as I would

have said to my kids, is this an excuse? How far along are we? If

you put X number of dollars of resources into this, how close do we

come, by when to this 50 percent goal in October 2001?

I think that my colleagues have stated the case very well so far.

I hope you think that I have. I want to hear back from you how

many of you are requesting waivers and why? how close are you

and by when? Do you think that we’ll ever have to hearing on this

again, given what you tell us?

I think people in the country are awaiting the good news. None

of us know when we are the ones that will have to be reliant on

this and I dare say that women especially have bought into the

wireless industry so that they have that security in their hand, to

dial 911 and to receive the help that they’re looking for. So that’s

what I hope you’ll address today, and if you don’t, I’m going to ask

you, but I hope you’ll volunteer the information before the question

is asked and I thank the Chairman again for holding this hearing.

It’s an all time important one.

[The prepared statement of Hon. Anna G. Eshoo follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF HON. ANNA G. ESHOO, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS

FROM THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA

Thank you Mr. Chairman for calling this essential hearing. It is of the utmost importance that we examine why the American public may be forced to wait even

longer for access to important life saving technology.

Wireless communications have been a boon to safety. Because of wireless, the call

for help comes far sooner than a decade ago. Today we talk about minutes . . . we

used to talk about hours. Its pretty clear, wireless technologies can and do save

lives.

By now we have heard numerous stories of people saved by the use of their cell

phones. In fact, just last week the Wireless Foundation honored heroes from all fifty

states for their use of cell phones in getting emergency services to those in need.

I applaud the wireless industry for improving our nation’s safety and I look forward

to this partnership continuing for years to come.

However, with the significant increase in emergency calls made from cell phones

we also hear about those unfortunate situations in which someone calls for emergency personnel and is not reached in time, mainly because he or she could not be

located. Often times, the accident area is known, but the specific location is not.

Clearly, the need for this location technology is immense.

The need is also not new. Five years ago, after I introduced legislation to require

location monitoring in every cell phone, the FCC decided to act. They established

October of 2001 as the deadline when mobile phone carriers must provide automatic

location information to at least 50 percent of the population served by the emergency call center.

As we approach that deadline, we’re not seeing compliance, but rather waivers

which equal delay.

The FCC has received waiver requests from companies asking for extensions of

time. To its credit, it’s required the submission of specific information such as

timelines for compliance before granting the request. But what we need to find out

is why these waivers are necessary in the first place. So today I’d like to hear from

our witnesses how much they’ve actually spent over five years for deployment.

The response of some may be that the FCC established a deadline that was too

ambitious. When I hear that some technologies are simply awaiting use by the carriers, I can only conclude that it may be the carriers whose efforts haven’t been ambitious enough. We’ve certainly heard quite a bit about the resources devoted to upVerDate 11-MAY-2000 14:33 Aug 10, 2001 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00011 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 73728.TXT HCOM2 PsN: HCOM2
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grading mobile systems to bring about the wonders of 3G devices, but for some reason the idea that lives can be saved through technology has not been a strong

enough incentive.

We are here today because the future of our nation’s public safety and security

systems are inevitably linked to wireless. And like wireless, we know the call for

help can come at anytime from anywhere. There are 140,000 emergency wireless

calls made every day. For the individual caller, it is the single most important call

they will make and it is made with the expectation that it will be successful in

bringing help. With so much weighing on that call, we cannot fail.

Mr. UPTON. Thank you. Mr. Largent.

Mr. LARGENT. I yield.

Mr. UPTON. Mr. Shimkus.

Mr. SHIMKUS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Just briefly, the E911

legislation we passed, I think was a significant piece of legislation

that promoted good public policy and I was really pleased to be

part of that. I’ve actually used 911 numerous, as many times we’re

on the road and it’s just been amazing how it can help save life

and limb.

My colleagues have gone over some of the FCC deadlines and

where we’re at and we don’t want to have another hearing to keeping following up. We’d like to see how far we’re progressing and inquire about the Phase II standards.

I would also like to use this opportunity to thank the cellular industry for the donate a phone program which I am heavily involved

in and encourage my colleagues, if they haven’t been involved with

the donate a phone program. My colleagues, Ms. Eshoo mentioned

about women being invested in life saving technology, well, the cellular industry helps us recycle phones and I do that in my office

and we do that during our office hours and we collect, and you’d

be shocked how many old cellular phones are out there and they

recondition them and they give them back to abuse shelters and

they reprogram about maybe three numbers, they speed down 911,

maybe the housing shelter, maybe the local police, direct line call.

I probably in my office, have probably donated hundreds of phones

through my constituents back to the industry. I want to thank you.

That kind of ties into this whole 911 issue. If we get to Phase II

and we can do some location, then these women that are using it,

mostly women in the abuse shelter, not only have the security of

having something that they have from the time they leave their

work to the time they get home, but also they know they can be

easily identifiable in their location which is just added protection.

So again, thank you all. I wanted to use that opportunity to plug

that program and E911 is a good piece of legislation. Let’s help us

all get to Phase II as soon as possible and I yield back my time.

Thank you.

Mr. UPTON. Thank you. Ms. McCarthy.

Ms. MCCARTHY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I’m going to put my

formal remarks in the record and just reflect on a point or two so

we can get going and hearing from our panelists today and I’m

very grateful that they’re here.

We, in Kansas City, have a unique challenge because we are

metropolitan in two States, Kansas and Missouri come together

there along the State line and road and a river. Neither of the General Assemblies, not in Kansas nor Missouri, have stepped up to

the plate and been able to pass a bill to figure out how to pay for

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this unfunded Federal mandate that we set down. I am a big supporter of the bill and the effort. I think it’s essential, but the costs

are daunting. In our metropolitan area, we have 39 emergency dispatch centers in 8 counties that make up the metropolitan area

and I’m very concerned. We do have a company in our metropolitan

area, Sprint, that looks like it’s going to be ready to go on the deadline. They’ve stepped up to the plate, but we haven’t figured out

how to upgrade and make it possible to use this service and when

the Kansas City Star did an article reflecting on this dilemma, it

pointed out that wireless carriers fought legislation in both States

because they did not get the share of revenue that they wanted

from the tax, said Greg Balentine, E911 manager for the Regional

Planning Council. The FCC repeatedly has ruled to its credit that

wireless service providers are not entitled to government cost recovery. ‘‘Simply in both States, this is a matter of corporate profits

winning out against public safety,’’ Balentine said.

I commend the FCC for trying to enforce the law we passed. If

we need to give them more tools, Mr. Chairman, I hope we will

look into that. I do not want to delay implementation, but I do

think that this is a very serious issue and I’m so glad you’re having

the hearing today.

Mr. Luther?

Mr. LUTHER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and certainly appreciate

the comments that have been made by other committee members.

I’ll be very brief as well. As has been stated this is a very serious

public safety issue. I think the entire country is aware of the

amount of resources the cell industry puts into marketing and certainly we are very well aware of the resources that are put into legislative efforts to get competitive advantages against other players

in this arena. I think the Committee will want to be assured that

the same level of resources commitment is being made on this key

public safety issue and so I’ll be looking forward to hearing and reviewing testimony of the witnesses and the other evidence presented in making this decision.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. UPTON. Ms. Harman.

Ms. HARMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have a statement for

the record, too, but would only make several points.

First of all, I was not a member of this subcommittee or even a

Member of Congress when the underlying legislation passed, although I think it was, is a very valuable piece of legislation.

Second of all, I have two young daughters myself, and I believe

that most of the people sitting before us have young daughters or

mothers or whomever who need access to this 911 service and I

would just point out that these emergencies can’t wait and that

there is no excuse, as far as I’m concerned, good enough to justify

letting these emergencies wait. And if it were your daughter or

your mother or someone who could not get relief, you would be very

upset. Apply that to all of our constituents and to the whole country out there that we are trying to serve.

I come to this with the basic attitude that you have to make this

work. There are issues about unfunded mandates. There are issues

about competitive advantage. There are bureaucratic issues at the

FCC. There are one hundred excuses, but I don’t think as a basic

10

point of view that any excuse is good enough to make this wait and

I, as one member of this committee, stand ready to help you

achieve the requirements in the law.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. UPTON. I would just note for the record that there are a

number of subcommittees that are meeting all at the same time,

so by unanimous consent I will ask that all members of the subcommittee will be able to put in the record their opening statement.

[Additional statements submitted for the record follow:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF HON. W.J. ‘‘BILLY’’ TAUZIN, CHAIRMAN, COMMITTEE ON

ENERGY AND COMMERCE

Mr. Chairman, thank you for holding this important hearing today. 911 services

in this country have saved many lives. And enhanced or E911 services offered by

wireless carriers present us with the opportunity to save even more lives. So I commend you, Mr. Chairman, for conducting this progress report on wireless carriers’

implementation of E911 requirements, especially so-called Phase II requirements.

During the 106th Congress, this subcommittee and this committee worked very

hard to enact the Wireless Communications and Public Safety Act. That legislation

designated 911 as the universal emergency number for wireline and wireless services in the United States for reporting an emergency and requesting assistance.

That legislation set the framework for providing consumers with rapid access to

emergency personnel regardless of whether a consumer was in his or her home,

driving down the street, or on the other side of the country.

In addition, the FCC has been crafting E911 rules for the past five years. E911

services are particularly important because such services provide public safety answering points (PSAPs) with the telephone number of an emergency caller as well

as an idea of the caller’s location.

It is the rules governing how accurately and how reliably a wireless carrier must

pinpoint someone’s location that bring us here today. These rules are ambitious.

Phase II location accuracy and reliability rules require handset-based solutions to

locate a caller within 50 meters for 67 percent of all calls, and 150 meters for 95

percent of such calls. And, for network-based solutions, a wireless carrier must locate a caller within 100 meters for 67 percent of the calls, and within 300 meters

for 95 percent of such calls.

While these requirements are phased in, they nonetheless present carriers with

a daunting task. The goal of these rules is to save as many lives as possible by enabling PSAPs to pinpoint the location of callers. But we need to make sure that these

rules do not get ahead of both technology and common sense.

We will hear today from several different sides whether the technology exists to

meet the FCC’s ambitious accuracy and reliability standards. But I also hope that

today’s testimony will shed light on the costs and feasibility of meeting these standards. The wireless industry has been one of the primary drivers of the growth of

our economy, and it continues to grow at a phenomenal pace.

But the wireless industry is also in the midst of significant change. Carriers are

beginning to focus on the next generation of services, and the technology they will

need to deploy the next generation of services. We need to be cognizant of the fact

that the short-term goals of the FCC’s E911 rules have an impact on the long-term

planning undertaken by carriers to prepare for advanced services. We must ensure

that the E911 rules are not implemented at the expense of, but rather in conjunction with, potential upgrades of our nation’s wireless services and infrastructure.

I want to end my comments where I began: implementation of E911 services will

save countless lives. I commend all of the parties, the carriers, the PSAPs, the manufacturers, and the FCC, for years of effort to make wireless E911 a reality. And

I encourage you to continue to work together to ensure that all Americans have access to E911 services as quickly as possible.

Mr. Chairman, thank you again for holding this hearing. I look forward to our

witnesses’ testimony and the light that they can shed on our progress in implementing the FCC’s E911 rules.

11

PREPARED STATEMENT OF HON. ELIOT ENGEL, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM

THE STATE OF NEW YORK

Thank you Mr. Chairman: The wireless revolution never ceases to amaze me.

From the shrinking size of the phones to the rapidly expanding areas of coverage

of service, this is a great American industry. It has a great deal to be of which to

be proud.

I want to thank our witnesses for their time and efforts and look forward to their

testimony. I also look forward to speaking with Mr. Amarosa, who spent more than

two decades working for the New York City 911 center. I would like to work with

him to bring his company to New York, so that he can return to his true home!

Today we are looking into the development and deployment of the E911 system.

I do understand that there are concerns about the use of a network system versus

a handset based system. Though, the network system is more readily available, I

do know the handset equipment is being manufactured. In reviewing the two systems, I think it is obvious that the handset system is the better way to go—not that

it is technologically better, but it deals with one of this Congress’ major challenges—

Privacy.

Many of my constituents have expressed concerns about having their movements

monitored at all times—yet we all recognize the great benefits of this technology.

Thus, as with many other parts of the technology revolution we must figure out how

to balance these competing issues.

As I understand the present two systems, the network system tracks a person’s

location at all times, whereas the handset system instead only activates when 911

is dialed if the chip is on the cell phone mother board, or if a button is pressed for

units that are attached to an older hand set. At first glance, from privacy point of

view, I believe the handset technology will be preferred by consumers.

I want to take a minute to acknowledge the efforts of the wireless community.

I have been very impressed by the Wireless Foundation’s Heroes Awards programs—recognizing the efforts of ordinary people who used their cell phones to call

for emergency medical aid, report a crime, or just help a neighbor. When the E911

system is fully deployed, these stories will become far more dramatic and far more

numerous.

I think of my daughter, who attends a school in upstate New York, driving back

to the Bronx. What if she we to get lost and have a flat tire—out in the middle of

no where—well compared to the Bronx anyway. With one simple call, she could get

help from the police who would instantly know where she is. As a parent, I know

it would provide a sense of comfort to me.

So Mr. Chairman, I am excited about this latest development in the wireless industry. I can only say, we must deploy with all due haste!

PREPARED STATEMENT OF HON. JOHN D. DINGELL, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS

FROM THE STATE OF MICHIGAN

Mr. Chairman, I commend you for holding a hearing on an issue that directly affects the health and safety of all Americans.

This Committee held its last hearing on the rollout of ‘‘Enhanced 911’’ (E-911) systems nearly two years ago. Since that time, public safety agencies and wireless companies have made great progress toward deploying this life-saving service. But we

are now less than four months away from the date wireless carriers are obligated

to begin providing this service, and there is still much work to be done. Unfortunately, every day these systems are delayed, lives are jeopardized.

Wireless phones have become an integral part of our lives. More than 100 million

Americans own a wireless phone, and a growing number of those are actually giving

up their wired phone entirely. While convenience certainly plays a role, research

shows that the reason most often cited for purchasing a wireless phone is safety.

In fact, today, one-third of all emergency 911 calls are made from wireless phones.

Unlike traditional wireline 911 calls, these calls do not include essential information

such as the location of the caller or, in many cases, a telephone number to call back

in case of a hang-up or dropped call. The absence of this critical information wastes

time. Wasted time costs lives.

Medical professionals refer to the hour immediately following an accident as the

‘‘golden hour.’’ It is during this period that emergency personnel are most able to

prevent permanent injury or death. Being able to pinpoint the location of a 911 call

is, therefore, absolutely vital.

I understand that many public safety agencies have expended a great deal of effort and capital to complete system upgrades in anticipation of the FCC’s October

12

1st deadline, and many more are in the process of doing so. These investments are

certainly in the public interest, and I commend them for their diligent work.

On the carrier side, however, the situation is a bit more complicated. When the

FCC issued its first E-911 order in 1996, the agency assumed the only way to locate

a wireless phone was through a network-based system. But today, due to advances

in Global Positioning Systems, it is possible to gather location information through

the handset itself. The FCC has modified its compliance deadlines and standards

to account for these changes in technology.

While it certainly makes sense to adapt rules to conform to new technology, there

is an inherent danger that final action will continually be postponed. In fact, the

deadline for E-911 implementation was delayed once before, and additional waivers

are currently before the Commission.

A balance must be struck between the need for speed, which saves lives, and the

need for efficiency, which saves money. I urge the industry and the Commission to

redouble their efforts to find the point at which both of these goals are properly

maximized.

Thank you again, Mr. Chairman, for holding this hearing, and I also express my

appreciation to each of the witnesses for appearing today.

Mr. UPTON. You heard the buzzer sound. We have a series of

votes, two of them, I understand, so we’re going to take a brief recess and we will begin then with your opening statements on the

panel and my guess is it will be about 5 minutes after 11 when we

start that period. So we’ll stand adjourned until then.

[Brief recess.]

Mr. UPTON. I suspect that we’re going to have a vote in another

hour or so, but we’ve got a little time and I want to say too from

all of us on the dais, we appreciate you sending up your testimony

within the rules. It makes it a lot better for all of us to take that

testimony the night before and begin to look at it.

Your full statements are made as part of the record. We’d like

to limit your remarks to 5 minutes so you can go through your

statement, summarize it, whatever you want to make your case.

We’re delighted to have as part of our panel Mr. Michael

Amarosa, Vice President, Public Affairs of TruePosition; Mr. Steve

Clark, Vice President of Network Operations, U.S. Cellular; Mr.

James Nixon, Senior Manager, Regulatory Affairs, VoiceStream

Wireless; Mr. Andrew Rimkus, Vice President of Airbiquity; Mr.

Steve Souder, Administrator of the 9-1-1 Emergency Communications Center in Arlington, Virginia; and Mr. Thomas Sugrue, Chief

of the Wireless Telecommunications Bureau of the FCC.

Mr. Amarosa, we’ll start with you. And because of the cameras

and the folks that are close in the audience, if you can make sure

that that mike is close. That will be terrific. Thank you.

STATEMENTS OF MICHAEL AMAROSA, VICE PRESIDENT, PUBLIC AFFAIRS, TRUEPOSITION; STEVE CLARK, VICE PRESIDENT, NETWORK OPERATIONS, U.S. CELLULAR; ANDREW J.

RIMKUS, VICE PRESIDENT, AIRBIQUITY, INC.; JAMES A.

NIXON, SENIOR MANAGER, REGULATORY AFFAIRS,

VOICESTREAM WIRELESS; STEVE SOUDER, ADMINISTRATOR,

ARLINGTON COUNTY 9-1-1 EMERGENCY COMMUNICATIONS

CENTER; AND THOMAS J. SUGRUE, CHIEF, WIRELESS TELECOMMUNICATIONS BUREAU

Mr. AMAROSA. Mr. Chairman and members of the committee,

good morning. I am Michael Amarosa, the Vice President of Public

Affairs for TruePosition. It is a privilege to appear before you this

morning. Everyone here would agree that Enhanced 911 is a much

13

needed and critical public safety tool. It is the technology that ensures the expedited delivery of emergency services to those in need.

Mr. Chairman, TruePosition has a wireless location system for

Enhanced 911 that has been developed and tested over many years

and I am proud to say it works. TruePosition is a company that has

committed its very existence to the wireless location technology and

E911 services. We have made a substantial investment to develop

and provide commercially available location technology that meets

the standards established by the Federal Communications Commission.

After years of research, development and real world testing, we

stand ready to continue to work with public safety communities

and with the carriers, both large and small, to make E911 a reality

and to meet the FCC deadline for Phase II implementation.

The core of TruePosition’s business is providing location information of a wireless phone to the public safety agencies. TruePosition

believes that 911 services already available on the wireline side

should be available to the growing number of wireless phone users.

TruePostition holds 14 United States patents encompassing the

methods, processes and apparatus for calibrating a wireless location system that yields extremely accurate measurements.

We’ve tested more than 400 cell sites in a variety of environments. The substantial investment TruePosition has made in developing and implementing our technology demonstrates that accurate

and reliable location information is not a future dream, it’s available now.

From a personal perspective, I spent 24 years in public safety.

As the Deputy Commissioner for Technological Development in the

New York City Police Department it was my responsibility to deploy a range of technologies that helped police officers, fire fighters

and emergency service technicians do their jobs. I can personally

attest to the critical role location information plays in saving a life

and stopping a crime. The child who knows only enough to dial

911, the victim who is not sufficiently coherent to remain on the

line, or the traveler who does not know where he is at all, can be

found and help can be dispatched.

TruePosition’s technology allows all existing cellular and PCS

phones to be located. No adjustment needs to be made to a consumer’s existing handset. TruePosition’s architecture supports technologies currently used by more than 95 percent of the wireless

phones worldwide. We developed and tested our system in all types

of geographic areas and RF environments. Our technology encompasses the four major air interfaces. TruePosition’s wireless location system operates as an overlay to the carrier’s network. It requires minimal changes to the existing network infrastructure and

has a negligible effect on the cell sites and does not create any additional traffic on the network.

Rigorous testing has been a critical part of TruePosition’s development of its products and its service. Testing is an integral part

of every system, varied geography, innate character of radio signals

and other conditions require that each system be adapted specifically for a carrier and to the environment in which the carrier operates.

14

As early as 1997, we tested our system’s integration with the 911

call centers. A test was a cooperative effort with New Jersey, several county governments and wireless carriers and at that point it

showed that our system was able to deliver information to the public safety answering points and enabled them to locate the wireless

callers.

More recently, we’ve conducted extensive tests of our system in

Philadelphia, Wilmington, Delaware and in New York City. The

New York City involved the most challenging environment for

radio propagation. Almost half of the test calls were made inside

of multi-story buildings in midtown Manhattan. Standard mobile

phones were used to make more than 30,000 test calls in an area

covered by 30 cell sites. The system demonstrated sub-100 meter

location results in a variety of indoor, outdoor, pedestrian and moving vehicle scenarios. The test results demonstrated compliance

with the FCC requirements.

Mr. Chairman, the technology is ready. TruePosition stands

ready to serve the industry and the public’s need and I thank you.

[The prepared statement of Michael Amarosa follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF MICHAEL AMAROSA, VICE PRESIDENT, TRUEPOSITION, INC.

On behalf of TruePosition, Inc., it is a privilege to appear before the Subcommittee to discuss the implementation of E911 Emergency Calling Systems. I believe and hope, that everyone in this committee room today would agree that Enhanced 911 is a much needed and critical public safety tool. It is a technology that

ensures the expedited delivery of emergency services to those in need.

Our company, TruePosition, is a company that has committed its very existence

to wireless location technology. We have made a substantial investment to develop

and provide commercially available location technology that complies fully with

standards established by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). After

years of research, development and real world testing, we stand ready to continue

to work with the public safety community and with carriers, both large and small,

to make E911 a reality and to meet the FCC deadline. TruePosition commends the

Subcommittee for holding this hearing and for once again focusing public attention

on this important public safety issue.

The need for Enhanced 911 or E911 has been recognized for several years. It

originates from the dichotomy that when a person calls 911 from a traditional

phone, public safety agencies can automatically determine the individual’s location;

yet if the same person calls from a wireless phone, a public safety agency must rely

on the caller to provide an accurate location. As more than 43 million wireless calls

to 911 are made annually from existing wireless phones, the need to implement

E911 is critical. With the impending FCC deadline of October 1, 2001, the Nation

is at the threshold of a tremendous upgrade in how fast public safety agencies can

respond to individuals in need. The leadership of the Subcommittee, and of the FCC,

has been a critical part of the progress that has been made.

TruePosition, founded in 1992, and headquartered in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania, is a leading provider of integrated wireless location products and services to

both U.S. and international wireless carriers. Providing the location information of

a wireless phone to public safety agencies is the core of TruePosition. It is fundamental to our investment and business plan.

