CTIA will turn its attention to implementing local number portability (LNP) and will ask the FCC for guidance on how to resolve several technical issues, Pres. Tom Wheeler told reporters Mon. CTIA still is pushing its active court challenge on LNP, but Wheeler said “it’s time to turn our attention from legal issues to operational realities.” However, NARUC said that was just another attempt to stall LNP and that there were no technical limitations to wireless carriers’ implementing LNP.

Wireless carriers told the FCC in the latest round of reports on Enhanced 911 deployment that they generally were meeting deployment benchmarks and increasing the pace of sales of handsets that could locate callers. In quarterly reports last week, mobile operators also cited continued challenges related to public safety funding and LEC readiness. AT&T Wireless said it had reached “mutually agreeable” deferral dates with public safety answering points (PSAPs) when readiness issues arose. But it said it “remains concerned that integration of its Phase 2 E911 service will be hampered by ongoing issues beyond its control associated with PSAP readiness and ILEC pricing.”

Broadcast spectrum is used inefficiently and is hampering the deployment of some wireless Internet platforms, panelists said on Capitol Hill Thurs. On the panel sponsored by the Congressional Internet Caucus, Thomas Hazlett of the Manhattan Institute said Wi-Fi was the only area where the FCC was creating new spectrum allocations and where new spectrum usage was being promoted. The FCC recently allocated 255 MHz of spectrum for unlicensed spectrum use. But there is less spectrum in the U.S. for unlicensed use or for other new wireless services than in other countries, the panelists said. Part of the problem stems from inefficient use of spectrum by broadcasters, said Steve Berry of CTIA. He questioned the regulatory oversight regime over Wi-Fi, especially once Wi-Fi begins being used for voice-over- Internet services. Berry asked how the FCC would require E- 911, CALEA and wireless priority access over Wi-Fi networks. Michael Calabrese, of the New America Foundation, said wireless ISPs (WISPs) were “popping up” in many rural areas to provide wireless broadband service.

Stakeholders who are deploying Enhanced 911, including state regulators, wireless carriers and public safety officials, told the FCC Tues. that coordination efforts were improving, in part due to a culture shift toward more cooperation. But at the first meeting of the agency’s E911 Coordination Initiative, they cited remaining challenges, including the raiding of state E911 funds for other purposes and the extent to which new wireless devices should be built with E911 in mind. National Emergency Number Assn. Pres. John Melcher said a new estimate forecast that it would cost public safety agencies $8.4 billion over the next 5 years to implement wireless E911 in every county.

The FCC and the National Communications System (NCS) opened a national campaign Thurs. to urge public safety answering points (PSAPs) to register in the Telecom Service Priority (TSP) program. The FCC said joint research conducted with NCS indicated less than 10% of 7,500 PSAPs in the U.S. now participated. The program, created in 1988, gives govts. and key industries priority over other telecom users in emergencies. In case of a national emergency, the program ensures certain dedicated voice, backbone and access circuits for priority users can operate despite severe network congestion or disruption. The FCC said 911 centers “readily qualify” because they offer services essential to health and safety. NCS Deputy Mgr. Brenton Greene and FCC Office of Engineering & Technology Chief Edmond Thomas wrote to the National Emergency Number Assn. (NENA), National Assn. of State 911 Administrators (NASNA) and the Assn. of Public Safety Communications Officials (APCO), which are part of the campaign on TSP. “Lack of participation could jeopardize the restoration of essential service provided by the PSAP administrators during times of disaster and could put citizens at substantial risk of injury or loss of property at times when they are most vulnerable,” they wrote. The FCC said it would be the federal TSP sponsor for all PSAP administrators because, under the program, all non-federal organizations seeking coverage must have a federal sponsor. The Commission developed initial guidelines to help PSAPs enroll. It said in an attachment to the letters to the public safety community that since Sept. 11, 2001, the agencies had been reviewing the “scope and effectiveness” of the TSP program. While they found it operated well in disasters, certain groups were underrepresented, particularly PSAPs. “This lack of participation by certain key organizations represents a serious vulnerability in our homeland security,” FCC and NCS said. The current lag in PSAP participation “could jeopardize the restoration of essential services provided by the PSAP administrators during times of disaster and, therefore, put citizens at substantial risk of injury or loss of property at times when they are most vulnerable.” NCS and the FCC said PSAPs might not join the program because they mistakenly believed telecom service providers automatically gave a high priority to restoring their lines in emergencies. NCS said it would expedite its processing of TSP applications by PSAPs. Current rules give NCS up to 30 days to do so, but it pledged to process valid PSAP TSP applications within 14 days -- only 3 days for most of them. APCO said that, along with industry standards bodies, it would develop additional “industry-specific guidelines” for PSAPs to assist in their enrollments. The FCC stressed Thurs. that a PSAP user didn’t have to purchase TSP coverage for all its lines. Typically, there’s a one- time charge of $100 for a local line and a monthly charge of about $3, but it said most TSP users sought coverage for only a portion of their lines to keep costs down. NASNA said it would provide information to its members to help enroll in the program and do follow-up with 911 center administrators. NENA said it also would provide information to its members and propose revisions in its standards to reflect adequate levels of TSP participation by PSAPs.

