A Cal. Senate committee voted down a 911 bill that would have prohibited use of 911 for any purpose other than placing an emergency call. But the bill isn’t dead. Supporters used a parliamentary maneuver to win reconsideration of the vote. The bill (AB-911) in the Senate Public Safety Committee would give first offenders a written warning and educational materials on proper 911 use. Second offenses would pay a $50 fine, 3rd offenders $100 and any additional offenses would mean a $200 fine.

The Minn. PUC told a federal appeals court that the legal challenges to its decision to exert telephone regulatory jurisdiction over VoIP provider Vonage were all based on misinterpretations of federal law and policy. In a reply brief to the 8th U.S. Appeals Court, St. Louis, on its appeal of a lower court ruling denying state authority over the VoIP provider, the PUC said Vonage’s offering isn’t an information service because the content is received exactly as sent. The PUC said Vonage’s service would have to change the content significantly to be considered an unregulated information service. The PUC also said the Pulver.com decision against VoIP regulation doesn’t apply to Vonage because Pulver’s type of VoIP service never touched the public switched telephone network or the N. American Numbering plan. The PUC said claims that federal law and policy preempt state regulation of VoIP with respect to 911 were unsupported by citation of a preemptive federal law or policy. The PUC also took issue with claims that VoIP traffic can’t be jurisdictionally separated. It cited several ways to readily determine whether a VoIP call is inter- or intrastate, such as identifying jurisdiction by the originating and terminating numbers. The PUC said jurisdiction is determined by start and end points, not how calls travel in between.

The W.Va. PSC opened a generic docket to examine provisioning of E911 database services and who should pay for them. The PSC decided to open this generic docket (Case 04- 0102-T-GI) after Frontier Communications filed a tariff to establish rates for providing E911 database services. CLECs and the state Enhanced 911 Council opposed the tariff, saying they disagreed on what the laws allowed and who should bear the cost of maintaining E911 databases. The PSC said the issues presented by the Frontier tariff had statewide impact on all incumbent and competitive carriers and local governments. The procedural schedule will be set later.

The FCC’s IP rulemaking is so vague that it’s impossible to provide a regulatory analysis of its impact, according to the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA). The Dept. of Homeland Security, meanwhile, said the FCC may need to become even more active in regulating IP-enabled services, in comments on the FCC rulemaking (CD June 1 p1). Other commenters questioned the FCC’s authority to regulate IP services at all.

Supported by at least 2 Bell companies, USTA urged the FCC in comments to leave the IP-enabled services market free of economic regulation. But some consumer groups argued the Commission should subject VoIP to Title II regulation to protect consumers, and use its authority to exempt such services from unnecessary regulations. The Local Govt. Coalition reminded the FCC it had “no power to adopt a comprehensive scheme for regulating information services independent of Title II, Title III or Title VI” of the Communications Act. Meanwhile, states pressed for a technology-neutral functional approach to VoIP oversight. “Regulators should not be choosing technology winners and losers,” NARUC Gen. Counsel Brad Ramsay told us. More comments were expected after our deadline Fri.

The National Emergency Number Assn. (NENA) is pushing a new angle in efforts to get stalled Enhanced 911 (E911) legislation through Congress. Seizing on the interest in new services like VoIP, NENA is presenting the case that E911 legislation is essential because it would establish a National Coordinating Office in the federal govt. That office would help integrate 911 services to VoIP and other new services, like Wi-Fi and Blackberries, said NENA Govt. Affairs Dir. Stephen Seitz. The national coordination office was the top priority cited in a document NENA delivered to Congress last week, ahead of funding.

Wireless carriers raised strong objections to a proposed requirement that they file information on service outages, saying in comments on the FCC proposal that the filings could harm the national security they're supposed to bolster. But wireless sources told us Wed. they believe the FCC appears likely to impose the requirements regardless of industry objections. Carrier sources also said they worry the filings could be the start of more FCC intrusion in the area of wireless service quality.

Local Utah public safety officials said they hoped a redundant Qwest circuit facility nearing completion will help prevent a repeat of a partial service outage that affected much of the state’s southern half of the state. A severed Qwest fiber cable near Monroe knocked out interexchange landline and wireless service, including 911 services, over much of the region for 11 hours May 20-21. An excavation contractor doing highway repairs cut through the trunk line in midafternnon. People in the affected area could make local but not interexchange calls. Local officials were quick to broadcast radio and TV warnings telling people to use 7-digit emergency numbers instead of 911. That confused people in areas where 911 still worked. Qwest has a project underway to provide a redundant line for the damaged facility, but completion isn’t expected until the end of July. Qwest said it’s investigating the cable-cut incident.

Gregory Rohde, E911 Institute exec. dir., said there has been some talk among senators and staff to tie the stalled E911 bill (S-1250) to the stalled spectrum relocation trust fund bill (HR-1320). Rohde said after a press briefing that funds left over from govt. spectrum relocation could be used to fund E911 deployment. “The trust fund bill may need something like 911 to get it to the floor,” Rohde said. After the House passed its E911 bill (HR-2898) last year, the Senate version has been stalled for several months after it passed the Commerce Committee earlier this year. One issue of concern is the price difference, as the Senate devotes $500 million a year to the issue, while the House bill’s price tag is just $100 million a year. With a recent General Accounting Office (GAO) report predicting $8 billion would be needed for E911 rollout, Rohde said Senate sponsors may not see $100 million as adequate. However, Rohde said it appeared timing, as opposed to funding, was the issue causing the delay. A busy Senate schedule is causing some of the hold-up, he said. While the funding is higher in the Senate bill, Rohde said it was only an authorization figure and appropriators can give less if they're uncomfortable with the higher figures. Also Fri, the Dept. of Homeland Security (DHS) announced the E911 Institute would be a partner in DHS’s Citizen Corps. The partnership will result in a series of events across the U.S. Rohde said the events -- where House and Senate members would meet with local leaders on 911 and other public safety issue -- would hopefully help spur interest in E911 at the local level. Rohde also said the meetings would help members “understand the situation in their own districts.” “By using the status and power of members of Congress, we hope to draw more attention to the issue,” he said. Suzanne Mencer, DHS dir.-office of state & local preparedness, said 911 and other public safety issues had largely been local issues in Sept. 11, when they became national issue. Many members of Congress are still getting up to speed on local public safety issues, she said. “There’s great value in connecting local leaders with members of Congress,” she said.

Telephone service, including 911 service, for 50,000 Verizon customers in the Ft. Worth suburb of Keller, Tex., was cut off about 4 hours Wed. after a highway contractor accidentally severed the main cable carrying calls for the town. The outage occurred just hours after Verizon announced that Keller was chosen for a major network upgrade that would bring fiber connections directly into every residence and workplace. Local officials said residents turned to their cellphones, causing occasional overloads of the cellular system. Landline customers who picked up their phones heard either silence or a fast busy. The city’s 911 center was taken offline by the outage. Calls to 911 from wireless phones or from outlying areas that still had dial tone were rerouted to the 911 center in adjacent North Richland Hills. City officials also activated an emergency backup radio system to provide essential public safety communications during the outage.