The Minn. PUC asked a federal court to reconsider its ruling last month that declared Vonage’s voice-over-IP service to be an unregulated information service and entirely outside the agency’s jurisdiction. The PUC urged the U.S. Dist. Court, Minneapolis, to reconsider certain findings of fact on which the court based its Oct. 16 decision (Civil Case 03-5287). It asked the court to change its ruling, issue a temporary injunction and reopen the record for further investigation and discovery, or grant a new trial. The PUC cited errors of fact including the finding that Vonage’s service was principally on the Internet and didn’t involve “phone-to-phone” telephony. The PUC cited reports quoting top Vonage officials as saying 97% of its calls touched the public switched phone network. It also said Vonage’s ability to comply with state 911 requirements was still in dispute. The PUC disputed the court’s finding that Congress had preempted state regulation of any and all aspects of information service, including the 911 services of Vonage. The PUC said the court overstated the scope of the federal preemption and “dramatically modified state authority in an area traditionally regulated by the states.” Without uniform state standards for 911 provision, it said, there could be dangerous public confusion over 911 as well as strains on the system.

The House passed Enhanced 911 (HR-2898) legislation Tues. afternoon as supporters turned their attention toward moving an E911 bill through the Senate. The House bill was passed on the suspension calender on voice vote. Sponsor Rep. Shimkus (R-Ill.) told us there would be challenges in getting a bill to President Bush’s desk since there were significant differences in the Senate companion bill, but said getting the House bill passed might streamline the process. “Clearly, we have a wide gap to bridge,” House Commerce Committee spokesman Ken Johnson said: “But considering people’s lives are at stake, Americans want us to get this bill done now.”

Qwest CEO Richard Notebaert told a conference audience Tues. that his company had decided to offer mass market Voice-over-IP (VoIP) service starting in Minn., where a U.S. Dist. Court recently ruled that VoIP provider Vonage could provide its service without telecom regulation. At a Yankee Group Telecom Industry Forum in Washington, Notebaert said Qwest had “come to the conclusion VoIP is not a bad path [to deregulation] so Qwest is going to become one of them.” He said Qwest already offered the service to big business or “enterprise” customers.

In the latest round of reports to the FCC on Enhanced 911 implementation, wireless carriers outlined progress, but Verizon Wireless said public safety agencies had “much more work to do” to reach a target of 100% deployment of E911 location capability by 2005. Verizon Wireless told the FCC it had rolled out E911 Phase 2 service to 128 additional public safety answering points (PSAPs) and Phase 1 service to another 331 since its last quarterly report, and now provided that location capability to 2,306 PSAPs serving 145 million residents. It also told the FCC it sold 19 GPS-capable handset models that could transmit location information for 911 callers. As of Oct. 15, Verizon Wireless said only 2,700 PSAPs (38% of the total in the U.S.) had requested Phase 1 E911 service and only 1,350 (19%) had sought Phase 2 information. “Verizon Wireless has successfully finished deploying E911 service to 85 percent of those requesting Phase 1 and to 61 percent of those requesting the Phase 2 service thus far,” it said. Separately, Nextel told the FCC it had deployed 353 PSAPs with Phase 2 services in the last 13 months and Phase 1 to 933. It said it had made 2 Assisted-GPS-capable handsets available in the last reporting period for a total of 4. “Nonetheless, the complexities of deploying Phase 2 technology, as well as in some cases PSAP readiness and PSAP ‘one-off’ operational or technical requests, create challenges requiring resources and cooperation among all parties to facilitate efficient deployments,” Nextel said. “Additionally, there continue to be literally thousands of PSAPs from whom Nextel has received neither a Phase 1 nor a Phase 2 valid request. As a result, Nextel’s ability to get E911 service to its customers is sharply curtailed by the readiness of many PSAPs throughout the country.” Among the issues that affect PSAP readiness, Nextel cited inadequate funding at the local, state and federal levels. “And given the status quo, the PSAPs likely will not be ready in the near future,” it said. Cingular said that in line with an Oct. 12 deadline for Phase 2 deployment, it rolled out Phase 2 technology at more than 1,600 cell sites as required by the FCC, “giving priority to fulfilling pending PSAP requests.” Cingular said that as of Oct. 30, it had rolled out Phase 2 technology at more than 2,000 cell sites in advance of a Dec. 12, 2003, FCC milestone. On its TDMA networks, Cingular said it received 479 requests for Phase 2 service, of which 460 were “valid.” It said it had deployed a solution in a service area that covered 393 of those requests: “Unfortunately, of the 393 deployments, 102 PSAPs (26%) still are not ready to accept the Phase 2 data.” Cingular told the Commission that many PSAPs weren’t able to complete end-to-end testing of the Phase 2 solution because of readiness problems, including a lack of upgraded equipment and improper connectivity between the PSAP’s automatic location information database and its equipment.