TruePosition centers on the premise that information, readily available on the

wireline side, should be available to the growing number of wireless phone users.

TruePosition holds 14 U.S. patents in the technology, encompassing methods, processes and apparatus for calibrating a wireless location system that yields extremely

accurate measurements. We have completed system testing of more than 400 cell

sites in a variety of environments. The substantial investment TruePosition has

made in developing the technology and implementing it demonstrates that accurate

and reliable location information is not in the future. It is now. The TruePosition

system has been tested in a range of areas and conditions and complies with the

standards set by the FCC.

From a personal perspective, I spent 24 years working in public safety. It was my

honor to manage the largest 911 center in the Nation, that of the New York City

15

Police Department, as Deputy Commissioner for Technological Development. It was

my responsibility to bring to public safety a range of technologies that helped police

officers, firemen and emergency service workers do their job more effectively and efficiently. I can attest to the tangible and critical role location information has in

saving lives. The child who knows enough, and perhaps only enough, to dial 911,

the victim who is not sufficiently coherent to remain on the line, the traveler who

does not know where he is, can be located and police, fire or emergency services dispatched. The precious time in obtaining information from the caller can now be

spent assisting the individual in need of help.

THE FCC’S OCTOBER 1, 2001 DEADLINE

Under FCC rules, wireless telephone carriers are required to provide Automatic

Location Identification (ALI) beginning October 1, 2001, as part of the Phase II

E911 implementation schedule. Under the FCC’s rules there are separate accuracy

requirements and deployment schedules for network-based and handset-based technologies. Appendix A sets forth the details of the FCC’s rules.

Since 1996, the FCC has pursued diligently efforts that will improve the quality

and reliability of 911 emergency services for wireless phone users. Throughout, it

has demonstrated substantial judgment, encompassing engineering, economics and

law. It has examined and analyzed technical information of various systems, including that of TruePosition. It has comprehended the investment that must be made

and the evolving technology. It has resolved difficult issues and struck a careful balance between the critical need for location information by the American public,

while affording carriers and providers adequate time to come into compliance.

The FCC has made clear how critical its deadline is. Wireless location information

is more than a valuable addition to the large investment already made to emergency

response capability by state and local public safety agencies throughout the Nation.

It can literally be the difference as to whether assistance can arrive in time.

TruePosition has committed substantial investment to develop and implement a

workable technology enabling public safety agencies to locate and reach persons in

danger. TruePosition’s technology has been tested in real life settings. Our commercially available technology complies with the FCC’s requirements.

TRUEPOSITION’S LOCATION TECHNOLOGY

TruePosition’s 14 U.S. patents in location technology allow all existing cellular

and PCS phones to be located so that no adjustment need be made to the consumer’s handset. Our system performs within the standards set by the FCC.

TruePosition’s architecture supports technologies currently used by more than 95%

of the 650,000,000 wireless phones worldwide. We developed and tested our system

in all types of geographic areas, RF environments and other conditions. Our technology encompasses the four major air interfaces: automatic message processing system (AMPS), code-division multiple access (CDMA), time-division multiple access

(TDMA) and most recently, Global System for Mobile communications (GSM).

TruePosition’s Wireless Location System (WLS) is an end-to-end hardware, software, and services platform that offers a single system for collecting, managing and

distributing location data and an integrated user interface to facilitate installing,

managing, and operating the system. The WLS operates as an overlay to a carrier’s

network, requiring minimal changes to the existing network infrastructure. The system has a negligible impact on cell sites and does not create additional traffic for

the network. The WLS is network-based, and as stated, there is no modification necessary to consumer handsets.

The TruePosition system determines a wireless phone’s geographical location by

collecting and processing the RF signals transmitted by the phone. When a signal

is transmitted—when a phone call is placed—the system gathers information about

the signal from nearby mobile base stations. The data are transmitted to a processor

that analyzes the information and computes the position of the caller by using

TruePosition’s patented Time Difference of Arrival (TDOA) and Angle of Arrival

(AOA) algorithms. For a 911 call, the TruePosition system then determines the appropriate public safety answering point (PSAP), and routes the call to this 911-call

center, which then can dispatch assistance to the caller.

TESTING AND IMPLEMENTING THE TRUEPOSITION SYSTEM

Over many years, TruePosition’s substantial investment in research and development has been directed toward providing a commercially available operational system that complies with the FCC’s requirements. It has been a lengthy process that

has encompassed many environments, which in turn have varied conditions. As

16

noted, the TruePosition WLS is compatible with all major interfaces used by wireless phones, AMPS, CDMA, TDMA, and GSM.

Since its initial commitment to location technology, testing has been a critical part

of TruePosition’s development of its product and service. We have completed system

testing of more than 400 cell sites in a variety of environments.

Iterative testing is common with developing technologies and allowed us to address learning curve issues that arose during the early stages of development. Moreover, testing is an integral part of every system installed as varied geography, the

innate character of radio signals and other conditions require that each system be

adapted to the carrier and the environment the carrier operates in. It is the rigor

and pervasiveness of our testing regime that underlies our confidence in

TruePosition’s technology.

Beyond demonstrating compliance with the FCC’s requirements, our testing

serves several purposes. It has taught us an understanding of the logistics posed

by installation, maintenance, and other requirements of our system, including costs.

Our testing regime allows us to adjust the system. Our underlying premise is that

each environment where location technology operates must be examined and adjustments made prior to the system becoming fully operational.

TruePosition’s extensive testing and experience has allowed us to improve substantially our pre-installation tools used to evaluate designated areas as well as our

ability to fine-tune the system once it is deployed.

As early as 1997, we tested how our system integrated with the 911 call centers,

the PSAPs. The test was a cooperative effort with the State of New Jersey, several

county governments and wireless carriers. The test findings showed that the system

was able to deliver location information to the PSAPs and enable them to pinpoint

the wireless callers. New Jersey authorities characterized the test as having an immediate impact on improving public safety and represented significant progress in

efforts to quickly locate emergencies.

Most recently, we have conducted extensive tests of our system in the Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Wilmington, Delaware and New York City metropolitan areas.

The New York City test involved a challenging environment for radio propagation

as almost half of the test calls were made inside of multi-story buildings in midtown

Manhattan. Standard CDMA mobile phones were used to make more than 30,000

test calls in an area covered by 30 cell sites. A rigorous test plan published by the

CDMA Development Group (CDG) to determine the performance of TruePosition’s

technology was employed. The system demonstrated sub-100 meter location results

in a variety of indoor, outdoor, pedestrian, and moving vehicle scenarios. The test

results demonstrated compliance with FCC requirements.

COOPERATIVE EFFORTS WITH PUBLIC SAFETY AGENCIES AND WIRELESS CARRIERS

TruePosition has worked closely with large and small public safety agencies and

the dedicated associations and individuals that represent them in developing our

technology, particularly in how best to integrate our system into the PSAPs, which

receive the emergency calls. These agencies and their representatives have also

worked closely with the FCC to advocate the need for wireless location information

and to convey the capabilities of their own system. In this latter regard, public safety agencies have been forceful advocates in their own areas to obtain the resources

necessary to implement location information into their own system.

Similarly, we have worked closely with wireless carriers in understanding how to

meet carrier needs and requirements. This has entailed understanding a carrier’s

system and the environment it operates in. The testing we have completed demonstrates a close working relationship with the carriers. Our experience has shown

a pervasive commitment to bring E911 to reality. We believe that deployment of

E911 will become an important element of the competitive marketplace, leading to

a broad and expedited deployment throughout the nation.

In summary, providing location information for wireless callers, so important to

the individual faced with an emergency, is upon us. The Subcommittee’s involvement in bringing the United States to the threshold of effective nationwide Enhanced 911 systems is to be commended. Just as the Subcommittee was the force

behind Congress’ enactment of the Wireless Communications and Public Safety Act

of 1999, which played a significant part in the continued effort to upgrade the nation’s emergency response systems, your interest and oversight of the availability

of location information for wireless callers, demonstrates a similar commitment.

Thank you.

17

APPENDIX A

HISTORY AND SUMMARY OF REGULATORY REQUIREMENTS

Through several actions since 1996, the FCC’s wireless 911 rules have sought to

improve the reliability of wireless 911services and to provide emergency services

personnel with location information. The wireless 911 rules apply to all cellular licensees, broadband Personal Communications Service (PCS) licensees, and certain

Specialized Mobile Radio (SMR) licensees.

PHASE I E911 REQUIREMENTS (FCC Order June 1996)

As of April 1, 1998, or within six months of a request by the designated PSAP,

whichever is later, covered carriers are required to provide to the PSAP the telephone number of the originator of a 911 call and the location of the cell site or base

station receiving a 911 call.

PHASE II E911 REQUIREMENTS (FCC Orders September 1999, minor adjustments August 2000)

Wireless carriers are required to provide Automatic Location Identification (ALI)

as part of Phase II E911 implementation beginning October 1, 2001. The FCC has

established separate accuracy requirements and deployment schedules for networkbased and handset-based technologies. The E911 Phase II requirements are as follows:

• Handset-Based ALI Technology: Wireless carriers who employ a Phase II location

technology that requires new, modified or upgraded handsets (such as GPSbased technology) may phase-in deployment of Phase II subject to the following

requirements:

Without respect to any PSAP request for Phase II deployment, the carrier shall:

1. Begin selling and activating ALI-capable handsets no later than October 1,

2001;

2. Ensure that at least 25 percent of all new handsets activated are ALI-capable

no later than December 31, 2001;

3. Ensure that at least 50 percent of all new handsets activated are ALI-capable

no later than June 30, 2002; and

4. Ensure that 100 percent of all new digital handset activated are ALI-capable

no later than December 31, 2002 and thereafter.

5. By December 31, 2005, achieve 95 percent penetration of ALI-capable

handsets among its subscribers.

Once a PSAP request is received, the carrier shall, in the area served by the

PSAP, within 6 months or by October 1, 2001, whichever is later:

1. Install any hardware and/or software in the CMRS network and/or other

fixed infrastructure, as needed, to enable the provision of Phase II E911 service; and

2. Begin delivering Phase II E911 service to the PSAP.

• Network-Based ALI Technology: As of October 1, 2001, within 6 months of a

PSAP request, carriers employing network-based location technologies must

provide Phase II information for at least 50 percent of the PSAP’s coverage area

or population.

Within 18 months of a PSAP request, carriers must provide Phase II information for 100 percent of the PSAP’s coverage area or population.

The FCC has adopted the following standards for Phase II location accuracy and

reliability:

• For handset-based solutions: 50 meters for 67 percent of calls, 150 meters for 95

percent of calls;

• For network-based solutions: 100 meters for 67 percent of calls, 300 meters for

95 percent of calls.

PUBLIC SAFETY ANSWERING POINT REQUIREMENTS (FCC Order November

1999)

The E911 Phase I requirements, and certain of the Phase II requirements, are applicable to wireless carriers only if the designated PSAP has requested the service

and is capable of receiving and using the information provided. There is no prerequisite that a cost recovery mechanism for wireless carriers be in place before carriers are obligated to provide E911 service in response to a PSAP request. The

PSAP, however, must have the means of covering the costs of receiving and using

the E911 information to make a valid request for E911 service. The FCC’s rules do

not mandate any specific state action nor specify any particular mechanism for

18

funding the technology and service capabilities necessary to enable the PSAP to

make a valid service request.

Mr. UPTON. Thank you.

Mr. Clark.

STATEMENT OF STEVE CLARK

Mr. CLARK. Good morning, Mr. Chairman. My name is Steve

Clark, Vice President of Network Operations.

Mr. UPTON. If you could just pull that mike a little closer or

speak a little louder, either way.

Mr. CLARK. As I said, my name is Steve Clark, Vice President

of Network Operations for U.S. Cellular. Since the record with respect to Phase II compliance on E911 is already filled with comments addressing policy and economic issues as such, I’m here as

an engineer and ultimately the implementer to make this happen.

More specifically, I’ll speak on the issues of implementation and incremental challenges in rural America with respect to the October

1 deadline.

U.S. Cellular is committed to public safety and the nationwide

rollout of E911. Our goal is to provide ubiquitous availability of reliable, enhanced public safety to our rural customers. U.S. Cellular

wants to give E911 to our customers and is committed to deliver

it to them expeditiously, accurately and cost effectively.

That is why U.S. Cellular contributed to and supported the original consensus agreement between the public safety and wireless industries in 1996 which set out challenging, yet what we believed

at the time to be achievable goals to meet the expectations of our

rural customers and their need for E911.

The original consensus agreement, however, is not what the FCC

is forcing us to implement today. Instead, we have seen a virtual

elimination of all the original mutual commitments between public

safety and wireless carriers beginning with the elimination of cost

recovery in 1999. Carrier cost recovery, as the FCC noted, in its

first report and order was a fundamental prerequisite to E911 deployment. The fundamental prerequisite was abandoned by the

FCC despite the fact that all parties with one exception advocated

the necessity of keeping carrier cost recovery.

Recently, the FCC took a further step and imposed a new financial burden on wireless carriers that now requires us to pay for a

portion of the PSAP’s E911 network in addition to the cost to convert antiquated PSAP equipment to today’s technology. The FCC

has also eliminated original PSAP commitments with the exception

of one and that one is now pending before the FCC.

Given that the FCC since 1996 has never once ruled in favor of

the wireless carriers, we expect this one remaining PSAP requirement will be removed as well.

The FCC has completely abandoned the original acknowledgement that cost and complexities of meeting location requirements

would be higher in rural America. This causes great concern, since

it likely will have the effect of driving rural implementation into

the line. Until such time these issues can be dealt with rationally,

it effectively abandons rural America in the short term.

U.S. Cellular and smaller rural carriers do not do their own research and development on telecommunications equipment. The

19

bottom line is those wireless carriers which have the most to spend

drive development. With this in mind we begin the engineering implementation which brings us to the current debate over network

versus handset and hybrid solutions.

The network based solution uses a cell site infrastructure in concert with the supplemental location system, the most widely discussed message will require a minimum of three sites to be able

to reach or see the mobile you want to locate. Certainly in the more

populated areas this will meet the required performance level, however, in rural areas, there simply are not enough cell sites to get

the job done.

For rural carriers, this solution requires very large numbers of

sites to be built simply from a location capability. Building this

number of sites in this manner puts the rural carriers in a predicament which threatens their very existence. Further, switch software applications required for network solution will not be available for either rural or urban applications until late fourth quarter

of 2001 with production implementation in first quarter of 2002.

This lack of switch application software makes the network solution not possible to meet the October deadline.

An alternative to network based solution is the handset solution

which is to locate a GPS transceiver in a handset which will work

independently of or in concert with the network solution. Although

the solution was not originally contemplated in the 1996 order, it

has recently grown in popularity. Although it sounds good, the fact

is rural carriers have yet to get good solid dates from the handset

manufacturers which identify the timeline for availability, model

supported or the production quantities on which it will be a supported capability.

And again, availability of the switch application software to support the handset solution is not available until late fourth quarter

of this year. This is further complicated by recent decisions by

large carriers to abandon the growth in TDMA markets. Current

plans for evolution to 3G by other larger carriers in the industry

have effectively sunsetted TDMA as an air interface.

In closing, we’re concerned about what we’re able to provide to

our customers. And I would say to those that would say that we’re

dragging our feet on the implementation. If it could be done, U.S.

Cellular would have done it.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I look forward to answering any questions you may have.

[The prepared statement of Steve Clark follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF STEVE CLARK, VICE PRESIDENT OF NETWORK OPERATIONS, UNITED STATES CELLULAR CORPORATION

Mr. Chairman, I am Steve Clark, Vice President of Network Operations for

United States Cellular Corporation, and I am here today to discuss the progress and

problems in the implementation of wireless enhanced 911 capabilities, particularly

for carriers serving rural communities. Rural carriers support the roll-out of E911

and improved safety for our customers. What rural carriers object to, however, is

the method the FCC has chosen to roll-out wireless E911. Without action by the

FCC or Congress, rural wireless carriers face an October 1, 2001 deadline to provide

so-called phase II location information without a viable, cost effective solution.

There are currently no phase II compliant handsets available and the only other

phase II solution—a network based solution—will be so expensive that it will, at a

minimum, displace a large number of cost-sensitive rural wireless customers who

will be unable or unwilling to pay the per customer costs of phase II E911 service.

20

My testimony today will highlight the problems specifically faced by rural carriers

that stem from the FCC’s phase II deadlines and its decision in 1999 to eliminate

carrier cost recovery. In so doing, I will briefly review the history of the FCC’s wireless E911 proceeding that created the problem referenced above and describe how

wireline E911 works. My testimony will then illustrate how the Commission’s decision to eliminate carrier cost recovery abandoned the sound legislative and regulatory policy of competitive neutrality between rural and urban telecommunications

providers and completely undermined the FCC’s policy of promoting competitive

parity between rural wireline and wireless telephony providers. I will conclude my

testimony by urging this Committee to reinstate carrier cost recovery to ensure that

phase II E911 service becomes available to all areas and all ranges of customers

in the United States.

I. THE IMPACT OF THE FCC’S DEADLINES ON RURAL WIRELESS CARRIERS

Without action by the FCC or Congress to change the October 1, 2001 deadline

to provide phase II E911 location information, rural wireless carriers are literally

stuck between a rock and a hard place. The costs to deploy a network solution that

satisfies the FCC’s location accuracy requirements are astronomical—costs that

could easily double the imbedded network investment of many rural carriers. The

only other solution—a handset based solution using a GPS (or equivalent) chip—

is not yet available. The unavailability of compliant, cost-effective handsets will

force carriers into a network solution that will displace thousands of cost sensitive

customers in many parts of rural America and could well force some wireless carriers into bankruptcy.

By way of background, there are basically two technological options to help locate

wireless 911 callers—a network solution and a handset solution. In the network solution, which is the only solution currently available, the wireless carrier—and the

corresponding LEC and PSAPs—performs various upgrades to each cell site in its

network. These cell sites are then employed to triangulate an incoming signal from

a wireless phone—i.e., three cell sites receive the signal emitted by the handset and

allow the network to pinpoint the exact location of the caller within that triangle.

Using the so-called angle of arrival method, only two cell sites are needed to determine the location of a caller.

At best, the network solution is prohibitively expensive for rural wireless carriers;

at worst, it will not work at all. Besides requiring upgrades at each cell site to provide accurate location data, the FCC itself recognized that rural carriers will be required to build additional, location-only cell sites in order to properly triangulate a

signal to meet the FCC’s phase II location accuracy requirements. This is because

in rural areas, cell sites tend to be aligned in a straight path along major interstates

or through the populated areas—the so-called ‘‘string of pearls’’—in order to maximize the coverage of each cell site. This configuration, however, makes it impossible

to triangulate a signal to determine the location of the handset because only one

cell site actually receives a signal from the handset.

Western Wireless recently conducted a series of tests with a network solution vendor that dramatically illustrated those problems. While the vendor’s network solution performed well in an urban environment, where the average cell site density

is between 5-6 miles, the network solution failed when tested in rural areas where

the average cell site density is often 40 miles or more. Thus, in order to employ a

network based solution, rural carriers must build additional location-only cell sites

throughout their networks, at an estimated cost of $500,000 per cell site. USCC’s

current network has approximately 2500 cell sites. The costs to upgrade these sites

alone using True Position technology was recently estimated at $90 million. The

costs of doubling or tripling this number of sites are astronomical and would inevitably require USCC to cut back on the area it serves in order to preserve scarce

resources.

In the handset solution, first accepted by the Commission as an acceptable E911

location solution in 1999, special functionality is built into the handset itself to

allow, for example, GPS satellites to track the precise location of the handset. While

requiring some network upgrades to accommodate the additional location information, this solution appeared to be the economically rational alternative for the majority of rural wireless carriers because the cost of the solution would be tied proportionately to the number of customers served by the wireless carrier.

The only problem with the handset-based solution is that it does not exist yet.

There are currently no vendors with the ability to provide a GPS-equipped handset

that would satisfy the Commission’s location accuracy requirements for any digital

emission wireless phone. Current estimates are that some type of GPS-equipped

phone may be available in the 4th quarter of 2001 for use in TDMA systems. GPSVerDate 11-MAY-2000 14:33 Aug 10, 2001 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00024 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 73728.TXT HCOM2 PsN: HCOM2
21

capable phones are not expected to be available until 4th quarter of 2002 for use

in CDMA systems.

There are numerous other problems with a potential handset solution. Only limited information is available on the cost per phone of such a solution. The little information that is available suggests that the incremental cost per phone of providing

phase II service could be as high as $100-$350. There appears to be a very limited

selection of phase II-compliant handsets and there is considerable uncertainty

whether these phones will provide other functionality demanded by consumers (i.e.,

voice messaging, 3G services). It is also unclear whether CDMA or TDMA E911

compliant phones will work if the user roams to a system using a different technology.

The problems deploying phase II E911 compliant solutions are not unique to rural

wireless carriers. One major national cellular carrier (VoiceStream) has already received a waiver, two more major, national carriers (AT&T and Nextel) have waiver

requests pending and at least one more national carrier (Cingular) has indicated

that a phase II compliant waiver will be filed shortly. As demonstrated below, however, the burdens of complying with phase II will disproportionately burden rural

wireless carriers.

II. THE FCC’S WIRELESS E911 PROCEEDING

My testimony now attempts to describe how rural carriers got into this difficult

predicament by reviewing the history of the FCC’s wireless E911 proceeding. In

1994, the FCC initiated a rulemaking proceeding to explore ways to encourage the

wireless industry, in conjunction with the states and public safety organizations, to

implement E911 capabilities. The Commission sought to impose specific caller location requirements on the wireless industry so that ultimately the same information

provided to a PSAP in a wireline 911 call would be provided to a PSAP in a wireless

call.

In the wireline context, when a caller dials 911, the local exchange carrier recognizes the emergency nature of the call and routes that call to the Public Safety Answering Point (‘‘PSAP’’). A PSAP is the state or local governmental agency responsible for coordinating a given locality’s response to emergency calls. In the United

States, PSAPs come in various shapes and sizes ranging from sophisticated, modern

emergency call centers in urban areas to a local sheriff or the state police in rural

areas.

Where enhanced 911 services are available to wireline telephone users, detailed

location information is transmitted to the PSAP to help identify the location of the

emergency caller. The LEC identifies the telephone number from which the 911 call

was made and queries a database to determine the address associated with that

number. This information is then transmitted to the appropriate PSAP, which can

immediately dispatch the appropriate emergency response. The advantages of this

location technology are uncontroverted: the ability to locate an emergency caller exists even if the caller does not know her location, is unable to communicate with

emergency personnel, or becomes disconnected.

In the wireline context, the PSAP pays the LEC for the E911 services it provides.

