NENA Disagrees With APCO on Need for 911 Routing Notice Tweaks
An FCC record refresh on improving how wireless 911 calls are routed to the appropriate first responders is expected to be approved 4-0 by commissioners at their monthly meeting Wednesday. The final version is likely to incorporate some language sought by APCO (see 2206010027), said FCC and industry officials. The National Emergency Number Association doesn’t support those changes. APCO was the lone party to file comments in docket 18-62 after the FCC posted the draft.
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NENA is content with the notice as released, emailed CEO Brian Fontes. The notice “is well worded to include both Emergency Services IP networks (ESInets) and Next Generation 9-1-1 (NG9-1-1) holistically, and NENA sees no reason to amend the text of the notice as previewed,” Abley said: “We look forward to engaging with the FCC and stakeholders on the record on this important and timely topic.”
“No one is that concerned at this point because this is just a record refresh,” said a lawyer with wireless carrier clients. Industry companies and groups said they may issue a statement but will likely wait for FCC approval. Commissioners agreed 5-0 in 2018 to explore ways to improve how wireless 911 calls are routed to the appropriate first responders (see 1803220027).
CTIA said in response to the 2018 notice of inquiry there was no problem the FCC needs to address. The record “confirms that most of the hundreds of millions of annual wireless 9-1-1 calls are routed quickly to the appropriate” public safety answering point, the group said. ATIS said “higher-accuracy, lower-latency solutions must be developed before location-based routing can be widely implemented.”
“Misrouting does not uniformly affect all 911 calls,” AT&T said at the time: “The areas where misrouting presents the largest concern are readily identifiable by carriers and PSAPs: areas with a higher wireless 911 call volume and where PSAP jurisdictions overlap within a cell sector.” The FCC “should focus on targeting solutions to these known problem areas before considering network-wide changes that have the potential to continue or even exacerbate the current call routing delays,” the carrier said. Many comments emphasized the importance of NG-911 (see 1805080040). Verizon said stakeholders should implement location-based routing only “in conjunction with PSAPs’ NG911 capabilities.”
“We issue this Public Notice so that commenters may update the record to address developments of the last four years, which … include new studies on misroutes and location-based routing technology, increased deployment of device-based hybrid (DBH) location technologies, and implementation of location-based routing on wireless carrier networks,” the draft says. Apple, AT&T and T-Mobile have since made progress on location-based routing, the draft says: “The Commission has also taken steps to improve vertical location accuracy for wireless 911 calls and dispatchable location for fixed telephony, interconnected Voice-over-Internet Protocol (VoIP) services, Telecommunications Relay Services (TRS), and mobile text service.”
APCO last week offered edits to reflect that NG-911 "as defined by the public safety community, has not yet been fully deployed, and that ‘transitional NG9-1-1’ environments entail the deployment” of ESInets “intended to implement some call-delivery elements of an end-state NG9-1-1 environment.” APCO offered revised language, adding to some sentences, taking words from others and also adding new sentences, with an emphasis on ESInets rather than NG-911. APCO declined comment Monday.
“Next Generation 9-1-1 has not yet been fully deployed anywhere in the United States,” says a proposed footnote from APCO: “Legislative proposals supported by national public safety organizations would adopt a comprehensive definition of NG9-1-1 and create a federal grant program to implement NG9-1-1 nationwide. For purposes of this Public Notice, we conclude that ‘transitional NG9-1-1’ generally means the deployment of emergency services IP networks that are intended to implement some call-delivery elements of an end-state NG9-1-1 environment and we focus our inquiry accordingly.”