The FCC turned down a petition by 12 small wireless carriers seek...

requirements for small, non-nationwide carriers until Jan. 1, 2006. The FCC concluded the group had “not offered adequate evidence to support the broad, class-wide relief that it requests.” The coalition had argued that if the FCC granted such relief, the small carriers still would have to meet most of their E911 obligations, including ordering and installing Phase 2 technical solutions within 6 months of a request from a public safety agency. The FCC said the carriers had failed to meet conditions for forbearance by: (1) Not showing the accuracy standards weren’t necessary to protect subscribers of Tier 3 carriers. (2) Not demonstrating that forbearance from enforcement met a public interest standard. It said that in the past it had granted small carriers some relief from E911 deadlines, recognizing that equipment-makers were meeting the demands of large carriers first. The Tier 3 Coalition filed its petition last Nov., arguing there wasn’t a commercially available Phase 2 compliant handset or network location solution that could meet FCC accuracy requirements and could be deployed economically in a rural area. The FCC rejected arguments that there wasn’t evidence the same accuracy standards imposed in urban areas were needed in rural areas. “The record supports the conclusion that accurate location information is as important in rural areas as it is in urban areas,” the agency said. It also turned down arguments that current technologies couldn’t produce the location accuracy needed for a rural carrier’s service area without severe financial hardship. “There has been no showing that the majority of wireless consumers in rural areas would lose service or be subject to excessive charges if the Commission’s accuracy requirements were enforced,” it said. The FCC said broad relief wasn’t warranted because of the public safety importance of those caller-location accuracy standards.