The costs paid for by the PSAP include the upgraded hardware and software needed

to transmit location information as well as the cost of creating and maintaining the

location database. These upgrades are paid for by the PSAPs who are properly

treated as the wireline carrier’s customers in this context because they order and

then utilize the new location information. The costs caused by the PSAPs are typically paid for out of a state or local governmentally administered fund that collects

the proceeds of 911 surcharges imposed on all wireline customers in the relevant

jurisdiction.

Wireline 911 has taken many years to achieve widespread accessibility. The first

911 call was made in 1968, and it took more than 30 years after that for wireline

911 service to reach 93 percent of the population. As of the middle of 1999, wireline

911 was available in only 50 percent of the geographic area of this country.

The application of E911 to wireless telephones is no simple task. In fact, wireless

E911 service is far more challenging. Wireless telephones by their very nature are

mobile and therefore not associated with a particular address or location. When an

E911 call is received, the carrier does not automatically know which PSAP is closest

to the emergency caller and thus cannot ensure that the call is appropriately routed

to the appropriate PSAP.

In 1996, the FCC issued its first order in its wireless E911 proceeding. While acknowledging that the implementation of E911 in the wireless context faced enormous technological hurdles and that there did not yet exist an efficient and workable system that could actually perform the E911 functions required, the FCC noneVerDate 11-MAY-2000 14:33 Aug 10, 2001 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00025 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 73728.TXT HCOM2 PsN: HCOM2
22

theless decided to intervene in the market and mandate the implementation of E911

capabilities according to FCC-established deadlines. Before carriers’ obligations

under these deadlines were triggered, however, two conditions had to be met: (1)

a PSAP had to request the services from the carrier and be capable of receiving and

utilizing the information requested, and (2) a mechanism had to be in place to compensate carriers for the costs of providing E911 capabilities to the PSAPs. This cost

recovery prerequisite—in addition to the other rules for E911 implementation adopted by the FCC in the First Order—was drawn from a broad-based consensus agreement between the wireless industry and the various public safety entities and was

unanimously supported by commenting parties.

Following the release of the First E911 Report & Order, wireless carriers, PSAPs

and LECs made significant progress toward the implementation of wireless E911—

especially given the enormous complexity involved in the task. By June 30, 1999,

only three years after the FCC’s order, 27 states had enacted legislation to facilitate

the funding of the first phase of the E911 roll-out. There were also a number of difficult, complex issues that inevitably slowed the roll-out of wireless E911. These

issues included the age and incompatibility of PSAP equipment with wireless networks, the wide variety of technical sophistication and political organization of the

PSAPs and differences in liability protection provided to wireline carriers vs. wireless carriers when providing E911 service.

By 1999, the FCC expressed dissatisfaction with the pace of the wireless E911

roll-out. Following a series of public notices, the FCC eliminated the requirement

that a carrier cost recovery mechanism exist before the carriers could be obligated

to provide E911 services. Despite the numerous thorny, difficult issues that were inhibiting the roll-out of wireless E911 noted above, the Commission chose only to

eliminate the carrier cost recovery requirement in an attempt to speed the roll-out.

To rationalize this about-face, the Commission asserted that since wireless carriers’

rates are not regulated, wireless carriers were free to raise their rates in order to

recover the costs of E911 implementation from their customers.

Of course, what the Commission failed to recognize in eliminating the carrier cost

recovery prerequisite is the disproportionate and potentially ruinous impact this action would have on rural carriers. All other things being equal, the cost per customer of rolling out wireless E911 (like all other telecommunications services) will

be disproportionately higher in rural areas. Despite this, rural wireless carriers

were protected under the Commission’s initial E911 order because PSAPs were required to pay rural wireless carriers for the costs they caused in ordering E911 services. If the costs to provide rural E911 service were too high, a rational PSAP could

be relied upon to refrain from ordering that service.

Unfortunately, the Commission’s decision to eliminate carrier cost recovery

changed that equation. Under the Commission’s new rules, PSAPs have essentially

been given a blank check to order phase II E911 service regardless of the costs.

Moreover, the FCC recently made it clear that if a wireless carrier’s preferred E911

phase II solution were not available and the alternative phase II solution were

available, the carrier would be expected to deploy the alternative solution in response to a valid PSAP request. The result of this decision could force rural carriers

into cost prohibitive network solutions and will inevitably result in the displacement

of thousands of rural wireless customers who will be unable to pay for E911 services

ordered by the PSAP.

III. THE COMMISSION’S DECISION TO ELIMINATE CARRIER COST RECOVERY VIOLATES

SEVERAL OF ITS OWN WELL-ESTABLISHED POLICIES.

The Commission’s decision to eliminate carrier cost recovery also violates several

of its own well-established telecommunications policies. First, it is universally recognized that the costs of providing telecommunications services in rural areas are

higher than those in urban areas. Congress recognized this basic concept when it

established the universal service provisions of the Telecommunications Act of 1996

and again is considering various actions this session to provide subsidies and incentives for telecommunications providers to deploy broadband service to rural areas.

There is no valid explanation for the Commission’s refusal to recognize these same

principles in the roll-out of wireless E911 service. Rural carriers are here, today,

asking only that Congress require the Commission to give the same consideration

to wireless carriers that it gives to other telecommunications providers serving rural

areas receive.

Without action to reinstate carrier cost recovery, the FCC’s wireless E911 rules

threaten the provision of cellular service in rural portions of this country. Because

the wireless marketplace is extremely competitive and because consumer demand

for wireless service is extremely price elastic, wireless carriers will only be able to

23

increase their rates on a per customer basis to the extent that its competitors do

the same. If all wireless carriers had similar service areas, there would be competitive neutrality among them. Unfortunately, there are wide disparities between the

service areas of wireless carriers. By adopting a one-size-fits-all approach and forcing all carriers to incur the substantial costs of providing E911 capabilities and

passing them on to their customers, the Commission has impaired the ability of predominantly rural carriers to compete against larger wireless carriers with geographically more diverse service areas that include both urban and rural customers.

Such carriers have a larger customer base over which to spread the costs of providing E911 service. These carriers are in a position to charge their rural customers

less for the same service and have thus been given a competitive advantage over

smaller, rural carriers who have no such customer base over which to spread these

costs. It is important to recognize that this competitive advantage comes not from

one carrier’s more efficient operations or business savvy but instead by virtue of the

FCC’s E911 requirements.

The FCC’s decision to eliminate carrier cost recovery will also likely result in less

overall service in the rural areas, areas in which E911 is arguably most needed. The

wireless industry has grown dramatically in recent years due in significant part to

the continuous drops in the costs of handsets as well as the costs of using the service. Given the prohibitive costs of complying with the FCC’s E911 mandate, especially if rural wireless carriers are required to deploy network solutions, the FCC’s

rules will cause many cost-sensitive rural customers to drop the service to avoid the

disproportionately high per customer costs of E911 phase II compliance. Rural carriers, faced with the prospect of a diminished customer base and the enormous costs

to deploy E911, will be forced to cut back on their service areas or even into bankruptcy. Should this occur, larger carriers are unlikely to venture into less populated

territories that are not profitable, and entire areas of the country could be

disenfranchised from any wireless service, let alone wireless 911 service.

Finally, the FCC’s decision to eliminate carrier cost recovery also violates the

long-standing goal of both Congress and the Commission to make wireless service

a viable competitor to the wireline LEC for telephone service, especially in rural

areas. Throughout the E911 proceeding and in other contexts, the FCC asserted as

one of its goals that wireless and wireline service truly be viewed as substitute services by American consumers. Under the FCC’s current E911 rules, however, wireless

carriers cannot be effective competitors with wireline carriers.

First, and most importantly, wireline carriers are being paid for their provision

of E911 services while wireless carriers are left to recover the substantial costs of

providing the exact same service directly from their customers. Second, a significant

portion of the costs paid by rural wireless carriers to deploy E911 service are LECimposed charges to connect the wireless network to the existing wireline-based E911

network. The costs paid by wireless carriers to LECs to provide E911 include not

only the actual costs to provide the service, but also a regulatory approved profit

margin. Thus, through the FCC’s existing E911 regime, rural wireless carriers are

forced to subsidize the operations of the same wireline carriers the FCC has identified as their competitors.

IV. CONCLUSION

Given the disproportionately high costs faced by rural wireless carriers to provide

phase II E911 service, USCC urges this Committee to pass legislation to reinstate

the carrier cost recovery mechanism eliminated by the FCC in 1999. If E911 service

is truly a national priority, this Committee should enact rules that will help pay

for the deployment of this service. While this step alone will not ensure a rapid rollout of E911, it will eliminate the dramatic marketplace distortions the Commission’s

current rules will inevitably produce in rural areas. Such a payment mechanism

would also help offset the E911 cost imbalance between rural and urban carriers

and ensure that E911 service is available to all portions of this country.

If this Committee is unwilling to reinstate carrier cost recovery, USCC requests

that the Committee pass legislation that delays the deadline for phase II deployment for rural wireless carriers until a viable, economically rational and commercially acceptable phase II solution develops. Drawing upon countless telecommunications examples, USCC urges the Committee to permit rural wireless carriers to

delay deployment until the service has been provided and accepted commercially by

wireless consumers in large urban markets.

In addition to these policy issues, there are also a myriad of difficult, often complex technical issues that have impacted and delayed the roll-out of wireless E911.

These technical issues do not lend themselves to easy written explanation. However,

I am prepared to answer any questions you may have regarding these technical

24

issues and United States Cellular Corporation is willing to supplement my written

testimony to address these issues if it would be of interest to the Committee.

Thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today. I would be happy to

answer any questions you may have or identify additional steps this Committee

could take that would facilitate the rapid deployment of wireless E911 across the

country.

Mr. UPTON. Thank you.

Mr. Rimkus.

STATEMENT OF ANDREW J. RIMKUS

Mr. RIMKUS. Thank you. Mr. Chairman, distinguished members,

and guests, my name is Andrew Rimkus, Vice President of

Airbiquity, Incorporated. Airbiquity is a privately held company located in Bainbridge Island, Washington. Airbiquity is a location

technology company that delivers GPS data to any wireless network, worldwide.

Previously known to the public safety and wireless community as

Integrated Data Communications (IDC), we changed our name to

Airbiquity in November of 2000. Our company and our employees

are active members of related professional organizations in wireless

and public safety, including the Cellular Telecommunications and

Internet Association, the National Emergency Number Association,

the Association of Public Safety Communications Officials, and the

COMCARE Alliance. Airbiquity appreciates the opportunity to testify before the subcommittee today.

We believe Airbiquity is uniquely qualified to discuss technology

preparedness for E911 mobile phone location. As the FCC has stated in its Docket 94-102 proceeding, there are two major technology

choices for the carrier and public safety to achieve compliance.

These alternatives essentially place the location determining technology either in the wireless handset itself or in the wireless network. Airbiquity has chosen to produce a handset-based solution,

specifically those with GPS, due to GPS’s worldwide deployment

and inherently high accuracy. These high accuracy standards are

reflected in the existing FCC proceeding for handset-based location

technology.

In November 200, Airbiquity announced the development of a

GPS Accessory product that attaches to Nokia-brand wireless

phones in the form a battery pack containing a GPS receiver and

software to send the information. This implementation of

Airbiquity’s patented core technology transports data through any

wireless network and attaches to 25 different Nokia phone models

without retrofits or reprogramming of those phones that operate

over all of the major air interface standards including TDMA,

CDMA, GSM and AMPS. Also our solution does not require

changes to the network itself.

This means that our GPS Accessory can operate over any wireless network using any one of these air interfaces, including and

just as examples those of AT&T Wireless, Verizon Wireless,

Cingular Wireless and VoiceStream. In March of this year, we announced the commercial availability of this product at the CTIA

2001 show.

On Monday of this week, AAA, the nation’s largest motoring and

travel services organization and RESPONSE Services Center, who

is owned by AAA announced a North American pilot using our GPS

25

Accessory. This pilot program’s breadth includes 11 major metropolitan areas, 18 different Nokia phone models, 4 different air

interface standards and 7 distinct wireless carriers that distribute

these handsets. This means that today we are moving GPS data

from our GPS Accessory attached to these phones with calling locations spanning from Maine to California, through the wireless network and to the call center equipped with our call center product.

As we speak today, we are placing handset locations on mapping

terminals with live operators, as commercial applications are being

tested. Here in my hand is this product, attached to a phone that

I bought at a wireless retail store the other day. It is fully functional and available for mass distribution today. Airbiquity’s Ex

Parte filing with the FCC detailed our successful demonstration of

this product in December 2000, during which we located our product in the FCC Portals building courtyard.

In addition to our GPS Accessory product, our technology has

been adopted by other major companies in this business. For example, in May of this year we announced the adoption of our technology by Wingcast, a Ford Motor Company and Qualcomm Incorporated joint venture. Our technology is expected to be incorporated into model 2003 automobiles for their inaugural telematics

offering which is planned to combined features such as vehicle location, automatic crash notification and other location-based services

focused on making driving safe and more enjoyable. Our wireless

technology is already incorporated or ‘‘ported’’ into several DSPs or

Digital Signalling Processings including those offered by Texas Instruments and Agere Systems. Our technology is also capable of

being integrated directly into the wireless handsets in addition to

a GPS Accessory.

We believe that we offer a viable Phase II solution for wireless

carriers to obtain the location of wireless handsets. Our GPS Accessory is retrofittable to an estimated 15 million wireless handsets in

service today. The GPS Accessory is compatible with phone models

that have been in commercial sale since 1998 and these phone

models are available through distributors today. We know we are

not alone since companies such as Qualcomm Incorporated and

True Position currently have technological offerings that can serve

as alternatives for this compliance. We expect the market for this

technology will be competitive and well served with product offerings from the beginning.

We at Airbiquity believe that the state of our products and technologies being piloted and adopted by major commercial providers

of location-based services, such as AA and Wingcast which expects

to offer telematics service with some of its vehicle lines, demonstrates the appropriateness and readiness of our solutions for

public safety applications. We urge the subcommittee to continue

its efforts to communicate with and educate the public regarding

viable alternatives to support this location mandate today.

Thank you and I’m happy to answer questions the subcommittee

might have.

[The prepared statement of Andrew J. Rimkus follows:]

26

PREPARED STATEMENT OF ANDREW J. RIMKUS, VICE PRESIDENT, MARKETING, AIRBIQUITY INCORPORATED

Mr. Chairman, distinguished Members, and guests, my name is Andrew Rimkus,

Vice President of Airbiquity Incorporated. Airbiquity is a privately-held company located in Bainbridge Island, Washington. Airbiquity is a location technology company

that delivers Global Positioning System (GPS) data to any wireless network, worldwide.

Previously known to the public safety and wireless community as Integrated Data

Communications (IDC), we changed our name to Airbiquity in November of 2000.

Our company and our employees are active members of related professional organizations in wireless and public safety, including the Cellular Telecommunications

and Internet Association, the National Emergency Number Association, the Association of Public Safety Communications Officials, and the COMCARE Alliance.

Airbiquity appreciates the opportunity to testify before the Committee today.

We believe Airbiquity is uniquely qualified to discuss technology preparedness for

E911 mobile phone location. As the FCC has stated in its Docket 94-102 proceeding,

there are two major technology choices for the carrier and public safety to achieve

E911 Phase II compliance. These alternatives essentially place the location determining technology either in the wireless handset itself or in the wireless network.

Airbiquity has chosen to produce a handset-based solution, specifically those with

GPS, due to GPS’s worldwide deployment and inherently high accuracy. These high

standards for accuracy are reflected in the existing FCC 94-102 proceeding for

handset-based, Phase II location technology.

In November of 2000, Airbiquity announced the development of a GPS Accessory

product that attaches to Nokia-brand wireless phones in the form of a battery pack

containing a GPS receiver and software to send the GPS information. This implementation of Airbiquity’s core technology transports data through any wireless network and attaches to 25 different Nokia phone models—without retrofits or reprogramming of the phones—that operate over all of the major network air interface

standards, including TDMA, CDMA, GSM, and AMPS. Our solution does not require

changes to these wireless networks.

This means that our GPS Accessory can operate over any wireless network using

any one of these air interfaces, including but not limited to those of AT&T Wireless,

Verizon Wireless, Cingular Wireless, and VoiceStream. In March of this year, we

announced the commercial availability of our GPS Accessory product at the CTIA

2001 show in Las Vegas.

On Monday of this week, AAA—the nation’s largest motoring and travel services

organization—and RESPONSE Services Center, a wholly owned subsidiary of AAA,

announced a North American pilot program using Airbiquity’s GPS Accessory. The

pilot program’s breadth includes 11 major metropolitan areas, 18 different Nokia

wireless phone models, 4 different air interface standards, and seven distinct wireless carriers that distribute Nokia-brand handsets. This means that—today—we are

moving highly-accurate GPS data from our GPS Accessory attached to these phones

with calling locations spanning from Maine to California, through the wireless network, and to the RESPONSE call center equipped with our call center product, the

aqServer. As we speak today, we are placing handset locations on mapping terminal

with live operators, as commercial applications are being tested. Here in my hand

is the GPS Accessory product, attached to a phone I bought at a wireless retail store

the other day. It is fully functional and available for mass distribution today.

Airbiquity’s Ex Parte filing with the FCC detailed our successful demonstration of

the GPS Accessory in December 2000, during which we located our product in the

Federal Communications Commission Portals building courtyard.

In addition to our GPS Accessory product, our technology has been adopted by

other major companies in the wireless location business. For example, in May of this

year we announced the adoption of our technology by Wingcast, a Ford Motor Company and Qualcomm Incorporated joint venture. Our technology is expected to be

incorporated into model 2003 automobiles for Wingcast’s inaugural telematics offering—which is planned to combine features such as vehicle location, automatic crash

notification, and other location-based services focused on making driving safer and

more enjoyable. Our wireless technology is already incorporated, or ‘‘ported’’, into

several Digital Signal Processors, or DSPs, including those offered by Texas Instruments and Agere Systems, formerly Lucent Microelectronics. Our technology is capable of being integrated directly into wireless handsets.

We believe Airbiquity can offer a viable Phase II solution for wireless carriers to

obtain the location of wireless handsets. Our GPS Accessory is retrofittable to an

estimated 15 million wireless handsets in service today. The GPS Accessory is compatible with phone models have been for commercial sale since 1998, and these

27

phone models that are available through distributors throughout the United States

today. We know we are not alone, since companies such as Qualcomm Incorporated

and TruePosition currently have technological offerings that can serve as alternatives for Phase II E911 compliance. We expect the market for this technology will

be competitive and well served with product offerings from the beginning.

We at Airbiquity believe that the state of our products and technologies—being

piloted and adopted by major commercial providers of location-based services, such

as AAA (which has 44 million active members) and Wingcast, which expects to offer

telematics service with some of its model 2003 vehicle lines—demonstrates the appropriateness and readiness of our solutions for public safety applications. We urge

the Committee to continue its efforts to communicate with and educate the public

regarding viable, commercial alternatives to support the Phase II E911 location

mandate today. Thank you, and I am happy to answer questions the Subcommittee

might have.

Mr. UPTON. Thank you.

Mr. Nixon.

STATEMENT OF JAMES A. NIXON

Mr. NIXON. Good morning, Mr. Chairman, members of the committee. I’m Jim Nixon from VoiceStream Wireless. I’ve been involved in 911 for over 7 years beginning as a 911 Center Supervisor in Nevada and answering 911 calls, many of them from wireless handsets. Later was a 911 coordinator for the State of Maryland and for the past 3 years have been working 911 issues for

VoiceStream Wireless.

My unique background kind of puts me on both sides of the fence

and it gives me a little bit of insight into both camps, I hope.

I’ve been asked to address the feasibility of the wireless Phase

II deadline which is October 1 as has been mentioned before. We

believe there have been great strides made in the technology, particularly over the last 2 years, but we don’t believe that the equipment is ready for widespread deployment yet for a number of reasons I’ll discuss later. And we’ve also heard that a number of 911

centers are trying to get their readiness together. We hope we can

work to match the two capabilities up at the right time and the

right place.

We have a fear that a rush deployment would waste hundreds

of millions of dollars on all sides of this issue and yet perhaps not

provide an ultimately satisfactory system. We think there is a need

for some real world carrier tests with public safety, with the carriers, with the local exchange carriers who play a key role in this

whole process to make sure that the systems and solutions under

trial today are viable for large scale deployments.

Assuming these trials were successful we think that the wide

scale deployment will be available at the end of 2002 or the beginning of 2003.

We think a thoughtfully planned national implementation schedule and procedure is probably the best way to go. Our basic problem with the current requirements is that the accuracy in deployment requirements were established before the technology was developed or identified to meet those requirements. The case is one

of acting in absolutely the best interest of consumers, but maybe

a little bit ahead of what was warranted by technology at the time.

The primary challenge as we’ve heard, and I’m sure Mr. Souder

will tell us a little bit more about this later is to provide landline

911 call takers with the same type of information that they get on

28

landline calls when they get wireless calls. Typically, you’ll get a

telephone number and an address. It’s extremely helpful in trying

to assess the situation and marshal the appropriate resources and

get them underway quickly. The mandate provides that the carriers deliver the callback number as they’ve done in landline. The

big difference is that the location is sent in a latitude and longitude

format which is generally unfamiliar to many of us and we need

to help the 911 center call takers in their very tough job to equate

that location to an address or a landmark that they’re commonly

used to using so they can efficiently do their jobs.

We believe that there’s a number of steps involved in making

this kind of an improvement in any kind of a service, particularly

as important as 911 and we think that as we said with the accuracy and deployment requirements being set first, we see this as

kind of backwards from what’s normally done in a technology environment where you identify what the requirements are, but then

you go into building standards to which equipment can be designed

and tested so that you can pick the best, most likely candidate for

further development. Vendors can produce these things, test them

adequately and thoroughly as Mr. Amarosa mentioned in the systems to make sure they don’t cause additional problems. And here

we’ve got somewhat of a reverse of that with the finite requirements being defined before there was a roadway built to get to that

capability. We think this is possible to do. We think that the industry is poised to begin working cooperatively with all the other parties including public safety as a critical element to this whole issue.

We think that its’ time for us to build on the experience we

gained in the Phase I deployment process, to build a very solid and

achievable Phase II plan. We would think that we can solve issues

and make progress much more quickly if we work cooperatively,

rather than trying to put Mr. Sugrue and his time at the Wireless

Bureau through the process of deciding issues on filings and we

look forward, very much to working with APCO and Public Safety

and Project Locate. We think that’s an absolutely wonderful forum

to get the subject matter through experts together so that we can

make some real progress and get some meaningful service out as

quickly as possible.

Thank you for the opportunity to speak and I’d be happy to answer questions.

