State legislators fired back after FCC and industry representativ...
State legislators fired back after FCC and industry representatives said the states weren’t doing enough to deploy enhanced 911 (E911) services. At the National Conference of State Legislatures winter legislative meeting in Washington, Brian Fontes of Cingular chided the…
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sparse showing of state legislatures for allowing funds to be diverted from E911 phase 2 deployment. “It is in your lap,” he said: “It’s your responsibility to do something about E911.” But Kan. Rep. Carl Krehbiel (R) said the wireless industry was holding up E911 deployment in his state. He said wireless lobbyists, particularly those from Sprint and AT&T, had successfully prevented getting a surcharge added to cell phone bills that would have funded Public Safety Answering Point (PSAP) upgrades. “The PSAPs can’t get the equipment,” he said. Krehbiel also said the FCC “gave the carriers a weapon” by requiring that PSAPs have E911 capabilities before requiring the carriers to provide E911 phase 2 service. He said he would have preferred to require carriers become E911 compliant first, which would have offered more incentives for PSAPs to push for upgrades. Also, the incentives to kill legislation for PSAP upgrades would disappear, Krehbiel said. When Fontes told Krehbiel he had incorrect facts and was speaking in “half truths,” Krehbiel said: “No I don’t!” He said that carriers, because they didn’t have price regulations, had adequate ability to recover their own costs for E911 upgrades. Va. Del. Harvey Morgan (R), Commerce & Labor Committee chmn., said he was told that the technology was less advanced and more expensive than hyped. He said PSAPs had funds available but weren’t using them, which is why the legislature diverted funds to other areas. Fontes and Genie Barton of the FCC Wireless Bureau said more accountability was needed from state leaders to push the PSAPs into making the necessary upgrades. Also, N.Y. Assemblyman Chris Ortloff (R) said he had difficulty getting information from carriers about the capabilities of E911 in his district. He said he killed his own bill to fund PSAPs because of questions he wasn’t able to answer. He also questioned if E911 would work in his rural district. “We can’t be found. We can’t even get a signal,” he said.