Congress Has Role To Play as Public Safety Embraces Next-Generation 911, Wheeler Says
FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler asked for help from Congress as public safety embraces next-generation 911. Wheeler spoke Wednesday to APCO at its annual meeting, and emphasized that the FCC is doing what it can but Congress also has a role to play, especially on funding and in establishing a national maps database for use by public safety answering points. Wheeler emphasized the importance of the FCC Task Force on Optimal Public Safety Answering Point Architecture, which is preparing a number of reports on PSAPs and the move to NG-911 (see 1507270064).
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“Every year, the FCC publishes a report on how 911 fees are being used, and every year we find that some jurisdictions are not allocating these fees to improving public safety in their communities,” Wheeler said. “None of us should find that acceptable.” Just “shining a spotlight” on the problem isn't enough, he said. Congress could also direct the FCC to help states develop “effective audit tools to ensure appropriate collection and expenditure of 911 funds and prevent diversion of funds to other purposes,” he said. Wheeler's speech was later posted by the FCC.
Local governments also need access to additional sources of grants, Wheeler said. Congress provided $115 million in grant monies as part of the Next Generation 911 Advancement Act of 2012, he said. “That’s a good start, but more can be done,” he said. “Congress could authorize matching funds to help PSAPs migrate” to efficient NG-911 emergency services IP nets and shared platforms, he said.
Wheeler also stressed the importance of better maps for use by PSAPs. The story is well known of the Georgia woman who was trapped in a sinking car and drowned because an antenna in an adjoining PSAP’s territory signal picked up her cellphone signal, and that PSAP was unable to locate her. “Congress could authorize establishment of a national maps database to ensure that every PSAP has access to the latest and most accurate maps and uses them,” said Wheeler. “As maps increasingly include the third dimension, approaching this issue in a consistent, effective and efficient manner will be money well spent.”
Congress also potentially has a role to play in PSAP cybersecurity, Wheeler said. Smaller PSAPs, in particular, aren't well positioned to address the problem on their own, he said. “One way to help PSAPs protect themselves against cyberattack would be for Congress to incent the development and use of shared security operations centers supporting multiple PSAPs,” Wheeler said.
The FCC has been active on public safety issues, pushing forward on new rules for indoor wireless location accuracy (see 1501290066) and on updates to the FCC’s Network Outage Reporting System (see 1507170065) “to reflect changes in technology and consumer usage,” Wheeler said. “We also have made it clear that we will not tolerate egregious 911 failures,” he said. “In the last four months, we have issued almost $40 million in penalties for outages that left millions of consumers unable to reach 911 for hours at a time.”
Steve Berry, president of the Competitive Carriers Association, said the “fragmentation and funding” of PSAPs remains a problem. “Ensuring 911 fees go to support 911 services is a step in the right direction,” Berry said in a news release. “I look forward to working with Congress and the Commission towards enacting some of Chairman Wheeler’s recommendations, such as creating a national maps database for use by public safety answering points" and "conditioning existing and future grants on the use of best practice architectures identified by the FCC’s Optimal PSAP Architecture Task Force," he said.
Cheryl Bledsoe, a 911 technology manager from Washington State, said on Twitter that the FCC can do only so much to push NG-911. “Hint: It isn't about laws & mandates, it is about legacy tech limits & funding,” she tweeted during the Wheeler speech. “We struggle with broken funding models.”