[The prepared statement of James A. Nixon follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF JAMES A. NIXON, SENIOR MANAGER OF REGULATORY

AFFAIRS, VOICESTREAM WIRELESS CORPORATION

Good morning, Mr. Chairman and members of the Committee. I am Jim Nixon

of VoiceStream Wireless. I have been involved with 911 emergency services for the

past seven years, initially as a supervisor for a 911 call center in Nevada; later as

the E911 Coordinator for the State of Maryland; and for the past three years, working on 911 implementation for VoiceStream. I have direct, ‘‘hands-on’’ experience

with 911 implementation, both from the perspective of public safety/law enforcement

agencies and from the perspective of wireless carriers.

VoiceStream is the fastest growing provider of broadband Personal Communications Services (PCS) in the United States. Currently serving over 5 million subscribers, VoiceStream is the only U.S. wireless carrier that owns and operates a

near-nationwide network using the GSM standard—the world’s most widely used

digital wireless standard. Through recent mergers and license purchases,

VoiceStream has a licensed U.S. footprint of over 272 million American consumers.

29

VoiceStream initiated its first service in 1996, when it was part of a predecessor

company.

The Committee has asked me to address whether the current wireless E911 Phase

II deadline of October 1, 2001, only three and a half months from now, is feasible.

While great strides in technology have been made, especially over the past two

years, the technology is not yet ready for full national commercial deployment, and

the vast majority of public safety agencies and their 911 networks are not close to

being ready to receive and use wireless E911 information. A rushed deployment

could waste hundreds of millions of dollars, without actually delivering a workable

wireless E911 system. What is needed are ‘‘real world’’ carrier-public safety trials

of the various location technologies under development. Assuming these trials are

successful, commercial deployment may be able to begin in late 2002 or early 2003.

A thoughtfully planned national implementation schedule, then, will be needed to

deploy E911 successfully.

It bears remembering that it took more than 20 years before ‘‘land-line’’ 911 service was even available to half of all Americans. It is simply not realistic to expect

that far more sophisticated wireless location technologies can be deployed ubiquitously within the 12 month schedule mandated by the Federal Communications

Commission (FCC)—especially since the vast majority of public safety equipment

and 911 networks continue to use 1950s-era technology. VoiceStream, like other

wireless carriers, is committed to meeting the needs of public safety, and it believes

these needs can be met. However, meeting these needs will be extremely challenging

under the current time frames.

We have a newly reconstituted FCC, with a new Chairman and three new Commissioners having been confirmed only a few weeks ago. VoiceStream fully expects

that bringing order to the current issues regarding Phase II deployment will be one

of the first tasks that the new FCC will tackle.

I. HISTORY OF 911 SERVICE AND DEPLOYMENT IN LAND-LINE NETWORKS

Emergency 911 services were implemented in land-line telephone networks over

decades, without any FCC involvement.

The heart of any 911 system is the Public Answering Safety Point (collectively,

PSAPs). PSAPs are the agencies that answer 911 calls and then dispatch appropriate medical, fire, or police resources to the scene. PSAPs may be part of a local

police or sheriff’s department; they may be a regional agency with responsibility

over a community of interest; or, they may be managed at the state level. Some

PSAPs are funded from the general tax base; others have authority to assess monthly surcharges on carrier bills to customers.

Basic 911. In 1967, the President’s Commission on Law Enforcement and Justice

recommended that a ‘‘single number should be established’’ nationwide for reporting

emergency situations. The next year, the then-administrator of telephone numbers

(AT&T) set aside the digits 9-1-1 for emergency services. With ‘‘basic 911’’ service,

the telephone company—or local exchange carrier (LEC)—translates the dialed 911

into the seven digit telephone number assigned to the PSAP call takers. Except for

this number translation function, a ‘‘basic 911’’ call is processed like an ordinary

telephone call.

Enhanced 911. One of the problems with basic 911 service was that LEC telephone exchanges may not match PSAP serving boundaries. To address this routing

problem, the LEC industry began introducing selective routing in the 1970s to help

ensure that 911 calls were forwarded to the correct PSAP. This selective routing feature later became known as Enhanced 911 (E911) service. Over time, additional capabilities were added to E911 service, including:

• Caller Identification: The telephone number of the person dialing 911 is forwarded

to the PSAP, so the call taker can return the call if the caller if disconnected.

• Caller Location: Addresses associated with land-line telephone numbers are stored

in an Automatic Location Identification (ALI) database. Upon receiving the caller’s telephone number, a query is made to the ALI database to retrieve the caller’s address, so the PSAP can send emergency personnel to the land-line caller’s

location.

The E911 Network. Advanced features, such as selective routing, caller ID and

land-line location, information required the deployment of a specialized E911 network. A PSAP’s E911 network consists of a selective router, trunks connecting PSAP

call taker equipment to the centralized selective router and then to the LEC’s end

office switches, and the ALI database. The E911 network is used exclusively for 911

calls, PSAPs maintain control of their network (e.g., determine how many trunks

are needed, implementing technology upgrades) and, while they often have the LEC

operate the network, PSAPs direct and pay the LEC for these services. Because a

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1See Revision of the Commission’s Rules to Ensure Compatibility with Enhanced 911 Emergency Calling Systems, CC Docket No. 94-102, Report and Order and Further Notice of Proposed

Rulemaking, 11 FCC Rcd 18676 (July 26, 1996). 2See, e.g., Revision of the Commission’s Rules to Ensure Compatibility with Enhanced 911

Emergency Calling Systems, CC Docket No. 94-102, Memorandum Opinion and Order, 12 FCC

Rcd 22665 (Dec. 23, 1997); California Declaratory Order, 14 FCC Rcd 1969 (Dec. 18, 1999); Second Report and Order, 14 FCC Rcd 10954 (June 9, 1999); Third Report and Order, 14 FCC Rcd

17388 (Oct. 6, 1999); Memorandum Opinion and Order, 14 FCC Rcd 20850 (Dec. 8, 1999); Third

Memorandum Opinion and Order, 15 FCC Rcd 1144 (Jan. 13, 2000); California Declaratory Reconsideration Order, 15 FCC Rcd 1997 (Feb. 1, 2000); Fourth Memorandum Option and Order,

15 FCC Rcd 17442 (Sept. 8, 2000); Fifth Memorandum Opinion and Order, 15 FCC Rcd 22810

(Nov. 22, 2000); Fourth Report and Order, 15 FCC Rcd 25216 (Dec. 14, 2000); King County Clarification Letter (May 9, 2001); Non-Initialized Phone Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking,

FCC 01-175 (May 25, 2001).

state may have dozens (or hundreds) of PSAPs, LECs historically tariffed the various components of the E911 network so each PSAP could easily order the

functionalities it desired.

Land-line 911/E911 Deployment. It took more than 20 years (1987) before 50 percent of the U.S. population had access to 911 or E911 service. Today, nearly 93 percent of the population has access to some type of 911 service from their land-line

telephone.

II. WIRELESS E911—GENERALLY

Cellular service was introduced in the mid-1980s and it is my understanding that

most cellular carriers provided basic 911 service to their customers. In California,

for example, cellular 911 calls were forwarded to the state highway patrol because

at the time cellular service was principally used in vehicles.

In 1994, shortly after setting aside spectrum for Personal Communications Services (PCS), the FCC commenced a proceeding to determine whether it should impose

911 obligations on wireless carriers. In its seminal 1996 Wireless E911 Order, the

FCC decided that wireless carriers should implement E911 service in two phases:1

• With Phase I, wireless carriers must transmit the handset’s phone number and

the location of the cell site (or cell sector) serving the E911 caller, thereby providing call back capability and the caller’s general location.

• With Phase II, wireless carriers were ordered additionally to provide within five

years more precise location information (latitude and longitude) within a radius

of 125 meters 67 percent of the time.

Although it recognized that Phase II location technology did not exist at the time,

the FCC nevertheless determined that its five-year (October 2001) implementation

schedule was achievable. In response to estimates that Phase II would cost up to

$7.5 billion, the FCC stated only that these costs would decrease over time.

The FCC has also substantially changed virtually all of its original wireless E911

requirements and, in most instances, it has made them more onerous.2 For example:

• PSAPs were initially required to pay carriers the costs incurred in upgrading mobile networks to support wireless E911. The FCC eliminated this requirement

in December 1999. In May 2001, the FCC went further and imposed a financial

burden on wireless carriers not imposed on incumbent LECs. Specifically, the

Wireless Bureau has now required wireless carriers to pay for a portion of the

PSAP’s own E911 network and, apparently, to incur the costs needed to convert

21st century wireless data into a form that can be used by the antiquated

equipment that many PSAPs continue to use.

• A PSAP request for E911 services historically was not acted upon unless the

PSAP had installed the capability to use the service. This requirement prevents

wireless carriers from having to build an E911 highway to nowhere. Nonetheless, the FCC is currently considering a PSAP proposal to require wireless carriers to begin implementation before PSAPs have upgraded their equipment and

E911 network.

• In October 1999, the FCC increased its Phase II accuracy requirements to 100

meters 67 percent of the time and 300 meters 95 percent of the time for

‘‘networked-based’’ solutions. However, it imposed even more stringent accuracy

requirements—50 meters 67 percent of the time and 150 meters 95 percent of

the time—for carriers using a ‘‘handset’’ solution.

Phase I Implementation Status. Wireless carriers must provide Phase I cell site

information within six months of a PSAP request, and VoiceStream has received

Phase I requests from approximately six percent of all PSAPs (450 of approximately

7,000 total PSAPs). Although Phase I implementation is reasonably straightforward

(and far simpler than Phase II), experience has proven that Phase I generally canVerDate 11-MAY-2000 14:33 Aug 10, 2001 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00034 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 73728.TXT HCOM2 PsN: HCOM2
31

not be implemented within six months of a request. In most cases this ‘‘delay’’ is

due to a combination of factors relating to the technology upgrades or ‘‘patches’’

needed to allow the PSAP’s 911 network to accept the additional data necessary for

wireless E911. Many PSAPs have little interest in Phase I, but we have found they

often do not understand that they need Phase I capabilities in order to use Phase

II capabilities and that, by waiting to implement both at once, they make implementation within six months virtually impossible.

III. THE CHALLENGE OF PHASE II WIRELESS LOCATION

The successful implementation of Phase II location capabilities requires modifications by and the cooperation of wireless carriers, vendors that supply needed technology to carriers, the PSAPs, and the operator of the E911 network (generally, the

incumbent LEC).

A. Wireless Carriers. The provision of location information for land-line 911 calls

is straightforward: the telephone number is associated with a fixed address and that

fixed address can be stored in an ALI database. How can a wireless carrier provide

location information for a customer that is mobile—and whose location may change

during the 911 call?

In 1996, at the time of the initial FCC Order, everyone expected that the Phase

II requirements would be implemented by a ‘‘network solution,’’ and the FCC’s initial rules permitted only a network solution. With a network solution, location is

determined using triangulation of nearby cell sites (calculating distance by the time

consumed for cell site-to-handset signal transmissions). Under current FCC rules,

a carrier using the network solution must provide a level of accuracy within 100

meters 67 percent of the time and within 300 meters 95 percent of the time.

Later, following additional developmental work, some vendors proposed use of

‘‘handset solutions.’’ The handset solution often (but not necessarily) includes a

Global Positioning Satellite (GPS) receiver, with triangulation performed using the

GPS satellite data in conjunction with data derived from the wireless network. Carriers like VoiceStream using GSM technology proposed a hybrid handset solution involving network and handset upgrades. In 1999, the FCC revised its rules to permit

use of the handset solutions, but it also imposed more rigorous requirements on

users of this alternative—carriers must provide a level of accuracy within 50 meters

67 percent of the time and within 150 meters 95 percent of the time.

There are inherent weaknesses with each solution. The network/triangulation approach does not work well in rural areas where there are fewer cell sites. The GPS

approach does not work well in buildings and urban areas where the satellite signal

may be blocked. The solution pursued by a given carrier is often dictated by the particular network air interface it uses (e.g., AMPS, CDMA, GSM, iDEN, TDMA). In

reality, most carriers plan on using a hybrid approach—a combination of the network and handset solutions that work best for their network air interfaces.

VoiceStream, which uses the GSM system prevalent throughout the world, is deploying Enhanced Observed Time Difference (E-OTD), a hybrid handset solution

that requires upgrades to handsets as well as to its network. GSM carriers in Europe and elsewhere are observing the results of VoiceStream’s testing and deployment before they commit to large scale deployments of high accuracy location capabilities within their networks. VoiceStream has effectively become a test bed for the

world’s GSM carriers because of the FCC regulatory initiative.

For the past year, VoiceStream has been testing the E-OTD solution in Houston,

and it has already expended millions of dollars on Phase II development. We currently have the equivalent of 10 people committed full time to this effort and this

commitment will increase steadily as we work toward large scale deployments.

While progress has been made, the technology is not yet ready for full national deployment, as discussed further below.

B. Vendors. Carriers provide services to the public, but they remain dependent on

their vendors—of both network equipment and handsets—to implement a new capability. VoiceStream, like most wireless carriers, requires major upgrades to both its

network equipment and to the handsets provided to customers in order to provision

Phase II location accuracy. In the end, a carrier’s ability to meet a regulatory mandate like E911 is determined by the ability of vendors to develop and deliver large

quantities of commercial-grade equipment and handsets to the carrier in a timely

fashion. Even before this new equipment can be built, however, a set of industry

wide standards must be developed so the equipment can be designed to meet consistent operating specifications. Typically, the standards development process for

new capabilities take over two years and vendors then need an additional 18

months or so to design and produce new equipment based on these standards. While

VoiceStream can urge its vendors to develop solutions quickly, it is the vendor that

32

must, in the end, be able to create a viable and reliable solution. Since the E911

initiative is being driven, worldwide, by the FCC location mandate, vendors are proceeding with care. Their care is also influenced by the economic slowdown and by

carriers—less aggressive capital investment plans. Now is not an ideal time for vendors to be expected to invest in expensive research, development and production

work for equipment that is mandated, not by the marketplace, but rather by the

U.S regulator.

C. PSAPs. Most PSAPs cover small areas, have limited resources and have limited

understanding of the technology required for E911 (e.g., they will need to obtain sophisticated mapping software so they can convert latitude and longitude data into

recognizable street addresses, required telecommunications software development

and improvements). Many PSAPs still use equipment which is based on 1950s-era

technology that is not sufficiently robust to handle Phase I service, much less the

additional data required for Phase II precision. When mobile service was introduced

in the 1980s, PSAPs decided to have wireless 911 calls delivered to basic telephones,

which lacked the ability to display 911 data, rather than make the 911 network and

equipment upgrades necessary to provide wireless callers enhanced 911 service.

While PSAPs may now be anxious to acquire modern equipment and networks, others (e.g., city council, county commission) often determine funding. Further, individual PSAPs (and especially small PSAPs) often find it difficult to convince the incumbent LEC managing their E911 network to upgrade the network without the

PSAP securing significant additional funding.

D. The LEC Bottleneck. Most PSAPs use the local incumbent LEC services to provision their E911 network, and the majority of current 911 networks rely on 1950sera signaling technology. This combination of LEC services and PSAP technology

simply cannot support wireless E911 services, whether Phase I or Phase II. For example, the PSAP-to-selective router trunks routinely handle only eight digits, and

20 digits are in fact needed for Phase I implementation and additional digits will

be needed to depict Phase II latitude and longitude calculations. The LECs have unfortunately been slow to modernize the E911 networks to accommodate this additional data. One significant issue today is the readiness of the LECs to receive wireless carrier location data using the industry standard (TIA J-STD-036) that was cooperatively developed by the LECs, PSAPs and wireless carriers specifically for

wireless E911. If they have not yet installed this capability on their 911 networks,

additional development time may be required to accommodate the non-compliant

interfaces being used. Given that each PSAP installation is to a large degree custom

built, considerable work and time may be necessary to address the multiple configurations existing today.

E. Coordination Issue. Coordination is difficult given the sheer number of parties

involved. Take, for instance, the Phase I deployment undertaken by the Texas Commission on State Emergency Communications. TX-CSEC expected that Phase I

could be deployed in six months—even though the deployment involved over 360

PSAPs, 24 Regional Planning Commissions, over 40 wireless carriers, several LECs,

and an independent Phase I database vendor. Significant delays were encountered

due to signaling incompatibility between the LEC selective routers and wireless

switches, signaling incompatibility between wireless networks and some database

systems, insufficient time to complete the huge number of database record updates

required, insufficient time for the PSAPs to complete the routing analysis and address verifications necessary to correctly identify cell site locations, errors in some

of the numerous trunk orders needed to connect wireless switches to the selective

routers and insufficient capacity in some selective routers to accommodate the additional trunking. The Phase I conversion in Texas is now nearing completion, after

two years. The Phase II deployment will be even more challenging—and unless significant changes are made to the process and better planning is undertaken—even

more complicated.

IV. WIDESPREAD PHASE II WIRELESS E911 DEPLOYMENT WILL BE EXTREMELY

CHALLENGING UNDER CURRENT FCC REQUIREMENTS

Under current FCC rules, carriers must provide Phase II E911 service by October

1, 2001 or within six months of a PSAP request, whichever is later. The Committee

has asked whether this deadline is feasible. VoiceStream believes that widespread

deployment under this mandate will be daunting for all parties involved.

The FCC established the October 2001 deadline and its accuracy requirements

five years ago when there was no known method of meeting the accuracy requirements established. Given that both the deadline and the accuracy requirements

were established based on limited data, it should not be surprising to anyone that

we find ourselves in the current situation.

33

VoiceStream’s situation illustrates the challenges posed by these issues.

VoiceStream uses GSM, the most mature digital air interface technology serving

over 400 million subscribers worldwide. The FCC’s 911 rules are the most aggressive requirements in the world. VoiceStream, being the largest GSM operator in the

U.S., took the lead and, with its vendors, developed the GSM E911 solution, E-OTD.

Because E-OTD initially did not appear to meet the more stringent FCC handset

requirement, the FCC granted VoiceStream a limited Phase II waiver. But in granting this waiver, the FCC imposed new requirements on VoiceStream, including:

• VoiceStream must deploy by the end of this year a second, less precise Phase II

solution (known as Network Software Solution (NSS)), and Voice-Stream must

deploy this NSS solution nationally.

• The E-OTD solution requires modified handsets, and the FCC required that beginning October 1, 2001 50 percent of all new VoiceStream handsets sold must

be E-OTD capable, and 100 percent of all handsets sold by March 31, 2002 must

be E-OTD capable.

• Two years after the initial rollout, on October 1, 2003, VoiceStream must satisfy

the more rigorous handset accuracy requirements of 50 meter accuracy 67 percent of the time and 150 meters 95 percent of the time.

The FCC Phase II deadline is only 3.5 months away. Even if VoiceStream could

complete a far-reaching installation of its E-OTD solution by October 1, based on

Phase II requests received thus far there are only a handful of PSAPs across the

country capable of actually accommodating Phase II service. And even if PSAP

equipment and the E911 network were Phase II compatible, it appears there still

will be insufficient quantities of Phase II handsets available in the market for customers to purchase. The economic slowdown has slowed consumers discretionary

purchasing dramatically since the waiver was granted.

In summary, the October 1, 2001 deadline will present problems for a number of

reasons. And even while VoiceStream, and other carriers, will be in a position to

conduct tests with a handful of PSAPs during 2002, I believe that the PSAPs, LECs

and carriers will have trouble achieving a nationwide availability deadline of October 2002. Phase II location capability holds great promise for public safety and for

commercial applications ‘‘but turning that promise into reality has proven to be

much more complicated than anyone could have foreseen five or even two years ago.

Industry and governmental technological predictions frequently miss their targets.

E911 is a case in point.

V. OTHER IMPLEMENTATION PROBLEMS

The Committee asked to be apprised of other problems with Phase II implementation. I below highlight some of the numerous problems that threaten this effort.

A. Zoning and permitting. Many of the available wireless location options require

additional equipment at the cell site and these additions could require zoning and

building permitting actions depending on local laws and rules. Equipment added inside existing cell site enclosures may cause concern for electrical load capacity, heating and cooling, or structural weight limits (especially on towers). Antennas and

other equipment added to the exterior of the cell site enclosure or on a tower structure could easily raise new zoning issues. In either case, adding equipment to a cell

site very often forces renegotiation of the site lease. If all of these issues are not

successfully resolved, it may be impossible to deploy the location equipment in a

manner capable of meeting the FCC accuracy requirements. Obviously, the time

needed to resolve these sometimes highly contentious and political issues could easily prevent carriers from meeting the 6 month deployment deadlines.

B. Telephone number exhaust concerns. As you know, telephone numbers are in

extremely short supply and several number optimization measures are being implemented to conserve telephone numbers in the U.S. today. Unfortunately, this number exhaust problem is being made worse because wireless carriers are being forced

to use their otherwise dialable public switched telephone numbers in order to interface with existing 911 networks. The pseudo-ANI (Automatic Number Identification)

is the ‘‘key’’ number used for selective routing and to identify a specific record in

the 911 database, thereby allowing wireless 911 calls to be delivered on the existing

911 networks. However, due to limitations of existing selective routing equipment,

in many instances dialable telephone numbers instead of non-dialable, true ‘‘pseudo’’-ANI numbers are required. Once a dialable telephone number is assigned as a

pseudo-ANI number, the telephone number cannot be assigned to a subscriber and

used in the public telephone system for fear of creating confusion during a 911

emergency. This wasteful use of a critically limited resource must be corrected. For

this solution to work, changes must be made to LEC switches and selective routers

34

to allow them to recognize and use non-dialable, true ‘‘pseudo’’-ANI numbers for 911

purposes.

Discriminatory Funding of the E911 Network. PSAPs pay the full cost of the E911

network, up to an incumbent LEC’s end office switch. However, last month the FCC

ruled that wireless carriers must fund a portion of the E911 network—the new elements between the existing selective router and the mobile switch which are required to retrofit modern wireless systems to support the antiquated 911 networks

which are so prevalent. This discriminatory arrangement is inconsistent with longstanding cost causation principles and inconsistent with the parity objective that

Congress has established for 911 service. See Wireless Communications and Public

Safety Act of 1999 (Congress expressed its intention that wireless carriers be treated in generally the same manner as land-line carriers on 911 issues).

D. PSAPs Are Discouraged from Modernizing Their Networks. Wireless carriers

have modern networks and PSAPs largely use 1950s-era technology. There are two

ways that Phase II service can be provided in this environment: (1) PSAPs can upgrade their equipment and networks to more current technology such as Feature

Group D, ISDN, SS7, TCP/IP; or (2) they can use various work around techniques

so Phase I and II data can be handled by their antiquated networks. Until last

month, each PSAP was required as a prerequisite to making a valid Phase I or

Phase II request to make an individual choice between these two options based on

its unique circumstances. However, now that the FCC has required wireless carriers

to fund the new ‘‘wireless portion’’ of the E911 network, PSAPs can effectively require carriers to undertake (and pay for) the conversion function.

