Emails to FCC Urge Tough Wireless Indoor Location Accuracy Rules, Agency Says
The FCC received thousands of emails seeking tough indoor location accuracy rules for wireless, the Public Safety Bureau said in a notice posted in docket 07-114. The notice said the agency received 9,297 emails from last July to October urging…
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a “reasonable and achievable two-year path to indoor location accuracy for wireless 9-1-1 calls.” The communications came after the FCC proposed rules in February (see 1402210038). More emails came in after APCO, AT&T, CTIA, the National Emergency Number Association, Sprint, T-Mobile and Verizon proposed a road map for location accuracy in November (see 1411190064), the bureau said. So far in January, the commission has received more than 1,000 emails with essentially the same message, the bureau said. “I am writing to urge you to oppose the phone companies' attempt to delay real and enforceable requirements for accurate 9-1-1 locations,” reads a typical email, according to the bureau. “The technology exists today to find all wireless 911 callers, so we should require phone companies to find the location of indoor and outdoor callers within the next two years, as your original rule proposed.” Two emails, meanwhile, urged the FCC to “accept the deal,” the bureau said. The agency is to vote on rules at its Jan. 29 meeting. Meanwhile, the four national carriers supporting the road map filed a letter at the FCC offering additional concessions. Their modified version of the road map adopts “new, quantifiable indoor-specific metrics to assure widespread wireless 9-1-1 indoor positioning fixes, including vertical location fixes,” expands the performance metrics to apply to all 911 calls, and commits to creation of a National Emergency Address Database Privacy and Security Plan to be developed and sent to the FCC, they said. “The amended Roadmap commits carriers to widespread implementation of solutions that either provide a dispatchable location or a z-axis component, or both, to assure the availability of accurate horizontal and vertical location information for indoor calls,” the carriers said. “With these commitments, there can be no doubt the Roadmap provides clear targets and accountability for indoor location through aggressive performance metrics verified by live call data and an open and transparent test bed.”