The FCC should embrace a hybrid tack on E-911 location technology, combining the benefits of network- and handset- based technologies, to get truly improved accuracy, Polaris Wireless and TruePosition told the agency in comments. FCC Chairman Kevin Martin noted a hybrid solution’s potential when the FCC sought comments on making wireless and VoIP E- 911 more accurate in a rulemaking notice approved in June.

Comcast sought FCC approval to stop selling local phone and international service in Miami-Dade and Broward counties in Florida, throughout Utah and in four Colorado cities, including Boulder. The company told customers of the plan last week, said Comcast filings received Monday by the agency. It plans to stop service in about a month, but subscribers will be able to make 911 calls for about 30 days after that. “We strongly urge you to act quickly to select Comcast Digital Voice or another new service provider” to have phone service after the Sept. 30 cutoff, said a Thursday letter to Utah users. Last week, Comcast won preliminary FCC permission to stop circuit-switched sales in Michigan, as it and other cable operators instead emphasize VoIP service (CD Aug 20 p10).

Wireless carriers and equipment makers told the FCC it should defer any decision on tougher E-911 location standards until an industry-public safety group can gather and meet to study the changes’ technological feasibility. The companies hope that the FCC will set up a working group modeled on the Commercial Mobile Service Alert Advisory Committee, which is looking at emergency alerts sent to cellphones. Comments were due this week in a second comment round on how to increase the accuracy of wireless E-911 (CD July 9 p5).

Businesses with operations in and out of the 14 states that have E-911 requirements for corporate communications are adopting the emergency capabilities companywide, to avoid accusations of discrimination in states without E-911 rules, an executive with a software vendor said Tuesday. Companies usually meet the requirements first in states mandating them, later moving to the rest, said Nick Maier, a senior vice president at RedSky Technologies. The FCC has left to states any E-911 requirements on intracompany networks, he said at VoiceCon in San Francisco. Virginia is the latest state to enact a law, Maier said. PBX and multiline telephone systems installed there after 2008 must provide automatic number and location information to the local public-service answering point, he said. Businesses anywhere can adopt IP telephony and unified communications confident that E-911 will work, Maier said, but Session Internet Protocol (SIP) communications presents challenges. It typically works peer- to-peer, with no call server in the middle and multiple users sharing a uniform resource identifier. But “location can be embedded with the call, which will streamline the 911 process,” Maier said. Technology still is being developed to enable a national routing system to translate between conventional phone numbers and “SIP-name-at-domain type designations,” Maier said. RedSky charges a company with 1,000 employees about $40,000 to license its E-911 software; one with 10,000 workers pays about $150,000, he said. Maintenance runs 18 percent of the license fee yearly, Maier said. Customers also must pay a telco about 7 cents monthly per user for record storage, he said. Alternatively, the capability is available as a service for about 50 cents an end point monthly, Maier said. He said coverage of nomadic users runs $1 a month each.

Thousands of Qwest and Verizon customers in southwestern Colorado lost Internet access and wireless service for six hours Monday when a Qwest fiber cable was cut northwest of Denver. The cut killed 32 Verizon cell sites in the Western Slope region, with landline Internet access lost in all or part of Aspen, Cortez, Durango, La Plata, Vail, Montrose, Grand Junction and Telluride. The outage affected AT&T and T-Mobile wireless services in places where those companies lease space on affected Qwest cell towers or lease affected Qwest lines to connect their towers. The outage cut data service to local governments by severing a leg of the Colorado State Multiuse Network. Usually, landline voice service wasn’t affected, but some localities lost interexchange access and had to reroute landline 911 calls to adjacent communities not affected by the outage. Wireless 911 didn’t work at all in the area affected by the outage. Service went out around 6 a.m. but was fully restored by 2:20 p.m., Qwest said.

ETelemetry will team with 911 ETC to sell Locate911, a plug-and-play VoIP phone tracking system, for hybrid TDM and VoIP phone installations, it said Monday. The eTelemetry- developed system matches IP phones to the physical location where they are connected and updates the location every time the phone is moved, eTelemetry said. 911 ETC provides E-911 database management using automation technologies and emergency on-site local notification for customers running PBX and VoIP networks.

Comcast can stop selling circuit-switched local exchange and international phone service in Michigan Sept. 17 unless the FCC tells the company otherwise, said an agency public notice issued Friday. Comcast notified customers of its plans in a letter sent Aug. 1. It will let phone customers make 911 calls until Oct. 17.

Twenty-four bills on broadband are pending in Congress, according to a Congressional Research Service report released Monday. The measures deal mainly with extending broadband access into rural areas, a hot topic for lawmakers up for reelection who have to answer to constituents without access to high-speed service. The bills suggest a variety of options, but many deal with using Universal Service Fund money to subsidize broadband buildout.

A new VoIP bill in the year-'round Pennsylvania legislature would deny the Public Utilities Commission and other state agencies any jurisdiction over retail VoIP or any other IP-enabled retail phone service. Under SB-1000, state regulators’ jurisdiction over VoIP providers would be limited to 911, telecom relay, universal service and intercarrier compensation matters. Regulators would have no control over market entry, rates or terms for VoIP services. The bill wouldn’t affect VoIP providers’ responsibilities and obligations under state consumer protection laws. The bill’s been assigned to the Senate Communications and Technology Committee.

BALTIMORE -- The FCC wants the advice of public safety, equipment vendors, the public and all other interested parties on how to make wireless E-911 more accurate, FCC officials said Wednesday during an FCC legal advisors panel at the Association of Public Safety Officials annual meeting which ends today (Thursday). But with the text of the 700 MHz order still not out, they had little new to say on that order despite numerous questions from APCO members. Sources said the commission is working hard to release the text today, before the end of the APCO meeting.