In this environment, PSAPs have no incentive to upgrade their equipment and

networks to 21st century technology. Wireless carriers are faced with a double

whammy—not only must they upgrade their own networks to Phase I/Phase II, they

must then spend additional sums to convert this 21st century technology so it can

be used by 1950s-era public safety technology. This situation is particularly ironic

because the FCC deleted carrier cost recovery as a prerequisite for service based in

part on claims from public safety that if this change was not made, the carriers

would ‘‘gold plate’’ their 911 systems. Yet under the new rule, gold plating now appears to be a valid PSAP option.

E. The Current Implementation Plan Is Backwards. Ordinarily, carriers first test

a new technology before they install it anywhere in their network. Once bugs have

been identified and fixed, they can begin installing the feature in their switches. It

may be six months (or a year) before a carrier completes installation of the feature

throughout its network. Forcing deployment of incompletely tested systems actually

increases the danger to the public by creating an environment in which the wireless

system may crash—effectively preventing completion of the very 911 calls this program is designed to enhance.

With E911, however, the implementation schedule is instead determined by each

of the 7,000 PSAPs. If 1,000 PSAPs request Phase II service in a short period of

time, by rule, the carrier must then process and completely install 1,000 orders over

the following six months. The problem with this approach, besides the sheer quantities involved, is its haphazardness. Rather than being able to use resources efficiently, by converting PSAPs on a market-by-market basis, carriers must be prepared to convert an untold number of PSAPs simultaneously across the country.

This strategy totally defeats public safety and FCC arguments that carriers will recoup their location technology costs through commercial service. A revenue generating service simply cannot be built when the required location capability hardware

is installed in geographically dispersed small islands across the nation.

F. A Pending Proposal Would Result in Chaos. VoiceStream has already received

over 90 Phase II requests from PSAPs in 48 states. No carrier has the resources

to implement this many diversely located PSAPs simultaneously. Carriers must

therefore ration their resources using a reasonable strategy. (While it took more

than 20 years before 911/E911 service was available to 50 percent of Americans, the

FCC Order requires wireless carriers to achieve this result in five years while concurrently developing a new technology.)

Today, by FCC rule, PSAPs must complete their upgrades before they may even

make a valid E911 request. This requirement helps ensure that finite carrier resources are focused on PSAPs that have the capability actually to use wireless E911

service. However, PSAPs have recently asked the FCC to require carriers to begin

their implementation efforts based on a promise that they will be ready when the

carrier is ready. The problem with this approach is that while PSAPs may truly believe they will be Phase II capable on a certain date in the future, they may have

significant difficulty meeting this date because anticipated funding is not approved

or because of delays in the delivery of their new equipment or network upgrades.

The Texas CSEC example cited earlier demonstrates the complexity of wireless

35

E911 implementation in a real world environment. This latest PSAP proposal will

certainly increase the quantity of E911 requests made, but, if adopted this proposal

will result in fewer PSAPs converted—as carriers convert PSAPs that are not ready

as promised, PSAPs that already are Phase II capable will wait in line. Thus, unless

there is certainty the PSAP can use the Phase II data, we are certain to miss the

opportunity to improve public safety in some PSAPs that have completed the considerable effort necessary to be truly Phase II capable.

G. E911 Service for non-Customers. In 1997, the FCC decided that carriers should

forward all 911 calls to PSAPs, including 911 calls made by persons who are not

customers and, therefore, do not have a phone number associated with their

handset. Carriers expressed concern because features such as a ‘‘call back’’ capability would not be available from such ‘‘non-initialized’’ handsets. The land-line 911

equivalent—requiring that every telephone in America can not only call 911 but also

can be called back by the PSAP—is not a requirement. PSAPs have now begun to

complain about the unavailability of call back from these phones and, while carriers

are busy implementing Phase I and preparing for Phase II, the FCC has asked

whether industry should now be required to expend additional millions providing

additional capabilities to non-initialized handsets.

VI. RECOMMENDATIONS

Wireless E911 is an instance where the federal government, acting with the best

of intentions, moved faster that the state of technology warranted. Having worked

in the 911 field and managed 911 operations, I applaud the FCC’s willingness to

reach for the stars in its efforts to help America’s thousands of dedicated 911 professionals by improving the usefulness of wireless E911. President Kennedy took a

similarly bold stance in 1960 when he decided that the United States could send

a man to the moon within a decade. Kennedy’s goal was achieved because the necessary resources and coordination efforts were committed to the project. Unfortunately, the resources and coordination necessary for wireless 911 improvement have

increasingly been placed on only one of the many necessary participants. Ironically,

the wireless industry is being asked to retrofit its modern communications technology to support technology developed prior to the Kennedy Administration.

It is now time for us to work together to build on the knowledge we have gained

since the 1996 FCC Order by establishing a realistic strategy for Phase II deployment. We have new FCC Commissioners and I believe that these new Commissioners should be given an opportunity to review past orders and requirements

based on the substantial experience of the Phase I implementation and recent developments in Phase II technologies. I would like to believe that a new FCC would:

• Reexamine all wireless E911 obligations and deadlines based on the knowledge

learned; • Encourage carriers, vendors, LECs and PSAPs to engage in ‘‘real world’’ trials of

various Phase II technologies in order to ascertain areas in need of further improvement and to develop realistic operational parameters; • Consider in its new approach the impact zoning and permitting issues may have

on deployment timelines and include reasonable accommodations in the schedule for such potential delays; • Review the current and future problems arising from the inappropriate use of our

limited telephone number resources as 911 data keys and develop a workable

alternative; • Establish an implementation schedule that is efficient, considers the aforementioned issues, and meets the needs of both industry and the public safety community, and • Be guided by both the long-term, as well as short-term, best interests of the

Public’s need for a sound and nationally consistent 911 service. Let’s do it right,

rather than just fast.

Thank you for the opportunity to address the Subcommittee today. I am happy

to address any questions that you may have.

Mr. UPTON. Thank you.

Mr. Souder, we want to congratulate you and your group here locally for the job that they did that was displayed in the video at

the start. We will not take that 2 minutes away from your time.

STATEMENT OF STEVE SOUDER

Mr. SOUDER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and good morning to

you and members of the committee. My name is Steve Souder. I am

36

the Administrator of the Arlington County, Virginia 911 Emergency Communications Center and my comments this morning are

offered on behalf of three associations. One is the Association of

Public Safety Communications Officials, the other is the National

Emergency Number Association and the third is the National Association of State 911 Administrators. These three organizations represent 20,000 911 professionals throughout the United States.

In the 1980’s, cellular or as we call it wireless communications

and telephones were introduced commercially in the United States

and have had a profound and mostly positive impact on society and

our quality of life. Each day, there are approximately 320,000 911

calls made in the United States. Of those 320,000 911 calls, approximately 110,000 calls a day are made from wireless telephones.

As Mr. Terry mentioned earlier, more than 90 percent of the citizens surveyed indicate that the No. 1 reason that they purchased

a wireless telephone is for their safety and for their security.

Wireless 911 calls constitute between 40 to 60 percent of 911

calls received and do not provide any automatic location, identification or ALI information. ALI information is what is meant by intense 911. Consequently 911 call takers do not where 40 to 60 percent of all 911 calls are calling from or where the callers are at and

often the callers do not know where they are at, nor do they know

their telephone number, nor do they many times know the provider

of the telephone service to that telephone number.

If I could draw your attention to the exhibit on the easel, if you

were to call 911 on a wireline telephone as I hold before you from

your office, your business or from a coin telephone, the call taker

would know exactly where you were calling from. However, if you

call up 911 on a wireless telephone without moving one inch, the

call taker would have no idea where you’re calling from. As you can

see, there is more telephones to which call 911 and more 911 calls

being made, most of them from wireless telephones. Because the location of the caller is unknown we are regressing in our ability to

provide quality service to the community, rather than progressing.

Wireline 911 calls are usually received and entered in the dispatch center within 40 seconds due to the availability of the ALI

information providing the call location. However, wireless 911 calls

may cause up to more than 4 minutes of additional delay in entering those calls into the system because without the caller knowing

where they are and the call taker knowing where they are, there

is a tremendous amount of dialog that has to go between the two

in order to enter the information that will allow for a speedy response.

In 1994, the Public Safety Communications organizations petitioned the FCC for assistance. As a result, in 1996, the FCC issued

rules. Included in those rules were Phase II which is what we’re

speaking about today and that by October 1, 2001, the location of

wireless 911 callers be provided to the public safety answering

point or PSAP, commonly referred to as the 911 Center within a

radius of between 164 feet and 328 feet and I deliberately mention

feet as opposed to meters which is often referred to because it gives

us a context in which to view that distance. Remember the 320 feet

is slightly longer than a football field. That is a far cry from the

information that we saw presented on the ALI screen earlier.

37

In the interim, wireless telephones have been improved to include the ability to page, send and receive e-mail, access the internet, vibrate instead of ring and ring in many different tones and

styles and become smaller and come in every color of the rainbow.

Recently, in fact, I saw an advertisement advertising a telephone

that could provide video. As Mr. Markey said earlier, now 5 years

after the rules have been issued and 4 months before the technology is required to be provided, October 1, 2001, some carriers

have requested a waiver of that requirement and others are expected to do so. The single most important reason that people use

phones is for their safety and security and yet the ability to provide

location technology to locate those people when they call 911 has

not been provided and waivers to providing it are being requested.

Again, as Mr. Terry mentioned earlier, it is not unusual for PSAP

to receive as many 70 wireless 911 calls reporting one accident.

Each call must be answered to ensure that a different emergency

is not being reported. If the location of the caller were known, the

speed and the manner in which these multiple calls were handled

could be improved dramatically.

There are many news accounts of wireless 911 calls that result

in fatalities because the 911 call taker and the 911 caller did not

know the location of the emergency. A highly publicized case several months wherein a car went off the road in Southern Florida

resulted in a fatality and a lot of media attention. The caller’s call

sank beneath the water as the call taker talked to the victim for

31⁄2 minutes as the call taker tried in vain to obtain the location

that the car was located at. Meanwhile, emergency vehicles were

speeding up and down the road looking in vain for the location of

the car. When the car was finally located, it was totally submerged

in water and its passenger had succumbed. That victim could have

been any one in this room, your family members, your loved ones,

co-workers, business associates, it could be a wireless telephone

service provider, it could be a Member of Congress or it could be

a 911 call taker. This type of tragedy can strike anyone.

In my own jurisdiction, as mentioned earlier in the video, within

the last year there have been three high profile incidents involving

reports by people using cellular telephones to report emergencies

that have gained both national and international attention: abduction and car jacking which we saw on the video; and abduction and

rape; and a person threatening suicide. It was only through professionalism, luck and persistence that they were positively resolved

and in one case it took almost an hour and another almost 30 minutes for something that should have taken less than 1 minute.

It is unconscionable that in 1987 when 100 percent of the enhanced 911 calls received were provided with location technology

and yet in the year 2001 60 percent of those calls received are not

provided with location technology.

In closing, in 1958, the Congress of the United States endorsed

the concept of the three digit number 911 for use in summoning

law enforcement, fire, rescue and emergency medical services. Ten

years later, in 1968, the first 911 call was made from a small town

of Haileysville, Alabama. Since that time, 911 has become synonymous to Americans as the best way to request emergency assistance. Millions of citizens owe their life to 911 and with the advent

38

of wireless telephones, 911 service now is available from locations

that it was never available from before.

On behalf of APCO, NENA and NASNA, I urge the Congress to

do whatever is within your power to ensure that those ever increasing number of American citizens who call 911 from their wireless

telephone are assured that their location is made available and

that the 911 emergency communication center is able to process

those calls in the same manner that occurs with a 911 call made

from a wireline telephone. Americans deserve that, expect that and

need that.

Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Steve Souder follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF STEVE SOUDER, ADMINISTRATOR, ARLINGTON COUNTY, VIRGINIA 9-1-1 EMERGENCY COMMUNICATIONS CENTER ON BEHALF OF THE ASSOCIATION OF PUBLIC-SAFETY COMMUNICATIONS OFFICIALS-INTERNATIONAL, INC., THE

NATIONAL EMERGENCY NUMBER ASSOCIATION AND THE NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF

STATE NINE ONE ONE ADMINISTRATORS

Mr. Chairman, members of the Committee, thank you very much for providing me

with this opportunity to appear before you today. My name is Steve Souder, and

I am the Administrator of the Arlington County 9-1-1 Emergency Communication

Center. I am here today on behalf of the Association of Public-Safety Communications Officials-International, Inc. (APCO), the National Emergency Number Association (NENA), and the National Association of State Nine One One Administrators

(NASNA). These associations represent state and local government emergency 9-1-

1 communications centers (also known as ‘‘Public Safety Answering Points’’ or

‘‘PSAPs’’). APCO, NENA, and NASNA have worked tirelessly to promote wireless

enhanced 9-1-1 capability, and I am proud to be here today on their behalf and the

approximately 6,000 PSAPs across the United States.

Until approximately ten years ago, nearly all incoming 9-1-1 calls to PSAPs were

from wireline telephones, and most provided the call-taker with automatic number

identification (ANI) and automatic location information (ALI) for the caller. The provision of ANI and ALI is known as Enhanced 9-1-1 or E9-1-1. Attached to copies

of my testimony is an illustration of a typical data screen that a call-taker sees immediately upon receiving a wireline E9-1-1 call. Armed with this information, the

9-1-1 call-taker can quickly and accurately dispatch police, fire, ambulance and

other appropriate public safety agency personnel to emergency locations.

Today, unfortunately, close to half of all 9-1-1 calls provide LESS information

than what we had ten years ago for most wireline calls. The reason is simple. The

explosive growth of wireless telephones has occurred without E9-1-1 capability, leaving PSAPs in the dark regarding the location of 40-50% of their 9-1-1 callers.

There are approximately 110 million wireless telephones in use in the United

States, a majority of which were probably acquired to provide the subscriber with

a greater sense of security and the ability to seek emergency assistance anywhere,

anytime. Those 110 million wireless telephones generate approximately 120,000 9-

1-1 calls every day. However, uosdHokkhnlike the typical wireline call of even ten

years ago, virtually none of those 120,000 daily wireless calls provide Enhanced 9-

1-1 information. The data screen that the 9-1-1 call taker sees in those instances

has none of the essential location and call back information that has long been

available for most wireline calls.

Without accurate location information for wireless calls, the 9-1-1 call-taker must

make a verbal inquiry regarding the caller’s location, adding to the time that must

be spent on each call, and slowing down response time by several precious minutes.

Wireless 9-1-1 callers also often do not know exactly where they are, or they are

unable to describe their location with any clarity or accuracy. In some cases, callers

may even hang up, or their wireless calls are ‘‘dropped’’ before they can provide necessary information regarding the emergency or its location. These problems are

every day occurrences in PSAPs across the nation.

Mr. Chairman, as you know, there have been highly publicized emergencies where

the absence of wireless location information led directly to the loss of life, or at least

imposed far greater danger to than would otherwise have occurred. For example,

members of the Committee may be familiar with an incident in my own jurisdiction

in Northern Virginia where a women was hijacked and placed in the trunk of her

car while it sped away. While she had a portable cell phone with her, and could

39

call 9-1-1 to report her predicament, she obviously could not identify her changing

location.

In a recent highly publicized event in Florida, a woman’s vehicle went off the road

and landed in a drainage canal. She immediately called 9-1-1 from her cell phone

as her car slowly sank into the water. However, because she could only identify the

name of the road she was on, and not the actual scene of the accident (which was

not visible from the road itself), emergency personnel were unable to find her in

time, and the women drowned.

I mention these cases because they tend to highlight the nature of the problem.

However, I want to emphasize that the lack of wireless E9-1-1 is a daily threat

throughout the United States.

Even when a wireless 9-1-1 caller can provide accurate verbal descriptions of their

location, the absence of automatic location information can still wreak havoc with

a PSAP’s ability to respond efficiently to emergencies. For example, it is not at all

unusual for my agency to receive up to 70 calls reporting the same automobile accident. Finding such an emergency is not the problem. The problem is that we don’t

know in advance that those 70 calls are all about the same event, and we therefore

need to spend scarce resources to answer each and every call. In the meantime, the

PSAP’s incoming lines become clogged and we run the risk that there may be another caller waiting in line to report an entirely different emergency. In contrast,

with automatic location information for wireless calls, our systems could be set up

to prioritize calls such that after the first report, all other calls from the immediate

vicinity would be placed in queue behind calls from other locations.

Fortunately, major efforts are underway to address these serious problems,

though much more is still to be done. Nearly ten years ago, APCO, NENA, and others identified wireless E9-1-1 as a critical issue and brought it to the FCC’s attention. The Commission responded with a proceeding that began in 1994, and resulted

in rules adopted in 1996. However, as of today, we still do not have wireless E9-

1-1. Admittedly, providing accurate location information for a wireless call is not a

simple matter, and it is not without substantial costs. I note, however, that in the

five year period since 1996, a plethora of other new wireless telephone enhancements have been developed and marketed to the public. Examples include e-mail,

instant messaging, Internet access, hands-free operation, and a shrinkage in the

size and cost of handsets. I only wish the wireless industry and equipment manufacturers had developed E9-1-1 at the same pace as these convenience features.

Now, we are facing an important deadline. On October 1, 2001, assuming that

there has been a valid request from a PSAP, a wireless carrier must begin implementation of Phase II of the rules. Phase II requires delivery of location information

within accuracy levels of 50-100 meters (164-328 feet), depending upon the choice

of location technology. Only then will PSAPs begin to see the real benefits of wireless E9-1-1.

Some wireless carriers are proceeding on schedule to meet the October 1 deadline,

and I applaud their commitment. Others, however, have fallen behind and are either seeking waivers, or are expected to do so in the near future. I and the public

safety organizations that I am representing here today are deeply troubled by these

waivers. We recognize that the carriers face significant costs and technical challenges. However, the fact that some carriers are on schedule, and that both network-based and handset-based location technologies are available and proven in the

field, suggests that some carriers have simply not devoted sufficient attention or resources to this issue. These proven location technologies may not be perfect, but

theyhave demonstrated the capability to meet the FCC’s standards. Something better will always come along tomorrow. But we in public safety are seriously concerned that if we keep delaying present performance based on future promise, we

will never have anything workable to improve on. We simply cannot allow the perfect to be the enemy of the good.

The issues facing carriers are complex, and I know that APCO, NENA and

NASNA are undertaking a serious review of the documentation submitted in support of various waivers, and will be making appropriate recommendations to the

Commission. I also recognize that there may be some factors beyond the control of

carriers which may cause delay in Phase II implementation in some situations. Nevertheless, the public safety community urges that the Commission be firm and, to

the extent possible, hold the carriers to the existing deadlines, because lives are at

stake. Every day of delay is another day that the public is at risk because of the

inability to quickly and accurately locate emergencies reported on wireless telephones.

Of course PSAPs also have a responsibility for making E9-1-1 a reality. Many

PSAPs are now or will soon be ready to receive and process Phase II information

from wireless carriers. Frankly, others are not so far along, either because of fundVerDate 11-MAY-2000 14:33 Aug 10, 2001 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00043 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 73728.TXT HCOM2 PsN: HCOM2
40

ing constraints, the need for LEC network upgrades, or perhaps a reluctance to expend scarce resources for Phase II readiness until the carriers are themselves proceeding towards Phase II deployment. The public safety community is working hard,

however, to improve E9-1-1 readiness on the part of PSAPs. For example, I am part

of APCO’s Project Locate which is working, with participation from NENA, to educate PSAPs and assist them in becoming Phase II ready as soon a possible. APCO

and NENA have also sponsored seminars and other educational programs across the

county to educate PSAPs, some of which are quite small and have limited funding

and technical expertise.

The challenges before us are great. However, I am confident that a united effort

between the wireless industry, equipment manufacturers, technology providers,

PSAPs, and the FCC will allow the United States to continue to have state-of-art

methods for receiving and processing calls for emergency assistance. In the end, our

common goal must be the ability to locate every 9-1-1 call, regardless of the type

of telephone placing the call. I am sure that this Committee agrees with that goal,

and we welcome your support and encouragement in that regard.

Thank you

Mr. UPTON. Thank you.

Mr. Sugrue.

STATEMENT OF THOMAS J. SUGRUE

Mr. SUGRUE. Good morning, Mr. Chairman and members of the

committee and subcommittee. A little over 2 years ago in my second week on the job as the new chief of the Wireless Bureau, I appeared before the subcommittee to testify on E911 matters. And

Ms. Eshoo’s comment about the importance of this technology to

women reminded me that morning I told the subcommittee that I

personally became a wireless subscriber when a number of important women in my life reached a critical stage and that was when

my daughters became drivers and when my first daughter turned

16 we got our first cell phone and when her younger sister became

16 and started driving, we got the second. Then my wife said hey,

what about me, and I said that’s right, we got the third and I was

the last one to get a cell phone in the family, although now we’re

all enthusiastic wireless users.

Well, in the intervening 2 years, both Congress and the Commission have continued to focus on wireless 911 and taken important

steps toward our mutual goal of a nationwide ubiquitous reliable

wireless E911 system. And one of the cornerstones of this progress

was the passage of the Wireless Communications and Public Safety

Act in October 1999 under the auspices of this subcommittee and

the leadership of the subcommittee Chairman Tauzin and many of

the current subcommittee members, Mr. Shimkus was the sponsor,

Ms. Eshoo, I know was the co-sponsor, Ms. McCarthy I know was

very involved as well. So I commend the subcommittee and its

members for those efforts in this regard and that legislation has

been very helpful in moving us along to realize our goals for E911.

On the FCC side, we too have been actively engaged in 911 matters during the last 2 years. Among other things, we have increased the range of options available to carriers by permitting the

use of new handset based technologies such as those using the GPS

satellite system and so-called hybrid technologies, those that combine elements of both handset and network based approaches. Our

decision in that regard was based, in part, on arguments from

rural carriers that these technologies were needed for them to be

able to implement E911 and their operating areas.

41

We adjusted and clarified our rules concerning certain operational issues affecting E911 implementation including cost recovery by carriers and PSAP. We convened several multi-party meetings, including carriers, vendors, manufacturers and members of

the public safety community to exchange information on the state

of location technology development. And we performed extensive

outreach, speaking at numerous, numerous conferences, meetings

and other events aimed at informing and educating interested parties including State and local public safety agencies and carriers on

our 911 rules and policies.

Now in 2001, the beginning of phased in deployment of Phase II

is almost here. As has already been noted many times, carriers are

begin the process of rolling out Phase II on October 1 of this year.

This October 1 deployment timeframe dates back to a consensus

agreement between the wireless carrier community and the public

safety community which was filed with the Commission in 1996

and formed the basis of our E911 rules.

