The Rural Telecom Group (RTG) asked the FCC for a limited stay of...

2. RTG suggested the Commission set up a new category, Tier 4, composed of the smallest wireless carriers, or those with 100,000 or fewer subscribers. The smallest category for Phase 2 deployment now used by the FCC is Tier 3, which covers carriers with 500,000 or fewer customers. “Because of the typical separation of cellsites in rural areas, small rural wireless carriers cannot accomplish the triangulation necessary to meet Phase 2 accuracy requirements absent the cost and time-consuming construction of additional cell sites,” RTG said in a petition for waiver and request for temporary limited stay of part of the E911 rules filed Fri. RTG sought a limited waiver of accuracy requirements for the smallest carriers operating in rural markets with low cellsite density. The petition asked that: (1) Tier 4 carriers in markets with fewer than 3 cellsites in a licensed service area carriers be allowed to meet the accuracy requirements within 2 years of a public safety answering point (PSAP) request for service. (2) Carriers with 3 or more cellsites with low tower density be given 2 years from a PSAP request to meet the accuracy standards, as long as they agreed to deploy Phase 2 technology under a proposed schedule. The RTG request came as several senators urged FCC Chmn. Powell to grant E911 relief to rural carriers, saying the accuracy requirements were too difficult to meet. Sens. Brownback (R-Kan.), Baucus (D-Mont.), Allen (R-Va.) and others said they strongly supported forbearance for rural markets (CD Aug 25 p7). The RTG filing also came amid a flurry of petitions to the FCC in recent weeks seeking temporary waivers of E911 Phase 2 obligations, particularly a Sept. 1 deadline for starting to sell automatic location identification (ALI)-capable handsets. For carriers relying on a handset-based solution for Phase 2 accuracy requirements, RTG said there were no handsets currently available to meet the FCC’s deployment benchmarks. “Carriers relying on a handset solution to achieve Phase 2 accuracy require a temporary waiver of these benchmarks until the necessary handsets become available,” RTG said. It said certain CDMA carriers formerly had relied on a TDMA solution, but manufacturers had decided to discontinue development of ALI-capable handsets for TDMA networks. For those carriers, RTG said a 12-month extension of the handset deployment benchmarks was needed. For Tier 4 carriers with a CDMA solution who hadn’t received a PSAP request for Phase 2 service, the filing sought a waiver of the Phase 2 data delivery requirements because the necessary handsets weren’t available. For Tier 4 carriers using a GSM handset solution, RTG said more time was needed “due to the projected unavailability of such handsets until late next year at the earliest.” Those carriers should have another 2 years to meet handset benchmarks, it said. As another option for relief, RTG suggested the FCC link various handset deployment deadlines to the receipt of a PSAP request.