The House Enhanced 911 (E911) bill (HR-2898) is scheduled for a floor vote today (Tues.) under the suspension calendar. It’s listed as 11th of 20 bills the House are to consider. Suspension bills can have no amendments and must receive a 2/3 majority. Sources on the Hill and in industry said all objections to the bill had been resolved and there should be no significant opposition to its passage. The bill, by Rep. Shimkus (R-Ill.), would devote $100 million per year for 5 years to help support the deployment of Phase 2 E911 services, which give emergency operators an approximate location of a cellphone caller. It also would punish states that raided statewide E911 funds that many legislatures have established. Under the bill, any state that raided an E911 fund would be eligible for matching federal funds.

The House could consider Enhanced 911 (E911) legislation (HR-2898) this week, perhaps Tues. or Wed., industry and Hill sources said. The bill, by Rep. Shimkus (R-Ill.), would provide up to $100 million a year for 5 years to help roll out Phase 2 E911, which would allow emergency responders to know the approximate location of a wireless 911 call. The bill is likely to be brought up on the suspension calendar, which means no amendments could be offered and it would require passage by a 2/3 majority. Industry sources said there had been some concerns about the bill’s cost but they had been resolved and the measure was ready to move to the floor.

When contemplating the wireless Enhanced 911 (E911) issue, it’s critical not to ignore the fact that “wireless E911 is at its core a consumer issue,” said Dane Snowden, FCC’s Consumer & Governmental Affairs Bureau (CGB) chief. Speaking at the 2nd-day of a 2-day meeting of the FCC’s E911 Coordination Initiative, he said since 1995, the number of 911 calls placed by people using wireless phones had more than doubled to over 50 million per year: “Public safety personnel estimate that about 30% of the many millions of 911 calls they receive daily are placed from wireless phones and that percentage is only growing.”

Rural wireless carriers pressed the FCC Thurs. for relief on Enhanced 911 Phase 2 requirements, citing funding and technology dilemmas they faced with current deadlines. They spoke at the 2nd day of a 2-day meeting of the Commission’s E911 Coordination Initiative, stressing problems with the accuracy of some network-based technologies for pinpointing rural subscribers and a lack of commercial volume of location-capable handsets for TDMA and GSM networks.

FCC Chmn. Powell said Wed. that Enhanced 911 Phase 2 deployment had jumped 300% in the last 7 months, but he warned: “There is a real risk that this progress could stall.” At the start of a 2-day meeting of the FCC’s E911 Coordination Initiative, he said 19 states and Washington, D.C., hadn’t yet deployed Phase 2 to a single public safety answering point (PSAP), with the rollout rate below 10% in 15 other states. Meanwhile, House Telecom Subcommittee Chmn. Upton (R-Mich.) said he had hoped a pending E911 bill would be up for a floor vote Wed. morning, but there now was an agreement with leadership clearing the way for a vote as early as Tues.

The Wireless Consumers Alliance asked the FCC to reconsider a letter ruling last month on 911 call completion methods for Sony/Ericsson multimode wireless handsets. The alliance is pursuing multidistrict litigation in U.S. Dist. Court, Chicago. The suit charges that certain cellphone makers and carriers, including Sony/Ericsson, haven’t met FCC requirements to protect the ability of subscribers to make 911 calls. The court last month referred certain questions on those requirements to the FCC, including what it meant by “call completion” and “delivery of the call to the landline carrier.” The FCC Wireless Bureau issued a letter saying Sony/Ericsson’s call processing method met the FCC’s 911 rules. The alliance argued that a core remaining issue was exactly what the FCC granted when it approved the company’s call-processing method. A 1999 order on Sony/Ericsson’s 911 call completion method for its multimode products granted the company’s request with several stipulations, including a caveat that 911 access attempts be deemed unsuccessful if the handset didn’t receive a channel assignment within 17 sec. The wireless equipment makers and carriers involved in the litigation have argued that the original FCC order required handsets only to assign a voice channel within 17 sec. However, the consumer group contends that the receipt of the call at the base station and its delivery to the landline carrier must be accomplished in that time frame.