Now I should add that Phase II implementation is not a flash cut

process. Under the Commission’s rules, it will take several years

for Phase II to be ubiquitously deployed. For example, with

handset based technologies, the rules require carriers to hit progressively higher penetration levels for location capable handsets

until they achieve a 95 percent penetration by the end of 2005.

Carriers choosing network based technologies must incorporate the

necessary hardware and software in their networks over a 6 to 18

month period after receiving a request from a PSAP for service.

These PSAP requests are expected to come in over the next few

years as the PSAPs become ready to utilize Phase II services at different points in time.

Well, where does wireless E911 stand now? I agree with Jim

Nixon that it seems clear that parties have come a long way since

their original agreement in 1996 and from the information provided

to us, it appears that a number of carriers are well on their way

to deploying Phase II and a number of call centers have requested

Phase II and are preparing themselves to use this new location information effectively.

We recognize that there are always challenges involved in deploying any major new technology on a mass market basis for the

first time and wireless location technologies are no different. To

make the promise of wireless E911 a reality, much work remains

to be done by call centers, vendors and carriers to meet the challenges involved in deploying these life-saving technologies.

We at the FCC will continue our efforts to make this happen. We

are committed to working with the stakeholders to resolve problems and speed deployment, but we are also committed to enforcement of our rules, if for example, parties simply ignore their obligations or fail to make good faith efforts to comply.

At the same time we will be flexible and practical in applying the

E911 rules. Last year, the Commission set out specific standards

for Phase II waivers in an order granting a specific limited waiver

to VoiceStream. Those standards, fundamentally, require carriers

to show the Commission what they can and will do to provide

Phase II location information, not simply what they cannot do.

42

We are currently considering several waiver requests and will

address those based on the specific showings and facts presented

to us. Our focus will remain on the most practical and realistic

means of achieving the objectives of promoting public safety and

implementing Phase II as soon as possible.

Finally, I am reassured by factual information indicating that

there is wireless location technology available, capable of locating

911 callers much more accurately than is the case today. In my

view, it is time to begin the deployment process. And as that deployment proceeds, I expect that the technology and system-wide

performance will improve as we learn and get experience with it.

I also expect as customers increasingly understand how location capability makes their life safer, they will insist on having it available and will come to rely on it in the same way they rely on air

bags, seat belts and cars.

I am confident that the future of this technology is strong once

it is actually deployed and this virtual cycle begins to kick in. But

to get to that future all of us involved in this process will have to

redouble our efforts to see that the promise of this life saving technology is fulfilled.

Again, I’d like to thank the subcommittee for this opportunity to

provide you with this information on our program and I look forward to working with you over the next few months and years as

we go forward on this and answer any questions, of course, this

morning.

[The prepared statement of Thomas J. Sugrue follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF THOMAS J. SUGRUE, CHIEF, WIRELESS

TELECOMMUNICATIONS BUREAU, FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION

I. INTRODUCTION

Good morning Mr. Chairman and Members of the Subcommittee. Thank you for

this opportunity to report to you on the Commission’s policies and rules aimed at

improving the quality and delivery of wireless 911 services throughout the Nation

and, in particular, at implementing wireless Enhanced 911.

II. IMPORTANCE OF WIRELESS ENHANCED 911 SERVICE

Almost exactly five years ago today, the FCC adopted the first wireless Enhanced

911 rules, as a vital step in applying wireless technology to improving public safety.

A wireless phone is a valuable emergency tool that can be taken almost anywhere.

For many Americans, the ability to call for help in an emergency is the principal

reason they own a wireless phone. But that help may never arrive, or may be too

late, if the 911 call does not get through or if emergency response teams cannot locate you quickly. Our wireless 911 rules require that wireless carriers deliver 911

calls and implement the technology that provides the 911 call center with information about the caller’s location.

We based those first rules in large measure on an agreement reached between the

wireless industry and the public safety community back in 1996. Both recognized

the importance of improving wireless 911 and, especially, of locating wireless 911

calls. To reach these goals, these parties developed, and filed with the Commission,

a Consensus Agreement that proposed a transition plan to allow the wireless industry and technology vendors to develop and begin to deploy the capability to accurately locate 911 calls. This consensus transition plan included both scheduling and

accuracy requirements. The goals it set were very challenging—they required the

development of sophisticated location technologies for all of the various transmission

standards used by wireless carriers. It also required effective, cooperative efforts

among wireless carriers, technology vendors, equipment manufacturers, local telephone companies, and state and local public safety organizations and governments.

The Commission adopted E911 rules based on the schedule and the accuracy standards proposed in the parties’ Consensus Agreement.

43

The Commission has recognized, however, that new technologies often develop in

unexpected ways, both good and bad, and that we should be ready to adjust our

rules both to take advantage of the opportunities, and to ameliorate the problems,

presented by such developments. Accordingly, over the course of the intervening

years, we have made revisions to our rules with the goal of facilitating the deployment of wireless E911. In particular, we have adjusted our program in several ways

to reflect technological change and to allow carriers more choices to meet our standards. For example, when technology was developed to put GPS location capability

in wireless handsets, we revised our rules to permit this promising new technology

to compete with network-based solutions in providing location information. We also

revised the methodology for assessing accuracy to make it more workable and tightened the accuracy requirements somewhat to better reflect technological developments and to further enhance public safety. And last year we granted a temporary,

limited waiver of the accuracy requirements to VoiceStream, to permit use of a new

hybrid location technology; i.e., one that combines elements of the handset- and network-based approaches. Other Commission orders have addressed a range of obstacles to E911 deployment, including funding and disputes over the division of responsibilities between carriers and public safety call centers.

Now, in 2001, the end of the scheduled 5-year development period and the beginning of phased-in deployment are almost here. Under the Commission’s rules, carriers are to begin the process of rolling out E911 Phase II on October 1, 2001, less

than four months from now. When Phase II is implemented, it will generally enable

the reporting of the location of 911 calls within 100 meters or better. However, I

should add that this is not a flash-cut process—it will take several years for Phase

II to be ubiquitously deployed. For example, with handset-based technologies, the

rules require carriers to hit progressively higher penetration levels for location capable handsets, until they achieve 95 percent penetration by the end of 2005. Similarly, carriers choosing network-based technologies must incorporate the necessary

hardware and software into their networks over a 6- to 18-month period after receiving a request from a PSAP for E911 service. These requests are expected to

come in over the next few years as PSAPs become ready to utilize Phase II services

at different points in time.

As we approach this benchmark, the need for wireless E911 is clearer and greater

than ever. In 1995, there were 34 million wireless subscribers, who, according to the

Cellular Telecommunications and Internet Association, made 20 million 911 calls a

year. Today, there are more than 116 million wireless subscribers and the number

of wireless 911 calls has more than doubled, to over 50 million a year. About 30

percent of all 911 calls nationwide are now made from wireless phones, and this

percentage is growing. This dramatic increase in wireless 911 calls places increasing

burdens on call takers at 911 call centers, particularly since accurate location information is not provided for any of those calls. E911 Phase II is needed more than

ever to help police, fire and emergency medical teams locate emergencies more

quickly and do their life-saving work more effectively and efficiently.

III. CURRENT STATUS OF WIRELESS E911

Where does wireless E911 stand now—and how near are the original Consensus

Agreement parties to meeting the pledge made to begin accurately locating wireless

911 calls within five years? In my view, they are close to hitting that target. They

certainly have come a long way. Promising location technologies have been developed and field tested. Necessary software is being developed and infrastructure

equipment and handsets are being manufactured. Many carriers appear well on the

way to deploying Phase II, and many call centers have requested Phase II and are

preparing themselves to use this new location information effectively. But there are

always challenges involved in deploying any major new technology on a mass market basis for the first time, and wireless location technologies are no different. To

make the promise of wireless E911 a reality, much work remains to be done by call

centers, vendors, and carriers to meet the challenges involved in deploying these

lifesaving technologies.

We at the Commission will continue our work to make this happen, and to

achieve complete deployment of Phase II location information across the nation as

quickly as possible. Progress to date has been spurred, in large part, by the Commission’s rules and decisions. Those rules have been definite in requiring that carriers implement E911, but flexible and practical in the means by which they do so.

This approach requires cooperation and good faith effort on all sides to ensure successful deployment. We are committed to working with the stakeholders to resolve

problems and speed deployment. But we are also committed to enforcement of our

rules if, for example, parties simply ignore their obligations or fail to make good

44

faith efforts to comply. Thus, it is important for all parties to work diligently to

achieve the goals they agreed to five years ago, which are now reflected in the wireless E911 rules.

We share Congress’ vision, embodied in the Wireless Telecommunications and

Public Safety Act of 1999, of a seamless, ubiquitous, and reliable wireless telecommunications system that plays a critical, life-saving role in emergency communications. The specific provisions of the 911 Act—declaring 911 the national emergency number, protecting the privacy of location information while providing for its

effective use in emergencies, and promoting liability protection—have significantly

advanced those goals, and we commend this Subcommittee for its leadership in getting this important legislation enacted. We strongly support the vision of the 911

Act and remain determined to monitor and enforce the E911 rules to help achieve

that vision.

At the same time, we will continue to be flexible and practical in applying the

E911 rules, when the circumstances warrant that approach. Last year, in granting

the VoiceStream waiver, the Commission set out specific standards for Phase II

waivers. Those standards, fundamentally, require carriers to show the Commission

what they can and will do to provide Phase II location information, not simply what

they cannot do. The Commission expects wireless carriers to take concrete steps toward achieving Phase II, while recognizing that difficulties may arise. Different carriers may face different problems and opportunities, because of the technology they

use or the geographic areas they serve. We are currently considering several waiver

requests and have heard reports that other carriers are preparing additional requests. We plan to address these requests based on the specific showings and facts

presented to us, with our focus on the most practical and realistic means of achieving the objectives of promoting public safety and implementing Phase II as soon and

as fully as possible.

In fashioning this program, we are reassured by factual information indicating

that there is wireless location technology available capable of locating 911 callers

much more accurately than is in place today and think that it is time to begin deployment. As that deployment proceeds, we expect that the technology and systemwide performance will improve, and as customers increasingly understand how location capability makes their lives safer, they will insist on having it available. They

will come to rely on automatic wireless location identification in the same way they

rely on air bags and seatbelts in their cars. And once customers begin to use wireless location technology, competition and experience will help make it not only more

accurate and reliable, but more useful for other purposes as well. The future of this

technology is, I am confident, strong, once it is actually deployed and this ‘‘virtuous

cycle’’ begins to kick in. But to get to that future, all of us involved in this process

will have to redouble our efforts to see that the promise of this life-saving technology is fulfilled.

IV. CONCLUSION

I would like to thank the Subcommittee for this opportunity to provide information on the Commission’s wireless E911 program. I look forward to updating this

information as wireless E911 advances and to answering any of your questions.

Mr. UPTON. Thank you, all of you. I think like most of the Panel,

I have myself a ton of questions and my sense is we’ll probably go

two rounds, perhaps, for those of us able to stay.

Very enlightening testimony for sure and going back to the opening statements as well, and thinking about the first time that our

family went out and got a cell phone was exactly the reasons Mr.

Sugrue that you talked about. I have a 13-year-old, but she’s already asking for a phone, so we’ll see if she gets it before she gets

her driver’s license.

Mr. Rimkus, why in your opinion haven’t more carriers embraced

Airbiquity’s GPS Accessory product?

Mr. RIMKUS. I think that the technology out there is reasonably

new, this kind of GPS technology, particularly in this form factor.

On the issue of cost, it is very much a volume driven type of product.

Mr. UPTON. Tell us again what the cost is per handset.

45

Mr. RIMKUS. Our product in low volumes, we expect it to sell in the range up to $99 which again in low volumes. As volumes increase, we expect that cost as any kind of technology comes about

to go down. Just as when analog phones were then replaced with

digital phones several years ago as the new features came forward,

those phones were also initially pricey and then going forward with

additional type of demand, price went down.

Also, with our particular product and implementation, it is limited to a specific handset manufacturer that would, in this case it’s

a Nokia handset manufacturer and those carriers again would need

to be distributors of that product.

Mr. UPTON. Mr. Nixon and Mr. Clark, why wouldn’t

TruePositions 911 solution be right for your company. Mr. Amarosa

talked extensively about the testing that they’ve done in a number

of areas, I think it was what, 400 places around the country, I

imagine a pretty good blend of rural and urban areas.

Mr. NIXON. Actually, VoiceStream has expended a lot of effort

with a number of vendors. In fact, all the vendors that we identified as potential solutions to our particular situation. We worked

very extensively with TruePosition before we actually received our

waiver from the FCC. And we found that in our particular situation because—not being an engineer, I’m going to speak rather generally, each one of the radio technologies that is used and there are

4 or 5 major ones out there at least, there are different characteristics that would either enhance or degrade the performance of any

given location technology.

Mr. UPTON. Let me just interrupt you for 1 second. I’m from

Southwest Michigan and as I have talked to my 911 folks, we’re

across the lake from Chicago and particularly with the network

base solution where you have to do the triangulation which you see

the towers primarily for me it’s I-94, connecting Detroit and Chicago. We actually heard from some of our folks that if there’s an

accident on the Dan Ryan Expressway in Chicago, sometimes that

signal is forward along the cell is filled up and it’s literally forwarded along to 65 miles across Lake Michigan in Bering County

that gets the accident results for what’s happening in downtown

Chicago. You’re not able to, particularly in rural areas, to put those

towers up and do the triangulation which means it may be something along the lines of the GPS system which most sailors again

in Western Michigan, we’ve got a lot of boat owners, we’ve got the

GPS there and people know where they are.

Mr. CLARK. Let me add a little bit to what Jim is saying. First

of all, from an engineering perspective, radio frequencies are an imprecise science in that they are affected by many, many anomalies,

topographic anomalies, atmospheric anomalies, a lot of things can

cause the radio waves to do different things. A case in point is you

can be in the middle of downtown Chicago and to the extent that

you get into a radio anomaly where the system interferes with

itself, it creates what’s called a fernel zone, you won’t have service.

Mr. UPTON. Mr. Amarosa, when you tested it, I know you’re from

New York, New York has got to be the worse case scenario for that

type of situation.

Mr. AMAROSA. We were successful in the testing in New York

based on the number of cell sites that were deployed which was

46

over 30, based on the configuration which was basically in the midtown Manhattan area at that given point in time.

There are other environments that present challenges and some

of those challenges have to be met on a day to day basis. That’s

why it’s so very important to understand the particular area that

you’re in, like you’ve talked about, southern Michigan and the lake

problems and the proximity——

Mr. UPTON. You tested in both rural and urban.

Mr. AMAROSA. We tested in rural and we had some successes in

rural areas with TDOA. We had better success with an angle of arrival capability that exists and we will continue to test. We have

test systems that are going on right now in rural counties in Wilmington, Delaware as well.

Mr. UPTON. I know my——

Mr. CLARK. Mr. Chairman, may I finish my comment?

Mr. UPTON. You can. It’s my time and I won’t yield it back yet.

Go ahead.

Mr. CLARK. Thank you. I didn’t want to cast disparaging comments against TruePosition. They truly have a product that works.

My comments were in the context of trying to understand the

anomalies that can happen with radio frequencies. Cellular, notwithstanding, that’s just—that’s the quantum physics of radio. But

the one thing that I would like to do is make sure that we understand there is a clear distinction between an area as Chicago or

Michigan where you have cell density that provides you enough reference points to accurately locate a subscriber, versus rural America, like southeastern Oregon where we don’t have enough cell sites

to be able to accurately triangulate and find those customers we’ll

locate on a network technology.

Mr. UPTON. But just to follow up on that for a second, wouldn’t

the GPS system be a far better way in rural Oregon than having

the—the towers, from what I understand, one of you testified, the

full testimony indicated that the cost per tower was along the lines

of as much as a half a million a tower. Is that right?

Mr. CLARK. That’s correct.

Mr. UPTON. To do those triangulation towers, that’s a lot of

money, a lot of millions.

Mr. CLARK. In the record you’ll find that U.S. Cellular has selected handset based GPS as the solution for our rural customers.

Mr. UPTON. I know my time has expired. Mr. Sawyer?

Mr. SAWYER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Let me turn to the

human side, Mr. Sugrue talked about the adaptation in the emergency and law enforcement communities and Mr. Souder, you’re

here speaking to that. Could you talk to me for a moment about

how ready services are across the country to respond to the technology when it gets here and what remains to be done, what level

of preparation do they have right now?

Mr. SUGRUE. I’d be happy, but I think he’d be the better of the

two to respond.

Mr. SAWYER. Either one of you.

Mr. SOUDER. The 911 public safety community is in the process

of being ready. Many communications centers are ready today.

They could accept whatever was provided in the way of Phase II

47

technology. Others are installing that equipment and preparing for

that.

In my own jurisdiction, just yesterday, I was in the capital of

Virginia, Richmond, at a hearing of its newly appointed 911 Board,

knowing that it’s only several years old and the purpose of that

meeting was to participate in a dialog as to how the Commonwealth of Virginia was going to support the PSAP community in

preparing them financially for the investment of new technology

that would allow us to receive those calls. They are on the verge

of voting affirmatively to fund mapping technology for the entire

State of Virginia that would afford us the opportunity to do that.

Those kinds of efforts are occurring in many places of the United

States.

Mr. SAWYER. Is that mapping that would superimpose latitude

and longitude over ordinary street descriptions?

Mr. SOUDER. That is correct. It would literally be an icon on a

map that would allow you to identify physically where the call is

being made from.

Obviously, the technology is expensive for some jurisdictions. Unfortunately, not all States have developed cost recovery mechanisms for Enhanced 911 via wireless. Approximately half of the Nation has. The other half are considering it and the three associations that I represent are available to assist them in any way possible to help them craft the legislation that would allow for cost recovery to be in place and they could help to underwrite the cost in

their particular States.

Mr. SAWYER. We’ve heard some references to cross jurisdictional

problems and questions of messages that are received in a location

that could not possibly render service. Are the protocols in place for

dealing with either mutual assistance or cross jurisdictional reference, rapid reference?

Mr. SOUDER. Yes, they are and in the context that if a wireless

911 call was received from a caller from downtown Chicago to a

constituent of Mr. Upton’s in southeastern—— Mr. UPTON. Southwestern.

Mr. SOUDER. Southwestern.

Mr. UPTON. We’re doing redistricting now. We don’t want to go

quite that far. It once went that far, but before me.

Mr. SOUDER. Thank you, Mr. Upton. There are procedures in

place that would allow the call taker receiving the call to then

transfer the call back to where it was originated from. Obviously,

one could not expect that call to go across several States and a call

taker sitting in Iowa to get that call and know where to transfer

it back to, but the mechanisms are very similar to those that have

been in place for years as it relates to wire 911 calls. Now those

networks are network-based and they are selectively routed and

consequently it is only infrequently that a 911 center would receive

a call that didn’t originate within that center. But in the wireless

environment, indeed that does happen. We received a call very recently from suburban Maryland and downtown Arlington, but we

had the procedure in place wherein we understood why it was received, because the comment made earlier about cell sites being

business and forwarding it along until you hit, if you will, a PSAP

that can answer your call, but very quickly we were able to route

48

that call back to the PSAP that was responsible for that jurisdiction.

Mr. SAWYER. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. UPTON. Mr. Terry.

Mr. TERRY. I want to just clarify, follow the same line of questioning, and go back a little bit. How many 911 centers around the

country are even capable of handling this technology today. I heard

100 percent and 50 percent and I need that clarified in my mind.

Mr. SOUDER. I cannot give you an exact percent. The APCO organization that I am speaking on behalf of has initiated a project

called Project Locate. The purpose of that project is to both elevate

attention to the issue as well as to identify within each State a jurisdiction or perhaps a region and in some cases an entire State

that indeed will be the model community or the model jurisdiction

for the deployment of Phase II wireless in that particular State. We

have participants throughout the United States. All of those participants are ready to receive those calls. That was a requirement,

if you will, to participate in that.

Mr. TERRY. All right, so my opening statement when I talk about

being in the Badlands of eastern Colorado, I can’t even be sure

today that once we have the cell phone technology to locate that,

whether or not that 911 center who would receive the call has the

technology to locate?

Mr. SOUDER. That’s correct.

Mr. TERRY. So we’re talking about two rails here, first of all is

the—one rail is the cell phone provider and service provider, the

other is our 911 centers have to use, catch up and use that technology.

I say that because when I mentioned my experience on the

Omaha City Council and we upgraded to the Enhanced 911 Center

and merged several government entities into one package, we had

a specific discussion about cell phone technology and making sure

that the product that we bought was capable of doing that and I

remember, I can’t remember the exact added expense of that, but

I just couldn’t imagine that smaller communities could afford to

even do it. So I’m just kind of wondering, maybe you have a better

handle on this.

Do you know how many communities are able to use the technology today and how far behind—maybe that’s the wrong question. How far do they have to go to catch up to what we’re requesting the cell service providers do?

Mr. SUGRUE. The information we have comes from the public

safety organizations like APCO and NENA. NENA which is the

National Emergency Number Association, sort of the association of

PSAPs is doing a national report card study that they commissioned and which I think they’re aiming to release soon, within the

next month perhaps, as soon as the end of the month at their annual convention and I would hope there would be some data on

that in there.

Our information, first of all, the Phase I which we haven’t talked

much about today, but is cell location to the cell site or cell sector,

is I think finally reached a point that it’s starting to roll out pretty

steadily across the country. Right now again the data we’ve been

49

provided indicates about 20 to 30 percent of the PSAPs have that

and that provides a stage then to go to Phase II.

We also believe that there are about, we’ve been told it’s about

60 to 100 Phase II requests. That would include the Project Locate

48, but there are others as well. But out of 6,000 PSAPs, that’s still

obviously a small number.

I should also add that our rules don’t require a carrier to implement Phase II until the PSAP is ready. Now there is a present dispute before that was alluded to as to when one assesses readiness

at the time of the request or at the time the service is to be turned

on and as I said that is before us, but in general principle, if the

PSAP isn’t ready, the carrier doesn’t have the obligation to put it

in place then.

Mr. TERRY. One follow-up, generally, in my last few seconds here,

what’s the congressional role in this labor? Isn’t it basically your

call, you, the FCC’s call?

Mr. SUGRUE. The congressional role is, it’s really basically the

FCC’s call, but we’re always interested in input from this subcommittee.

Mr. TERRY. Thank you.

Mr. UPTON. Ms. Eshoo.

Ms. ESHOO. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My first question is for

Mr. Sugrue. To your knowledge, are there any carriers who are on

schedule to comply with the October deadline?

Mr. SUGRUE. I believe so. Ms. McCarthy alluded to Spring and

they’ve filed a plan. We required all carriers to file plans in November announcing what technology they were going to use and so on.

As far as we know, they’re on track. We haven’t heard anything to

the contrary from Verizon, for example, biggest carrier in the country.