The FCC’s Emergency 911 (E911) mandate and the subsequent advancements in location-measurement technologies will fuel the N. American location-based services (LBS) market growth, research by Frost & Sullivan said. It said the market would grow to more than $850 million in revenue in 2006 from $13 million in 2002. The report said consumer- oriented applications would encourage initial LBS adoption, adding to the businesses already investing in company- specific solutions such as tracking services, work force management and security. Frost & Sullivan analyst Brent Iadarola said consumer awareness and increased availability and capacity of location-enabled handsets would be the “key to increase penetration rates.” Establishment of new pricing models incorporating revenue-sharing arrangements in the standard licensing agreements combined with incremental deployment will allow carriers to reduce large up-front investments and minimize risk, the research said. Information, transaction and entertainment-based applications “will frame the foundation for LBS, and mobile operators will be challenged to provide a personalized combination of these services that is unique and compelling to the mobile user,” Iadarola said.

FCC Comr. Adelstein voiced support late Wed. for Congress’s giving the Commission the ability to impose spectrum user fees, which also have the backing of the Bush Administration’s latest budget request and the Spectrum Policy Task Force. “While we may not need to impose fees in all situations, the Commission should have the discretion to impose fees to promote efficiency, particularly for those services in which incumbents did not pay for their licenses,” he said at the U. of Colo. at Boulder, in his first major speech on spectrum since he joined the FCC 4 months ago. Adelstein addressed the university’s Silicon Flatirons Telecommunications Program, the same venue in which Chmn. Powell in Oct. had unveiled several spectrum policy shifts under consideration. He stressed the need to make spectrum available to rural areas, use smaller licensing areas in some cases and rethink build-out requirements.

Nextel Partners petitioned the FCC for status as an eligible telecom carrier (ETC) in N.Y., contending it provided wireless service throughout certain designated areas, each of which was served by a rural telco. ETC status qualifies a carrier to gain universal service funding in high-cost areas. Arguing that it met all the requirements for ETC designation for parts of the state, Nextel Partners told the FCC it had “sufficient wireless network infrastructure facilities and capacity to provide support services” throughout the designated areas at issue. It also said it was offering, or would offer, all services required of ETC status, including voice grade access to the public switched telephone network, local usage, dual tone multifrequency signaling, single party access and E911 or 911 access. Nextel Partners said as of Feb. 1, it had launched Phase 1 of E911 in 4 N.Y. counties and Phase 2 in 2. Although a carrier seeking ETC designation typically must seek approval from a state PUC, Nextel Partners said the N.Y. Dept. of Public Service didn’t regulate commercial mobile radio service carriers for the purpose of making such status determinations. The company said its designation as an ETC in rural, and in some cases remote, parts of N.Y. that largely weren’t served by competitive wireline carriers “could provide an alternative to the incumbent LEC.” The April 3 filing said: “Designation of Nextel Partners as an ETC will provide a valuable alternative to the existing telecommunications regime in these areas, including a larger local calling area, the benefits of mobile telephony service and, where requested by the PSAP [public service answering points] GPS location assistance for customers calling 911.” Nextel Partners said a favorable ETC decision also would give ILECs in the designated areas incentive to upgrade their networks to remain competitive. The carrier said it would provide all the supported services required by the FCC, participate in the LifeLine and Link-Up programs and “otherwise comply with all FCC rules governing universal service.” It said that allowing it access to universal service subsidies would “allow Nextel Partners to continue to enhance and expand its network infrastructure to better serve consumers in underserved, high-cost areas of the state of New York and to compete with other carriers on a level regulatory playing field.”

T-Mobile USA told the FCC in a semiannual report on Enhanced 911 Phase 2 deployment that while it had decided to transition to a network-based Time Difference of Arrival (TDOA) technology for Phase 2, it would continue to support deployments of a handset-based technology that already was in place. The carrier told the FCC last month it wouldn’t complete its implementation of an Enhanced Observed Time Difference of Arrival (E-OTD) technology, citing the status of available automatic location technology and concerns about the timely availability of E-OTD in line with upcoming E911 deadlines. “Even as it was evaluating whether E-OTD could ultimately satisfy the Commission’s rules, T-Mobile continued to engage in deployment efforts,” the carrier said. “Moreover, while it is now placing all forward-looking efforts into TDOA deployment, it will continue to support E- OTD deployments already in service.” T-Mobile said that although it received some trial data from a recent Siemens test in Detroit that showed some improvements in E-OTD performance, the information also showed that E-OTD wasn’t meeting the accuracy threshold of locating 67% of calls within 50 m.

SAN JOSE -- It will be harder to let voice-over-Internet protocol (VOIP) companies off the regulatory hook on social policy obligations than conventional rate and service issues, Robert Pepper, the FCC’s chief of policy development, told a VON [voice on the net] conference here late Tues. The tougher issues “don’t go to monopoly power questions,” he said: “They don’t go to traditional regulatory issues. They go to things we as a society think are important.” He listed Universal Service Fund contributions, 911, the Communications Assistance to Law Enforcement Act (CALEA) and disabled access.