Kansas Rep. Kyle Hoffman (R) would hesitate to scrap a recurring state 911 audit if the legislature doesn’t pass his forthcoming bill to move the Kansas 911 Coordinating Council to a state agency, he said at a livestreamed House Commerce Committee hearing Thursday. The committee heard testimony on HB-2483, which would eliminate a five-year audit by the Kansas Legislative Division of Post Audit that checks if public safety answering points are appropriately using 911 funding, whether they have enough money, and the status of 911 service implementation (see 2401030019). An audit could still be requested, but the bill would stop automatically requiring audits that are “somewhat boring for the most part,” said Chair Sean Tarwater (R). Committee member Hoffman responded that auditing is useful to the Kansas 911 Coordinating Council where he serves. However, Hoffman plans to propose a bill next week, probably with a Democratic co-sponsor, "that will be moving the 911 Coordinating Council to a fee-funded state agency, which would then negate the reasoning for the 5-year audit,” he said. "I would be a little bit hesitant to totally get rid of the audit if we don't move it to a state agency because that is one of the only real lookbacks that we have as a legislature to really look at what they're doing.” Kansas Legislative Post Auditor Chris Clarke testified that her division usually receives more requests for audits than it has capacity to perform.
Intrado urged the FCC to move forward on a proposal accelerating a move to next-generation 911. The agency teed this up in a June NPRM (see 2306080043). In early December, company representatives spoke with an aide to FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel, according to a filing posted Friday in docket 22-271. “The most important elements for accelerating NG911 deployment are … the FCC adopting a nationwide NG911 framework that accommodates current and already-planned deployments and creates the conditions to accelerate others” and “increased and faster direct wireless/VoIP OSP connectivity via basic Session Internet Protocol (SIP) to Emergency Services IP Networks (ESInets), which would support the delivery of 911 traffic in [IP] and reduce or eliminate the need for provider protocol translation workarounds,” Intrado said. The company urged that any supplemental coverage from space providers or applicants be required to explain in their applications how their SCS deployments will support 911 call or text routing to the appropriate public safety answering point with sufficient location information.
“A fluke event outside of Lumen's control” resulted in a nearly statewide 911 outage in Nebraska four months ago, the telecom company’s attorney Katherine McNamara said during a Nebraska Public Service Commission hearing Thursday. During the livestreamed session, Lumen and 911 officials said the outage resulted from contractors' accidental fiber cuts: The first occurred in Minneapolis Aug. 30 and the second in Omaha Aug. 31. The 911 outage lasted from the evening of Aug. 31 until early morning the next day (see 2309010021).
An order set for a vote during the FCC’s Jan. 25 open meeting would require nationwide wireless carriers to implement location-based routing (LBR) for calls to 911 within six months of approval, according to a draft order released Thursday. Smaller carriers would have 24 months. Both would be required to use the technology for real-time texts within two years. An order and further notice on outage reporting during disasters would make updating the FCC's disaster information reporting system mandatory for cable, wireline, wireless and VoIP providers and seek comment on doing the same for broadcasters, satellite providers and broadband internet access service (BIAS) providers.
Kansas lawmakers might scrap a state 911 audit during the session that opens Monday. The House and Senate Legislative Post Audit committees prefiled similar bills Tuesday (SB-330 and HB-2483). Those bills would eliminate a five-year audit that checks if public safety answering points are appropriately using 911 funding, whether they have enough money, and the status of 911 service implementation. The first audit was required in 2018.
FCC commissioners this month will tackle mitigating risks from space debris and potentially controversial rules addressing misrouted wireless calls to 911, Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel said Wednesday in her “Notes from the FCC.” Also on the Jan. 25 open meeting agenda are mandatory outage reporting rules and revised rules for the 70/80/90 GHz bands. Rounding out the meeting is a judicatory matter from the Media Bureau and five enforcement items.
T-Mobile updated the FCC on the carrier's efforts to implement 911 location-based routing (LBR) at public safety answering points nationwide, at the request of the Public Safety Bureau, said a filing posted Thursday in docket 18-64. “T-Mobile has fully implemented LBR for 1,591 PSAPs, including one or more PSAPs in 32 states and the District of Columbia,” T-Mobile said: “In addition, 596 PSAPs are in the process of having 911 LBR deployed. We continue outreach to other PSAPs located within T-Mobile’s network footprint in an effort to enable the service further.” Two weeks ago, Verizon filed a similar update (see 2312070044).
Verizon updated the FCC on its 911 location-based routing (LBR) implementation efforts at the request of the Public Safety Bureau, said a filing posted Thursday in docket 18-64. Verizon has fully implemented LBR for 414 public safety answering points, with another 277 in progress, it said: “Verizon has worked with its wireless 911 vendor Comtech to incorporate LBR in Comtech's centralized text control center … in a manner that supports LBR for 911 text messages nationwide.”
The Colorado Public Utilities Commission will seek clarity on its definition of “basic emergency service (BES) outage,” said a notice of proposed rulemaking Tuesday (docket 23R-0577T). The proceeding follows a more extensive 911 rulemaking in docket 22R-0122T, in which the PUC adopted rules for BES outages, the commission said. Since then, staff noticed that the state’s only BES provider, Lumen’s CenturyLink, construes what qualifies as a BES outage “differently than intended,” it said. “On numerous occasions, CenturyLink has argued in outage investigation responses that outages in facilities that service customers other than Public Safety Answering Point (PSAP) are originating service provider (OSP) outages, not BES outages, even if those outages also impact a PSAP and prevent the PSAP from being able to receive calls. CenturyLink has also argued … that if the company reroutes 9-1-1 calls to another, alternate PSAP, then no outage has occurred, since the calls are still being answered, even if they are not being answered by the PSAP originally intended to receive the call.” The disagreement affects other rules including on outage reporting and billing credits, the PUC said. The commission hopes that the fresh rulemaking will “remove any potential ambiguity contained in the relevant rules prior to taking any enforcement action,” it said. Comments are due Jan. 10, with replies due Jan. 19. Also, the PUC plans a virtual hearing Jan. 29 at 11:30 a.m. MST.
New York state awarded $55 million to 47 counties and New York City to upgrade emergency communications systems and public safety answering points (PSAPs), Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) said Wednesday. The state will fund projects through its statewide interoperable communications grant (SICG) program, including $45 million in SICG-Formula grants and $10 million in PSAP grants, Hochul’s office said. New York City received the biggest SICG-Formula award at $6.6 million, followed by Monroe ($1.4 million), Erie ($1.2 million), Albany ($1.2 million) and Onondaga ($1.1 million) counties.