Now I should say we’ve heard from Sprint with one particular

switch manufacturer, there may be an issue, there may be a delay

in—there’s mobile switching centers that use that particular supplier, but that would be a short delay and something like that. And

these are the sort of the fine tuning tweaks that in any implementation of new technology one would anticipate. I don’t get the sense

the public safety community would have a major objection to sort

of practical adjustments as someone was actually implementing to

take care of issues like that.

Ms. ESHOO. So Sprint is the one that you feel the most confident

about? There isn’t anyone else that you can name?

Mr. SUGRUE. Verizon, which is the second one. We have—until

this morning, I would add VoiceStream in that. VoiceStream received a temporary waiver of the accuracy requirement, a deferral.

They could hit a somewhat less precise accuracy requirement. It

was not a delay waiver. It wasn’t a waiver that pushed back their

deployment schedule. Indeed, it accelerated their deployment

schedule to a certain degree.

Ms. ESHOO. In November of last year, you required the wireless

carriers to report their plans for implementing E911 Phase II including which technology they planned to use to provide the caller

location. Did everyone comply?

Mr. SUGRUE. Everyone did comply. Some required some phone

calls from us to draw their attention to it.

50

Ms. ESHOO. They complied?

Mr. SUGRUE. They complied, yes.

Ms. ESHOO. So you didn’t have to take any action?

Mr. SUGRUE. No.

Ms. ESHOO. Did you have the authority to take any action?

Mr. SUGRUE. I believe so. That was in an order the Commission

adopted and then was delegated to the Bureau.

Ms. ESHOO. Now with the panel that’s here today, how many

have applied for waivers? Two? How many have been granted

waivers? Three. So of the companies, we have what, 5 companies,

4 companies?

Mr. SUGRUE. Just two.

Ms. ESHOO. Two carriers——

Mr. SUGRUE. Two applied, one received, I believe is the——

Ms. ESHOO. This is somewhat of an obvious, but a little bit of a

tricky question. The more that apply and receive, do you think the

others are going to fall into line, it will become a pattern, so that

by the time we get to this deadline, it really doesn’t mean anything, doesn’t mean that much or it will have been watered down?

Mr. SUGRUE. I’ll take a crack at that first and then the

others——

Ms. ESHOO. I wanted someone else to take a crack at it, but anyway, go ahead. They’re relieved that you are.

Mr. SUGRUE. The Commission granted a waiver to VoiceStream

last September and we did that on the basis that they had made

a convincing case that with their particular technology which is

GSM which is at the present time a relatively small share of the

U.S. market as represented by GSM carriers, they’re trying to

change that. The available location options meant that they

couldn’t satisfy the standard in terms of the accuracy, they said as

of October 1, but they could hit the network standards, the 100 meters, with a handset solution and within 2 years they could be fully

compliant on the handset standard.

Ms. ESHOO. Two years from when?

Mr. SUGRUE. Two years from October 1. So in other words, they’d

locate to 100 meters for 2 years and then 50 meters starting in

2003 and they would speed up deployment of handsets because you

don’t need a GPS receiver as you do with Andy’s technology. It’s

a software change to the phone for their system.

So we thought that was a reasonable case. It’s what we’ve been

telling carriers to do which is tell us what you can do, provide an

implementation schedule and they’ve put in their waiver request

specific dates and sort of roll out plans and we thought that was

a good model.

Ms. ESHOO. My time is just about running out.

Mr. SUGRUE. I’m sorry.

Ms. ESHOO. No, thank you for your answer. I just want to get

as much as I can in. Did you want to say something, Mr. Nixon?

Mr. NIXON. I think there are a couple of different ways to answer

every one of these questions. As Mr. Sugrue suggested and mentioned in his comments, our waiver was based on a unique situation for our technology, GSM. So certainly other GSM carriers may

apply to tag on to our waiver because they’re in the same situation,

51

but I don’t think that necessarily means that other carriers with

other technologies are more inclined to apply.

Ms. ESHOO. In your view, well, of course, it would be your view,

because that’s what you’ve already expressed. What I’m trying to

separate out is what is kind of a company excuse thing because

there’s a deadline, we haven’t gotten everything together, so let’s

put in the waiver just to cover ourselves. That’s one and I’m not

trying to diminish anyone. We have the public interest to look

after. You have your company to look after and maybe you just

haven’t done enough soon enough and all of a sudden the deadline

is upon you, but I think that what we’ve done here is to express

really how overwhelmingly important and critical this is. So I’m

trying to separate the wheat from the shaft. I think that the FCC

is going to grant a wavier where really is necessary and it’s kind

of the grays of what you just explained, I find somewhat acceptable

and understandable. But what is it that we need to do to get at

the excuses? How’s the FCC—I don’t know what other word to use,

I don’t mean to offend anyway, but it’s probably the best word to

describe it, how are we going to separate the wheat from the chaff

here?

Mr. NIXON. I think the excuse, I’m glad you recognize it. Maybe

it’s not the best word for it, but the situation actually, as I mentioned in my comments, we set a very, very aggressive schedule to

do some new things. I think everybody in the wireless industry has

been working very hard for it and doing very well to meet that aggressive time line.

Ms. ESHOO. So why can’t everyone else come up with—or is too

much to ask for that even though we don’t hit the 1000 percent target, that the FCC just described, that you have an interim target

on the way to the fullness of the technology that you’re seeking.

See, what I’m afraid of is the more waivers that are granted, the

more companies are going to come in and way well, if they did that,

then why should we get out of the market? I mean there’s a pattern that establishes itself and people thing well, why should we

expend our resources if the others are on hold. I’d like it to go the

other way.

Mr. NIXON. Yes ma’am. One of the fine points that Mr. Sugrue

suggested about our waiver is that we, technically our implementation is a handset solution so we have more stringent requirements

of 50 meters to meet. Our waiver simply allows us to meet the

same accuracy initially that the network based systems would have

to meet so I think it was well put it really wasn’t a compliance

waiver, it was a fine tuning waiver more to allow us time to develop and mature this technology, so it’s getting more and more effective.

Ms. ESHOO. And what is that time?

Mr. NIXON. Within 2 years.

Ms. ESHOO. Two years.

Mr. NIXON. That’s within our waiver.

Ms. ESHOO. Thank you, gentlemen. Are there any women that

head up any of these industries? I can’t help but—no, there aren’t?

Mr. SOUDER. I would offer that there are many female com. center directors throughout the United States.

52

Mr. UPTON. I would note that we have a very able or it wouldn’t

have happened in Bering County without—— Ms. ESHOO. Is the FCC considering a waiver?

Mr. UPTON. Mr. Shimkus.

Mr. SHIMKUS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and thank you, Mr.

Sugrue for—I do remember your testimony a couple of years ago

and thank you for talking about the last E911 legislation because

I would refer to Mr. Souder’s second chart. There was a time when

you wouldn’t even get, that call wouldn’t be brought up because as

we know, many States had different numbers. We’ve had some successes and this is just the iterative process of moving forward and

trying to create more benefits through a great technology.

What do I tell my—this is what I tell my anti-government big

anti-government big brother critics. If they don’t want the GPS or

the triangulation or the hybrid system, turn their set off. Is that

correct?

Mr. NIXON. I’m sorry, could you—the privacy issue?

Mr. SHIMKUS. Yes.

Mr. NIXON. That’s obviously one of our biggest concerns is we

want to make our service more attractive and useful to people, certainly in public safety, but we want them to have control over their

rights and their privacy.

Mr. SHIMKUS. By turning it off, does that do that?

Mr. NIXON. Well, I’m not—that’s not my core part of the business, but I can tell you for sure that we are very, very closely looking at every one of our options and we don’t intend to offer something that is going to violate anybody’s rights. We’re going to do everything we can to make them have a choice to select what they

want to use, what they want to use the location for, therefore input

on their privacy and control of the privacy information.

Mr. SHIMKUS. So turning it off, does that help?

Mr. NIXON. You can—and frankly, one of the requirements here

is that in 911, you’re presumed to be asking for assistance, therefore, you’re presumed to be waiving your privacy in order to allow

the 911 center and emergency resources to reach you, so—— Mr. SHIMKUS. But if I have my phone off, am I being tracked?

Mr. NIXON. If you have your phone off, no, but even with

your—— Mr. SHIMKUS. That was my question.

Mr. NIXON. Even with your phone on, you can disable everything

except——

Mr. SHIMKUS. Is there any of these triangulations. I’m referring

to a battery process by which is igniting some transmission of identification of location?

Mr. RIMKUS. Perhaps if I could talk about that, Congressman.

With our particular implementation as you’re asking, the location

can be determined within the handset and only when that specific

opt-in, as it were, is really a different subject altogether in the discussion today, is offered. That information is forwarded then, on to

the PSAP or the call center and of this case. So just speaking for

our specific implementation, it’s actually the very defined act that

takes place. You actually push a button and sends that information

so it offers that kind of privacy. There are multiple implementations, but I think all of us that are in the technology industry

53

would liken it to Caller ID today which is to have some sort of capability of enabling or disabling that, but if it goes to the PSAP it

overrides that and that’s included in the 1999 Wireless Act, as a

matter of fact.

Mr. MARKEY. Would the gentleman yield? I think everyone in the

audience wants to know if there’s some nationality correlation between the name Rimkus and Shimkus.

Mr. RIMKUS. Perhaps we could share some potato pancakes some

time. Just to throw in, we did have a good football coach from

Houston named Rimkus.

Mr. SHIMKUS. It’s really a Lithuanian month for me, having

NATO expansion and traveling over there, so any time I can press

the cause of the Baltic Nations, I do that. Thank you for giving me

this forum.

Let me just finish up with my last question because I’ve been

trying to sort out, I was not a member in 1996, so I was uncertain

about this 1996 agreement that we’re all talking about.

And so what I’ve gleaned from the testimony is that there was

an agreement in 1996 through the industry and the FCC and all

one happy family and that then the FCC decided to stop because

recovery mechanism in 1999 of the 1996 agreement. If that is the

case, Mr. Sugrue, why? Because obviously this is cost recovery to

provide—I’m from a rural district. It’s expensive to cover in rural

areas because we just don’t have the mass of people and can you

explain that process to me?

Mr. SUGRUE. Sure, there was a cost recovery requirement in the

consensus agreement that was incorporated in the Commission’s

rules, that the cost recovery mechanism. The exact meaning was

somewhat ambiguous,but it was certainly subject to a reading and

subject to interpretation by carriers as requiring public safety

agencies to pay the full costs of the carrier’s deployment of 911, either Phase I or Phase II. And as Mr. Souder indicated, about half

the States have cost recovery, so half the States seem to be not eligible to go forward with E911 from wireless phones. And even in

the half that had cost recovery, there were continual disputes about

whether it was real cost recovery or adequate cost recovery and

this was just at Phase I. And we could see with the greater cost

of Phase II that these disputes were only multiplied and so we

asked for a recommendation from the consensus group again, the

carrier community and one of the public safety agencies said we

think cost recovery should stay and another public safety group

said no, we think it should be eliminated. We ended up eliminating

it as a separate requirement for carriers and keeping it for the public safety agencies. And so each entity bears its own costs now. The

carrier doesn’t have to pay for the upgrades to its network and can

recover those costs through its charges to its customers and the

public safety agency has to pay for the upgrades for its equipment

and network.

Mr. CLARK. Mr. Chairman.

Mr. PICKERING [presiding]. Yes.

Mr. CLARK. If I could add a couple of comments to Mr. Sugrue’s

comments? First of all, one thing that I’d like to point out from earlier, Mr. Terry was particularly wise in his comments, trying to understand the elements that it takes to fully have a working E911

54

location system. First of all, we selected, we being U.S. Cellular, we

selected handsets. Handsets have a rollout that has no tie to PSAP

compliant, so U.S. Cellular has put themselves on a path that we

will literally over the next 5 years replace all of our handsets.

We’ve made that commitment, but there’s nothing in the record as

it currently stands that will put all the rest of the elements in

place, so that the public will get the service that we’re talking

about today. That’s the first point I’d like to make.

The second point is the original—from an engineering and from

a policy standpoint, the original thinking associated with cost recovery is we already have an infrastructure in place on the wireline

environment that’s been there for decades and that’s very much the

model that we saw today in terms of the information that’s delivered and how it’s delivered and received. The economics associated

with that in cost recovery were to emulate that same environment,

so we had a model that we started with and now what we’ve got

is that model has in many respects been abandoned, so that the

onus of the costs associated with all these systems including the

upgrade of the PSAP systems is on the wireless carriers and I

would pose that that’s an inequity given the original philosophic

position we started with.

If we are in any way able to work through this issue and get

back to the original consensus on cost recovery, I would submit

things would actually speed up, because if you look at the record,

the first 2 years under Phase I, we had a tremendous amount of

success. We had all of the people associated with different organizations focused on implementation. However, when cost recovery

changed, the energies of all those bodies went into conflict in trying

to determine who was going to pay for it, rather than getting it

done and that’s where we’re at today.

Mr. PICKERING. Mr. Sugrue.

Mr. SUGRUE. Yes, I’d like to respond. I had sort of two points in

there. One is on the handset deployment schedule, there are two

elements to a handset approach. One is that subscribers have to

get a new ALI capable/location capable handset. The other is typically an assisted GPS, perhaps the most predominant implementation of this technology, there has to be upgrades to the network.

With respect to the handsets, we proposed, and indeed the proponents of the technology and the carriers who are interested in it,

have proposed and agreed to that there be a start on rolling out

the handsets, even before you had a PSAP request, because that

was going to take 4 or 5 years to replace all the handsets in your

incumbent base. Those handsets are out there. You have to depend

on people coming in, trading them in, and so forth.

As compared with the network solution, Mike Amarosa referred

to that, that once you turn on Mike’s system, everyone in the area

is covered. You can locate everyone on that network. So the tradeoff was you need to start that process so if 2 years down the road,

only about 50 percent of your customers will have location capable

handsets, so when you get a PSAP request, you’re not starting from

ground zero and that was, I think, a reasonable requirement and

one that at least most of the carriers seemed to recognize as reasonable.

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Second, on cost recovery, the wireless ILECs live in a rate regulated world. They needed a cost recovery requirement because they

don’t have a means just to pass costs on to their customers. They

need permission from a regulator, either from us or a State regulator. Wireless carriers, the FCC lifted its rate regulation and Congress directed us to lift State regulation of rates. There is no regulatory limit on a carrier’s ability to recover these costs in its rates,

in surcharges and line items on bills. We haven’t attempted to regulate that at all. The position that the public safety agencies, who

are strapped for cash, who have to incur substantial expense to upgrade their own systems should also incur the expense of putting

in the equipment in the carrier’s network just didn’t seem to us to

be reasonable.

Mr. UPTON. Mr. Markey.

Mr. MARKEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman very much. I’m going to

be directing my questions toward Mr. Sugrue whose name I know

to be Irish.

And a distinguished Boston College graduate.

Mr. SUGRUE. Absolutely.

Mr. MARKEY. So first of all, let me point out that the law which

we passed does require that the cell phone industry provide privacy

protections to consumers. Thankfully, they have embraced that and

opt in, that is, getting the permission of the consumer, the norm

within the industry. I think what people have to understand

though is that the protection only applies when a carrier that is

one of the cell phone companies, Verizon or any other, is interacting with the consumer. If the consumer decides to call Zaguts

to get some information about a restaurant, then they don’t have

the same protections as if they were talking over one of the Verizon

lines on a service that Verizon would have control over. There is

a no protection check that had been built in and that’s why the

Federal Trade Commission has to take as its responsibility in order

to fill in that gap in the protections which consumers need in order

to ensure that their privacy is protected.

Can you elaborate a little bit on that, Mr. Sugrue?

Mr. SUGRUE. Sure. In addition to retailers, for example, there are

location providers who are not deemed to be common carriers and

the privacy protections were put into Title II of the Communications Act and that section only applies to carriers. For example, the

OnStar system, which is a wonderful system that has been very

popular and is now moving out, started out in Cadillac and into a

broad range of GM cars, but at least we don’t view them as a common carrier of the service they’re providing. The location information they obtain is not subject to the provisions in the legislation

you referred to, Mr. Markey. So I know the cellular industry is very

concerned about that because they feel when it comes time to roll

out commercial services that they’ll be subject to some restrictions

and limitations that some of their competitors will not be subject

to. And so, for example, when you’re driving down the street, one

of the examples is always and there’s a sale from a store on the

next block, there will be limitations if you get that information

from a cell phone compared to, let’s say, through a car-based location system.

56

Mr. MARKEY. Let me get a few facts out here on the table that

might help the Committee in its deliberations. A lot of carriers are

moving toward GSM technology and just about every one of these

companies talks about the dream of moving to third generation

technology as well. I think it’s important for us to know the state

of the industry today, however.

What percentage of American consumers are still served by analog only technology?

Mr. SUGRUE. The percent of consumers is, last year it dipped

below—the year before, excuse me, by the end of 1999, below 50

percent for the first time. It was like 50 percent, 49. I don’t have— I believe it’s about 41, 42 percent this year of customers who are

still on analog phones.

Mr. MARKEY. I think it’s important for the consumer and the policymaker to understand that, that even though there’s a vision out

there in the industry that still have of the consumers in America

are stuck in the analog era and that the corporate strategies that

these companies have yet to catch up with the obvious digital revolution that should be benefiting all consumers. So our speed should

reflect that speed as well.

And I understand that the Federal Government as well as the

Congress is looking at issues that deal with perhaps reclaiming

more spectrum from the Pentagon, from educational institutions,

including the Catholic Church, which is relevant to our own backgrounds, and what I’m wondering is whether or not it’s time for us

to start to look at mobile satellite services. There was a vision back

in 1993 that Iridium, Global Star, other companies would be using

all of this, that spectrum, at this point in time. They’re not. Obviously, most of them are in bankruptcy, coming out of bankruptcy,

not all of them, I want to make that clear, that’s not the case. But

a lot of them are. Is it time for us to revisit that issue and that

spectrum as an alternative to first visiting the Catholic Church and

the Pentagon as a place where we can find spectrum that can be

used for third generation technology?

Mr. SUGRUE. As I know you are aware, it’s never easy to take

spectrum from anyone, whether it’s the Catholic Church, the Pentagon or satellite licensees. That issue has been teed up by CTIA.

They sent us a petition asking us to look at precisely that issue on

our 3-G efforts and it’s being actively considered within the Commission right now.

Mr. MARKEY. Is there a time table that you’ve established for

making a determination as to whether or not this spectrum is actually going to be utilized by these companies or just sit there,

warehoused for an indefinite period of time. We might be talking

decades in terms of the corporate strategy.

Mr. SUGRUE. In the mobile satellite world, they do have rules,

they call them milestone requirements, but which licensees have to

do certain things in order to keep their licenses. It’s a progressive

thing. You sign a contract, build a prototype and so forth. So it’s

not completely wide open like that, but again, the issue has been

squarely raised and I certainly hope that we can address it one

way or the other pretty promptly because it is a pressing issue.

Mr. MARKEY. Finally, let’s take a look a Iridium, Motorola’s idea,

name about Mendelea’s 77th element, 77 satellites, 77th element

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and Mendelea was tired of elements he went down to 66 satellites,

they decided not to change the name as they moved down the elements, but I think they’re down to considerably fewer satellites

now.

So give us a very brief overview of what the status of that spectrum is, how much of it is being used, what your conversations are

with them with regard to the use of it and what the chances are

that we might be able to reclaim some of it?

Mr. SUGRUE. Iridium went through bankruptcy as you know.

Came out of bankruptcy within the past year. I believe the company sold for about $25 million. They have a contract now with the

Defense Department that I guess is sufficient to keep them operational and I know their new management is looking at options to

re-enter the commercial world again with sort of a reconstructed

business plan.

I don’t think anything is on the table now about doing something

with the spectrum they’re presently in. But they are one of the applicants for this two gigahertz for another license.

Mr. MARKEY. I think we should raise some questions about the

use of the old spectrum.

And finally, Japan and Europe, how successful has the 3-G technology been in those markets?

Mr. SUGRUE. Not terribly yet, but they do have strong imperative, sort of in the way they do business which is more sort of an

industrial policy sort of base to move forward. They have already

allocated substantially more spectrum though for these services

than we have, almost double in most cases.

Mr. MARKEY. How many customers are using 3-G?

Mr. SUGRUE. 3-G?

Mr. MARKEY. In the—— Mr. SUGRUE. Just about zero, but they’re transitioning up to 3-

Gs by so called 2.5-G services and I don’t have those figures either,

but it’s just starting. They just did their allocation and licensing

last year and they’re moving gradually.

Japan was going to turn—I correct myself, they have about 3,000

3-G customers on a trial basis now, in Tokyo, and they’re hoping

for commercial rollout in the fall.

Mr. MARKEY. Thank you very much for that excellent Jesuitbased testimony.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. UPTON. Mr. Pickering?

Mr. PICKERING. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and let me just add

or first address some of the questions raised by Mr. Markey from

Massachusetts concerning 3-G. We are looking at legislative options to get to 3-G. As we go down that road, I look forward to

working with Chairman Upton and Chairman Tauzin and Mr. Markey to find the solution and I would agree with him, we need to

put everything on the table, from satellite spectrum to the Pentagon to commercial, except educational and Catholic.

Mr. UPTON. Don’t forget the Congregationalists.

Mr. PICKERING. But as we try to find the solutions to meet the

objectives and the targets on E911, we need to remember that it

has been a tremendous success story and I know we have probably

called attention to that today as we looked at the type of responses

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we’ve had over the last 2, 3 years in crime reduction, crime patrols,

the domestic abuse, the types of things that cellular phones, wireless phones can be used for in public safety and for personal safety

have been tremendous. I know in my own family I have five sons,

the youngest of which is 21⁄2 and when he was about 11⁄2 in the

midst of our daily morning chaos where we’re trying to get four

children to school and pre-school and I have the children in the

bathtub and my wife is getting their clothes and their breakfast we

had my 11⁄2 year old son slip out the door with my dog and we

didn’t know he was missing until someone had called E911 and a

friendly police officer returned him to us. For about 10 minutes

there our youngest son, the prodigal son was on the wrong path in

life.

Because of wireless and E911, he has come home. So it is a tremendous success story that we need to put into context of what

we’re discussing and debating.

To that end, let me just ask a couple of quick questions.

Mr. Sugrue, by the October 2001 deadline, what would you say

would be the projected compliance among the industry of meeting

that targeted deadline without the waivers? How much of the industry would be in compliance by that deadline?

Mr. SUGRUE. That’s hard to say. Let me try to answer it by—and

let me note, I’m very impressed that you do the bath routine in the

morning. We’ve never pulled that one off. That was always an

evening ritual in our household.

We do anticipate getting more waivers as get closer to the date.

