The FCC should adopt an “eliminate-two-regulations-for-each-one-adopted” model as President Donald Trump is requiring for executive agencies, Commissioner Mike O’Rielly said Wednesday at an American Cable Association event. The agency has other routes for reviewing rules, but O'Rielly said it has "plenty of rules we can strike without undermining ... consumer protection."
Any advancing legislation designed to help the transition to Next-Generation 911 perhaps should find ways to stop states that divert money from 911 fees to purposes other than paying for and improving 911, Steve Souder, who retired last year from leading Virginia’s Fairfax County 911 system, told the House Communications Subcommittee Wednesday. Lawmakers repeatedly peppered witnesses on fee diversion during the hearing, as they considered what help Congress should give NG-911.
The FCC should adopt an “eliminate-two-regulations-for-each-one-adopted” model as President Donald Trump is requiring for executive agencies, Commissioner Mike O’Rielly said Wednesday at an American Cable Association event. The agency has other routes for reviewing rules, but O'Rielly said it has "plenty of rules we can strike without undermining ... consumer protection."
FairPoint Communications names Mike Reed state president-Vermont, succeeding Beth Fastiggi, hired by the state's government as commissioner, Department of Human Resources; Reed remains the telco's state president-Maine ... Tessco Technologies reorganizes sales force, combining commercial sales and product teams under Senior Vice President Charles Kriete, now for commercial sales, product marketing and supply chain, and combines retail sales and product teams under Liz Robinson, promoted to senior vice president-retail sales and product marketing; Senior Vice President-Sales Pete Peterson resigns for personal reasons.
Congress should consider hitching Next-Generation 911 legislation to the $1 trillion infrastructure package under discussion this session, West Safety Services Vice President Mary Boyd plans to testify Wednesday on behalf of the Industry Council for Emergency Response Technologies (iCert). Her advocacy echoes what key Senate Democrats have said this year, a growing push that goes beyond the telecom debate about including broadband funding (see 1702280062). Witnesses plan to tell the House Communications Subcommittee of the needs of NG-911 in funding and legislative tweaks, with significant attention on the i3 standard that the National Emergency Number Association worked on.
Congress should consider hitching Next-Generation 911 legislation to the $1 trillion infrastructure package under discussion this session, West Safety Services Vice President Mary Boyd plans to testify Wednesday on behalf of the Industry Council for Emergency Response Technologies (iCert). Her advocacy echoes what key Senate Democrats have said this year, a growing push that goes beyond the telecom debate about including broadband funding (see 1702280062). Witnesses plan to tell the House Communications Subcommittee of the needs of NG-911 in funding and legislative tweaks, with significant attention on the i3 standard that the National Emergency Number Association worked on.
The FirstNet board Tuesday voted to authorize CEO Mike Poth to award a contract to build the national network for first responders (see 1703280007), as expected (see 1703240035). The board didn’t say that a team led by AT&T won the contract, though that announcement is expected in coming days (see 1703200065). FirstNet and industry officials said Tuesday the real work begins now.
Dallas police announced a job fair to employ more 911 call takers after caller overload earlier this month crippled the city’s emergency response. Dallas temporarily upped staffing levels and promised technical upgrades after calls spiked and some couldn't reach 911 (see 1703170040). The Police Department plans a police communications jobs fair Friday and Saturday, the first such event since October 2012, City Manager T.C. Broadnax said in an update emailed Monday. The last job fair resulted in 420 applications and 45 new 911 call takers, he said. Broadnax said he “will be reviewing the data related to sick leave utilization and associated policies to determine if further action(s) are necessary and/or warranted to better manage staffing levels.” This past weekend, the city didn’t experience any call spikes like the ones that caused the 911 call center overload, he said. Last week, FCC staff gave an update on its investigation to the separate AT&T outage (see 1703230075). The National Association of State 911 Administrators looks forward to the FCC releasing more information, NASNA Executive Director Evelyn Bailey emailed Monday. “It is our hope that the continuing investigation will clearly identify the root cause of the outage and whether that reveals actions that other vendors, not just AT&T, should take as they implement [Voice over LTE].”
As the FCC considers the proposals in a further rulemaking on real-time text, it should ensure the rules “remain grounded in feasibility, subject to the statutory limitations on what is achievable and readily achievable,” T-Mobile replied. “T-Mobile encourages the Commission to reject calls for expanding the scope of the backwards compatibility obligation as well as to refrain from adopting new and onerous mandates on carriers.” The company said, for example, RTT can't be compatible with short-message service texting. “SMS and RTT are two entirely different communications protocols -- SMS is a best-effort, store-and-forward service, while RTT is a session-based, two-way communication similar to voice calling,” the carrier said. “Making RTT backwards compatible with SMS is not feasible.” The Alliance for Telecommunications Industry Solutions agreed. “RTT and SMS are two different technologies -- end-users make a choice regarding which technology to use and there is no way for service providers to automatically revert messages sent using one technology to another,” ATIS replied. “An RTT message therefore cannot automatically fall back to SMS.” The National Emergency Number Association in general supported an FCC proposal that it set a sunset date of 2021 for traditional text telephony (TTY), which RTT is replacing. “The Commission should carefully track data trends among consumers, access network providers, originating service providers (such as over-the-top RTT services), and [public safety answering points],” NENA wrote. “If it appears, closer to the tentative sunset date, that any one of these important constituencies has not yet adequately transitioned to technologies and business practices that natively support RTT, the Commission should be prepared to postpone the sunset for a limited time.” In December, the FCC approved an order on a common standard for the transition from TTY to RTT and asked a number of questions in an FNPRM (see 1612150048). Replies were due Friday in docket 16-145.
Witnesses testifying Wednesday on Next Generation-911 before the House Communications Subcommittee are National Emergency Number Association Director-Governmental Affairs Trey Forgety, Indiana Statewide 911 Board Executive Director Barry Ritter, Texas A&M University Internet2 Technology Evaluation Center Director Walt Magnussen, West Safety Services Vice President Mary Boyd and Steve Souder, who retired last year from leading Virginia’s Fairfax County 911 system. A GOP memo said that “several barriers remain to the realization of nationwide NG911,” citing funding concerns: “Costs of the transition to NG911 are significant, [but] an authoritative comprehensive cost study has not been produced to date. Congress directed the ICO [the E911 Implementation Coordination Office] to submit a cost study within one year of the passage of the NG911 Advancement Act in 2012, but no such study has been submitted, despite bipartisan concerns over the previous administration’s delay.” Consensus is that funding is “inadequate,” with proposals on the table to “include eliminating funding inconsistencies between states, within states, and between voice delivery networks -- landline, wireless, VoIP and prepaid,” the GOP memo said. It cites governance, network security and regulatory barriers as key issues. The Democratic memo noted funding issues with NG-911. The hearing follows a debate over the i3 standard between APCO and NENA last week (see 1703240052). “That operational and transitional NG911 systems based on i3 exist is a testament to the workability and permanence of the i3 standard,” said Evelyn Bailey, executive director of the National Association of State 911 Administrators, in a statement Monday. “We are well on the way toward achieving the vision of nationwide NG911 by the end of 2020. NASNA does not support anything that would slow down and disrupt that progress.”