Public safety groups questioned Enhanced 911 Phase 2 waiver petit...

the Assn. of Public-Safety Communications Officials (APCO) and the National Assn. of State 911 Administrators said: “The theme of these requests, however, is not relief from accuracy standards but more time to implement Phase 2’s present requirements.” Among the waiver petitions cited by the filing was one by the Rural Telecom Group (RTG), which asked the Commission for a limited stay of Phase 2 deadlines for the smallest wireless carriers, saying most of them couldn’t meet accuracy mandates using a network- based solution for Phase 2. RTG suggested a new category for E911 compliance, composed of the smallest wireless carriers - - those with 100,000 or fewer subscribers. The FCC received a flurry of petitions last month seeking temporary waivers of E911 Phase 2 obligations, particularly a Sept. 1 deadline for starting to sell automatic location identification (ALI)- capable handsets. In the case of a waiver petition by First Cellular of Southern Ill., the request for Phase 2 relief doesn’t lay out “a clear path to full compliance,” the public safety groups said. They said the petitions involved several contingencies based on different solutions. “It would be easier to accept the requested 24-month delay if the path forward were more certain,” the groups said. They also said they weren’t able “to judge the accuracy of the rural wireless carriers’ claims that they are at the end of the line for supply of available handsets from manufacturers and are victimized by ‘exclusive’ arrangements between manufacturers and national carriers. We trust that the FCC will call in the manufacturers to attempt to separate truth from rhetoric in these matters.” The groups said some small carriers had reported to the FCC in recent months that handsets were available to them in enough numbers to meet E911 penetration and accuracy requirements.