What we’ve told carriers are that we don’t want to see a waiver

that just says I can’t do it, off the hook, go home, I’ll see you in

a couple of years. Waivers under the framework the Commission

set up in approving the VoiceStream waiver are really carrier specific implementation plans. We want to see a plan that says look,

I can’t meet the literal terms of your requirements, but here’s what

I can do and here’s what I will do and here’s how I’ll do it.

Under that scenario we are pushing very hard to get the big 6

carriers focused on all having implementation plans in place, along

those lines, the big 6 nationwide or near nationwide carriers. We’re

not forgetting our friends like U.S. Cellular. I think they wish we

would sometimes, but—who are important players in the rural

areas in smaller communities, but those six carriers serve 75 percent of the customers in the U.S. They have the most resources and

we thought it was in terms of just our resources to focus attention

on public safety, that’s sort of the initial point and we certainly

hope that all six of those will have plans in place to go forward.

Mr. PICKERING. And that would represent how many of the subscribers in the country?

Mr. SUGRUE. About three quarters.

Mr. PICKERING. Mr. Clark, as you know, I represent a rural district. What would your three recommendations be of what the FCC

should do in taking into consideration the unique circumstances of

rural Mississippi or rural America in meeting the regulatory objectives? You had mentioned cost recovery. Expand on that or sum up

your recommendations of how we can have a regulatory framework

sensitive to your unique circumstances as well as getting the services to rural America as quickly as possible?

59

Mr. CLARK. I think the first one would be cost recovery and a return back to the original consensus agreement. With that, I would

add that we would also need to add handsets to the original agreement because that was added later. As a matter of fact, that was

added just about a year ago. So that would put in place the structure so that there’s incentive for all parties, especially in rural

America where you have smaller carriers in terms of their economic power, you have smaller PSAPs in terms of their economic

power. It would give them an ability to work together and everybody share in putting the service together, not putting the cost on

a particular member of that team.

I think the other thing that we need to do is we need a rural exemption and that’s not something that I say lightly because there

are competitive connotations to that as well, but U.S. Cellular filed

a waiver, a request for a waiver in June of last year and we were

denied. And the reason that we filed the waiver is we had no

handset manufacturer that would sit down and talk to us, tell us

what handsets were going to be available, which GPS technology,

and even take an order from us to buy them.

As of this date, we’re still in that predicament. Rural America

has a unique requirement in that you don’t have the cell density

to be able to use true position types of network solutions to be able

to accurately locate a customer that dials Enhanced 911 and absent

a handset solution, there literally is no answer.

Mr. PICKERING. But what would the consequence of an exemption

be for rural areas? Would that service then be delayed in those

areas?

Mr. CLARK. It’s my belief that that service is going to be delayed

under the current policy. if you think about the logistics of the way

we’re going to roll this out, whether you do network or handset

base and the compliance and the metrics associated with compliance, there’s a high probability that the urban areas will be the

first covered, so there’s at least one more dimension to your question and that is take the current policy and look at how it’s to be

implemented to meet the performance criteria of implementation

and I think you’ll find out that the rural carriers have been left

out. Rural America has been left out.

Now the other side of this and the direct technical answer to

where you’re going to try to go with rural America because see, I

live in East Tennessee, I’m sitting next to a guy from New York.

I don’t know if you guys have figured that out or not, but you

know, in East Tennessee we’ve got the mountains, we’ve got valleys, we’ve got Smoky Mountain National Park. You can lose yourself in nature in East Tennessee, you can lose yourself from E911

in East Tennessee. So the technical solution for those areas has got

to be handset-based. There is not now nor will there ever be in my

opinion enough cell density around the area like the Smoky Mountain National Park where you’re going to be able to see enough cell

sites to be able to say I know that person is between Merriville,

Tennessee and the park entrance.

So let me go back and kind of sum up what I’ve said, if I’ve got

a little bit of time here. First, I think we need to go back to the

original consensus order. Let’s get back on solid ground where we

can focus on implementation and not argue and try to figure out

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who is going to pay for what and that, I think, takes us back to

a paradigm that everybody is comfortable with. That takes the big

issue off the table.

The second issue for rural America that I’d recommend is there

is today no technical solution that works in rural America, so the

time line is not going to work. And looking at the technologies that

are available today, it doesn’t matter whether it’s U.S. Cellular. It

doesn’t matter whether it’s Verizon, AT&T or VoiceStream, this is

an urban-rural problem. It’s not endemic to a carrier. It’s endemic

to rural versus urban America. So we’ve got to acknowledge there

are complexities and costs associated with rural America that you

don’t have if you’re in the middle of Washington, DC.

Mr. PICKERING. Mr. Chairman, I thank you. I would like to follow

up on those questions at a later time or in writing or continue to

work with FCC to address this very important and critical issue for

rural.

Mr. UPTON. I’ d be happy to work with you on that.

Mr. PICKERING. Thank you.

Mr. UPTON. Ms. McCarthy.

Ms. MCCARTHY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to ask Mr.

Sugrue a practical question and it may come across as somewhat

naive, but it was sparked by something Mr. Clark just talked about

with regard to working together and sharing revenues and so forth.

Because the technology, it seems like every company is doing their

own thing, and yet we know the technology exists in other forms.

I was at a meeting regarding the Kyoto protocol a few years back

and the taxis have the ability to show a map instantly on the car

where they are and I guess my question to you is, or my first question is, what’s keeping the companies from sharing technology so

that they’re not all out there struggling all by themselves to accomplish this?

Mr. SUGRUE. I don’t know that anything is preventing the sharing of technology. Certainly, this process, I mean I referred to the

consensus agreement back in 1996 in part to make the point that

the October 1 date was a proposal from the carrier community of

5 years ago, not something we made up on our own. But also, in

part, to emphasize the genesis of this is in consensus among carriers and public safety entities and in manufacturers and vendors.

We called this series of forums to bring everyone together because

I’m sure you’ve had the experience too but when you meet seriatim

with parties involved in a dispute, you would think you were listening to two very different things, two realities or more in this case

because there were 3 or 4 parties involved. And so we wanted to

say well, look, he just said this doesn’t work and you just said it

does work. Where is it and so forth?

We just required that test data from anyone, well, from the two

carriers, two major carriers that have a waiver before us now be

publicly disclosed. That was subject to confidentiality agreements.

It was so hard, though to deal with it under that confidentiality,

we issued an order lifting that and indeed the parties have agreed

to make it public so there can be a more public sharing of information about how the systems are performing or not performing and

under what conditions.

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This is not an area where—this is a very competitive industry,

but we can’t let each carrier trying to get an edge on the other slow

down the rollout of this. This is where information should be

shared, I think, in the public interest.

Ms. MCCARTHY. Well, then let me ask the interested parties at

the table about this same question and your thoughts on sharing

so that this can move along rapidly and perhaps end some of the

frustrations that you’re experiencing with the technology.

Would anybody like to respond?

Mr. NIXON. Certainly. We commented earlier from VoiceStream’s

perspective that we think the Project Locate that’s being sponsored

by ABCO and the other public safety agencies is an excellent forum

for us to have these types of discussions. Early on, Mr. Sugrue

mentioned the WEIA which is Wireless E911 Implementation Ad

Hoc Group which was the forums which—my degree of trivial

knowledge is astounding sometimes and then on other things I confuse myself, but that was a forum very much like what I envision

and hope Project Locate environment can be where we can identify

what we can do today, where we can identify locations where 911

centers are ready to take and test the equipment. We can identify

areas where the local telephone carriers have the capability to handle the additional data required for wireless compared to land line

911. If we can focus together on a few of those places and do tests

to verify that the systems are ready, the solutions are ready to No.

1 talk to each other, to No. 2 handle the information and data delivery, etcetera, to achieve the goal of giving the call takers additional information for wireless similar to what they get for

landline, and No. 3, if they’re ready for widespread, more broad

based deployment, I think we need a few of those real-life labs, if

you will, where all the equipment and capabilities come together to

test the final step in our very rapid and successful, I think, development of this capability.

Ms. MCCARTHY. I appreciate that. Did anybody else want to comment on that?

Mr. CLARK. I’d make one comment. If you look at the history and

the record on this and again, speaking from an engineer’s perspective, in engineering you begin with a plan and then you build a

prototype and then you do alpha and beta testing and then you do

a production roll out and the record that we got on this with respect to some of these solutions are in the prototypical or in the

alpha stages or proof of concept and they do, in fact, work. But

there’s a big change from trying to take these types of solutions to

this problem on the time line that we have today from an alpha

stage into a production rollout of sufficient quantity to satisfy the

industry requirement for performance. So in my opening statements, the software that my company needs to be able to do this

for both a network and an assisted GPS handset solution aren’t

available until fourth quarter of this year.

So not to make excuses, but the fact is if you look into the details

in this, there are critical elements that are absolute prerequisites

technically for the whole thing to work. I think it would be a travesty for us to go down a path of policy, have everything that we

need except for one element for sake of speed and have more situaVerDate 11-MAY-2000 14:33 Aug 10, 2001 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00065 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 73728.TXT HCOM2 PsN: HCOM2
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tions where we have to listen to these tragedies in the public because we can’t give that to the public.

Ms. MCCARTHY. I guess I’m still a little bit confused, not by your

answer, but perhaps I didn’t pose my question quite accurately.

If in the end all of this has to work together, and it must, whether I’m on a Sprint phone or your product or in your territory or in

Sprint territory, it all has to work together. It all has to come together, so why then if Sprint says they’re going to be able to meet

the deadline, but you aren’t because of the technology that’s missing and need more time, how come there isn’t some sharing of

that?

Mr. CLARK. Thank you for qualifying your question. That is a different question than I answered. I will tell you people from Tennessee, you have to talk slowly to us so we can keep up with you.

You’ve posed a great question and that is one of the things that

we scratch our head about and try to understand what has Sprint

done? They seem to be on a path that looks like they’re going to

make it. And I hope they do. But we don’t know what they’re doing.

And I think that’s your point and—— Ms. MCCARTHY. Listening to you all, I’m struggling with you because we all know, we all agree, we want this to happen as soon

as possible because it’s going to save lives, so that was my concern.

Mr. Sugrue, because you mentioned competition, is it because of

competition that these kinds of things can’t be known by everybody? Because in the end when you have all systems in place including the local components, it’s all got to work together.

Mr. SUGRUE. I don’t know and indeed whether U.S. Cellular has

talked to Sprint about sharing information, for example, on their

system and how it works.

Ms. MCCARTHY. Don’t they have to at some point? If I’m in their

territory and on a Sprint or vice versa, it all has to work.

Mr. SUGRUE. If what you’re asking is if a Sprint subscriber is

roaming into U.S. Cellular’s area and they have a roaming unit, I

don’t know whether that’s the case, but if they do, yes, it should

work one on the other.

Ms. MCCARTHY. I’m trying to figure out how they can all work

together to get it done by the deadline we imposed, or if not, then

we have to genuinely have discussions.

Mr. SAWYER. Would the gentle lady yield?

Ms. MCCARTHY. yes.

Mr. SAWYER. If, in fact, in some parts of the country it’s necessary to use a geopositioning technology and my subscription for

my instrument, my carrier, is in an area that’s based on triangulation and I go on vacation to Eastern Tennessee, then I am all of

a sudden no longer equipped. Is it not reasonable to think that at

some point all instruments will have to be equipped for both systems?

Mr. SUGRUE. We require in our rules, if you’re doing a handset

based approach that you have to use the best available means of

locating people, for example, who are roaming on to your system

from another system, precisely for that reason.

VoiceStream in its waiver request proposed a system that, for example, even though it’s a handset based, they have sort of a safety

net system that will locate all people, albeit to a less precise degree

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of accuracy, but provide much better, still better location information than Phase I.

As a fallback, we say you absolutely have to provide Phase I information which is at least to the cell site or the cell sector, but

it is, to be honest with you, on the handset based approach, it is

one of these sort of, I don’t know if it’s a flaw or a gap, but it is

one element of it that caused us at the FCC a lot of concern, just

that issue.

Ms. MCCARTHY. Mr. Chairman, I know I yielded my time, but

may I pursue? I guess I can.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The other bugaboo seems to be this

whole question of who pays cost sharing, etcetera, etcetera and I

know that no time line, no deadline was placed on the PSAPs probably for good reason, but give them time after you guys finish to

figure this all out, but I note in the article that I quoted from earlier in the day that 32 States have approved state-wide E911, but

only four States, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures which we called, only four States have passed cost recovery mechanisms, looks like it’s Indiana, Oklahoma, Rhode Island

and Virginia. Many other States are giving that authority to figure

out who pays to their public utility commissions to work on.

I guess my question is what do you—how do you anticipate like

what happened out in Kansas, according to this Lisa Duran, Director of Johnson County’s Emergency Communications Department,

again speaking in this article said, ‘‘efforts last year reached an

agreement with major wireless companies on an E911 system for

Kansas fell apart.’’ She said the companies insisted that part of the

state-imposed surcharged be used to pay for their new equipment.

Do you have a sense, Mr. Sugrue, of how States are coping with

this part of the responsibility, that unfunded Federal mandate we

sent them to pay for all of this. Are they sharing part of the surcharge that’s going to be imposed? Is anybody—I worry about,

they’ll do their job and then all of a sudden it will fall apart at the

State level.

Mr. SUGRUE. I may be missing something in your question, but

the issue about which we’ve had somewhat of a robust debate here

at the panel on cost recovery revolves around the fact that the

Commission removed the requirement that State agencies pay for

the carriers’ costs of implementing 911. They still have to pay for

the PSAPs cost of implementing 911 and that’s not trivial and

some States have not addressed that or stepped up to the plate, at

least to a sufficient degree.

However, we did leave that to the States. Some States had successful, at least programs were in place. This was not an attempt

to fix it when it ain’t broke. So we said any State that wants to—

they have a surcharge on a wireless bill and they have a pool and

they share it among carriers and PSAPs, that’s fine. You just keep

going ahead and doing what you’re doing. All we were trying to do

was remove our Federal requirement, that as you put it, imposed

this unfunded mandate on State and local governments to pay carriers’ costs of implementing this technology.

Ms. MCCARTHY. Well, I guess Mr. Chairman our next concern

and hearing may be down the road on States and how they can

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best implement this because there is a cost factor involved and that

seems to be holding up the second portion of this project.

Mr. UPTON. There is and we need to know exactly where the

PSAPs are, as well, the 911 centers. It’s obviously an

interlocking—— Mr. SUGRUE. I would add on the earlier version of the 1999 act

we referred to previously that was in the previous Congress, there

was a funding mechanism introduced and the source of the funds

was leases on Federal lands for cell phone towers and it was, I

thought, a nice little thing because we got towers built, we got the

revenues, they were directed to the States to fund 911 deployment.

It turned out, I gather that in the Congress, tower location is very

controversial. It was deemed to be an intrusion on local interests,

even when located on Federal lands, just applied to Federal lands.

Mr. UPTON. Rock Creek Parkway.

Mr. SUGRUE. Exactly. And it was deleted from the legislation.

That deleted the revenues. That deleted the funding and so that

part of it was—— Ms. MCCARTHY. I don’t remember, Mr. Chairman, why it was deleted, but maybe that’s something we can revisit because with the

rural situation as you spoke to so eloquently throughout the country, this could be a real impediment.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. You’ve been very gracious with your

time.

Mr. CLARK. Mr. Chairman, if I could for a minute, Ms. McCarthy,

we’ve compiled State by State status of cost recovery. If you’d like

to, we’d share that with you.

Ms. MCCARTHY. I would like that. I’m sure the Committee would

like that.

Mr. CLARK. We can provide that for the record as well.

Mr. UPTON. Mr. Green.

Mr. GREEN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and just so there’s no

confusion, I’m sitting in Mr. Markey’s place, but you can tell from

our accent that Mr. Markey and I don’t come from the same part

of the country.

Let me just express because I wasn’t here, there was another

hearing going on downstairs on health care on the frustration. I

was a State Representative in 1984 in Texas when we passed the

911 network for Harris County, city of Houston. In the late 1980’s,

the State came in and with some effort and we created a funding

mechanism for it for our telephones in Harris County, hardline.

The State did the same thing. Now we didn’t get to rural areas immediately, just because you couldn’t do it and for hardline, but

they’re almost there. I don’t know if they’re there now because having left there in 1992, but in seeing what’s happening and I was

happy moving to this Committee in 1997 to see what we were

doing on a national basis for E911. And my concern is we’re going

to be flooded with waivers and I’m glad the FCC is being very specific because I would like to see the enhanced coverage starting in

urban areas just like we had to start with hardline and moving to

the rural areas as we develop that funding base because it is more

expensive.

Let me overlay that with my last weekend in Houston, Texas

when we had people on the top of their cars on I-10. Their cell

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phone was the only way they could reach out to anyone, so it is

an emergency that we do this. And that happens whether it’s running off the road on the way to Gatlinburg, Tennessee or not, so

that’s why the frustration that we do not need to see an extension.

We could see specific waivers, but we need to start in the urban

areas in the build out so that we can cover all our folks. And that’s

my concern.

Let me first talk about the FCC and I want to go back to the

idea of the total E911 coverage. And again, Houston, Texas is a

very urban area. We can do the triangulation, but we do have rural

areas, not a lot of mountains in my part of the country, but we do

have problems with the siting and just outside of the tower range.

It seems to me that there needs to be an FCC mandate that all cell

phones at a certain time should have dual capability for GPS and

triangular service, so I would be covered when I was, some day I’m

going to get back to Gatlinburg, but also in West Texas. Is that

something the FCC has talked about or discussed?

Mr. SUGRUE. We haven’t considered it. It’s occasionally discussed

in the industry or in the people who filed this, but more as something that some observers believe is likely to be the market-driven

outcome, once this technology gets out there. Now I don’t know

whether that’s the case or not. There are some who are very

gungho on the GPS system and believe, in time, it will be built——

Mr. GREEN. I share the concern about it and I’d like to have it

market driven, but we didn’t have the hardline 911 market driven

and I know that Mr. Amarosa, you were here 4 years ago and having seen the technology develop, so it is available in urban areas

and yet we’re still not seeing it, so as much as I’d like to see it

market driven, there are some things you just can’t do. We

wouldn’t have color TV if it wasn’t required back in the 1950’s so

all of us would have, not color TV, UHF and VHF, unless it was

somewhere along the way because that wouldn’t have been market

driven unless we said that has to be done for the consumers. I

think we are looking at the same situation with E911.

When do you think we will see the best guess when we can have

a—if not a 95 percent penetration in American market, maybe a

75 percent because again, I know in the rural areas, it will be the

next step, but in the urban areas and the suburban areas, when

do you think we’ll see that kind of E911 penetration?

Mr. SUGRUE. That depends, in part, on what Steve and his group

does in terms of PSAP readiness as well as what the carriers do.

So it’s hard to predict that.

I can say the timeframe we talked about, for example, on our

handset rollout, as I mentioned in my testimony goes to the,

through the end of 2005, so for the next 41⁄2 years. It was certainly

our expectation at the FCC that was the approximate timeframe by

which we would see this deployed through the majority of the

units.

Mr. GREEN. And the specific waivers you’re talking about would

not delay that estimate in 2005?

Mr. SUGRUE. No waiver before us, I believe, delays the end date.

Every waiver that has come in says we can hit it at the end. We

have trouble up front. The ones who ask for a delay in time.

66

Mr. GREEN. And again, I want to encourage the FCC to be as

reasonable as you can, and yet don’t delay it because we are seeing

that and we made that argument for hardline years ago. The funding base can be there because I did get complaints from folks in

the city of Houston about that small charge. It wasn’t much. The

biggest complaint was folks from the city of Houston and Harris

County complaining about the state-wide charge to buy equipment

for some of our areas that couldn’t generate it, but I also explained

to them next time you go on that hunting trip out to Mason, Texas,

you might like to have that coverage out there, that they couldn’t

afford and I didn’t get any response, negative back on that.

Mr. UPTON. Does anyone else have—— Mr. SUGRUE. I just want to add that greater Harris County continues to be a leader in this area, so the work—— Mr. GREEN. In fact, in future panels we’ll have and they’ve been

here before us, so Mr. Chairman, that’s all I have unless someone

has some response.

Mr. SOUDER. If I could comment on that, Mr. Green, in the industry, 911 is considered to be a religion in the State of Texas and

the chief practitioner is a constituent of yours in the form of Mr.

John Melcher, a name that I’m sure—— Mr. GREEN. I know John very well, since 1984.

Mr. SOUDER. But an absolute leader in this industry and we’re

very gratified to have him be one of the principal officers of the

NENA Association at this time.

While I have the microphone and commenting on a very insightful comment by Mr. Upton a moment ago about an inventory, one

of the goals of the goals of the NENA Report Card to the Nation

which is a report card to the industry and to the Congress to be

expected some time later this year is to do that, just assess in the

entire nation who is where and what do they need to get to be

where they need to be?

Mr. UPTON. I think that’s a very important piece of documentation that we need and particularly for the FCC to understand and

work with to get this thing done, because as I think about all the

members that ask questions here relating, I think every single person here had a personal experience with a 911 situation and as we

go back to your opening statement, Mr. Sugrue about trying to get

this implemented as fast as we can, you said that we’re well on our

way and we want to have good faith estimates in terms of exactly

the reasons when a waiver is given, to find out what that implementation timeframe will be for them to get a waiver. In fact,

you’ve denied it when that’s occurred and when you hear about

some of the costs and obviously you look at the volume, you look

at the different situations, whether it would be in Eastern Tennessee or in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, Chicago, the Golden

Mile in Chicago, the loop and everything else, obviously, but as we

all travel, we all take our phones and last night I got a call from

my carrier wanting to upgrade the phone and made the comment

that it doesn’t work in Michigan. Well, it does now. And there’s

going to be a roaming charge with it as well, so that 911, when you

hit that in St. Joe or Benton Harbor or Kalamazoo, it’s going to

work just like it does here in Virginia or DC or Arlington, where

I live when I’m here. So this is an important issue. Yes, it does

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save lives. That technology that all of us have, even for our teenagers is here and we want to make sure that it works and—— Mr. GREEN. Mr. Chairman, if you would just yield. I know, in

fact, one of the reasons seemed like I have to sign a new plan any

time to get a new phone anyway.

Mr. UPTON. They sent me a letter, but they followed it up with

a phone call, so I’m glad—— Mr. GREEN. It’s all part of the negotiation because thank goodness we do have 4 or 5 carriers in most urban areas, but we do

have the technology and I have a phone that I take with me everywhere. I just wish that it would also work in Mexico. But that’s our

next goal. But we have it and I think it’s provided in that coverage

that 10 years ago we didn’t have or 5 years ago, but by doing E911

we’ll make that happen.

Thank you.

Mr. UPTON. Again, I appreciate all your testimony. We may follow up with some questions for the record, but we will now adjourn

the hearing. Thank you.

[Whereupon, at 1:10 p.m., the hearing was adjourned.]