Subject: [NEXTEL-1] Wireless industry builds a better 911

From: Marcel <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 14 Nov 2002 17:50:28 -0500

http://cnniw.yellowbrix.com/pages/cnniw/Story.nsp?story_id=34356753&ID=cnniw&scategory=Business+and+Finance&

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Wireless industry builds a better 911

Source: Occupational Health & Safety

Publication date: 2002-10-01

Arrival time: 2002-11-14

FROM THE EDITOR

October is a momentous month. It opens the federal fiscal year
and traditionally pummels stocks in the Dow Jones Industrial
Average. This year, event organizers hope early October will see as
many as 100,000 uniformed firefighters marching in Washington, D.C.,
to honor fallen comrades-in particular, those who gave their lives
inside the World Trade Center towers last year.

October 1, 2002, was important this year because it was the
deadline for wireless phone carriers to provide Automatic Location
Identification to 100 percent of their callers, a service known as
Wireless E911 at the Federal Communications Commission. The FCC has
been pushing the carriers toward this goal for some time. "For many
Americans," the commissioners noted in a temporary stay issued July
11, "the ability to call for help in an emergency is the principal
reason they own a wireless phone. A significant percentage of all
911 calls are made from wireless phones, and this percentage is
growing. E911 will save lives and property by helping emergency
services personnel do their jobs more quickly and efficiently....
Wireless E911 provides a critical safety-of-life feature, and it
should be deployed as quickly and ubiquitously as possible."

Six national carriers (AT&T Wireless, Cingular, Nextel, Sprint
PCS, Verizon Wireless, and VoiceStream) and 110 non-nationwide
carriers asked for more time. Combined, these companies cover more
than 95 percent of all mobile phone customers in America. FCC
commissioners "reluctantly" gave more time to some carriers but
refused to relax the final implementation date of December 31, 2005.

The same day this FCC stay order was published, the Alliance for
Telecommunications Industry Solutions, an ANSI-accredited standards
developer, announced it had proposed a better way to guarantee
public safety agencies can find non-service initialized wireless
handsets (that is, emergency-only mobile phones), even if the
connection terminates. "It is very important that the call be
accurately traced back to the caller should the line disconnect,"
said Ed Hall, ATIS' vice president of technology. "ATIS has proposed
to the Federal Communications Commission that it consider utilizing
a code sequence that would provide a 'fingerprint' to that phone."
The code, as spelled out in an ATIS/Telecommunications Industry
Association consensus standard, recommends using the numbers 9-1-1
followed by the last seven digits of the phone's Electronic Serial
Number.

This is more effective, ATIS argues, than installing a
consecutive number code into all non-initialized mobile phones, the
method FCC would have required by October 1. Phone numbers starting
with 1 or 0 can't be easily navigated through the national wireless
network. Worse, the consecutive number code wouldn't allow safety
agencies to distinguish between legitimate and prank 911 calls, the
industry says.

Hall and the carriers had high hopes the commission would accept
their approach. ANSI also was optimistic, saying if FCC did adopt
the standard, "it would be an important example of the government's
reliance on the expertise of private-sector standards developers."

Jerry Laws [email-masked]

Copyright Stevens Publishing Corporation Oct 2002

Publication date: 2002-10-01

© 2002, YellowBrix, Inc.

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