Carriers Raise More Concerns About Wireless Location Accuracy Rules
Officials with SouthernLINC Wireless raised concerns about provisions it understands are in the FCC’s proposed rules for wireless location accuracy on calls made indoors, during a series of eighth-floor meetings, said a filing posted by Friday in docket 07-114. The…
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FCC is to vote on rules Thursday (see 1501130062). SouthernLINC's understanding is the rules include “new location accuracy requirements for both horizontal (x/y-axis) and vertical (z-axis) location information that would exclude any location information or measurements obtained through the use of satellite-assisted technologies,” the carrier said. “The rationale for excluding satellite-generated measurements is to create a proxy for ‘indoor-only’ 9-1-1 calls, based on the assumption that satellite-assisted technologies are unable to provide location information for wireless 9-1-1 calls made from indoor locations.” Both provisions raise “significant concerns,” the carrier said. T-Mobile also raised concerns about the order. In a letter to the agency, T-Mobile encouraged the agency to develop reasonable standards. Establishing compliance metrics for indoor wireless calls has long been an FCC goal, T-Mobile said. “But that task has been stymied by the difficulty of measuring indoor compliance,” it said. “For instance, it has long been clear that widespread local-level compliance testing, of the kind used for outdoor location accuracy compliance, is simply not feasible for indoor location assessment.” In a third filing posted Friday, New America’s Open Technology Institute reported on various meetings at the FCC to discuss privacy concerns raised by the proposed requirements. “It is critical for the Commission to address privacy concerns associated with E911 at this stage, before the technology is developed and deployed,” the group said.