Pacts May Improve 911 Locations; GOP Comrs. Upset

AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon agreed to start providing vertical-location information where available on all calls to 911 nationwide within seven days, to implement compliance plans, and to each pay a $100,000 fine, the FCC said Thursday. Public safety groups applauded the action. The agency's two Republican members were upset over process and technological issues.

Commissioners Brendan Carr and Nathan Simington "were surprised and disappointed to learn through a news release that FCC leadership decided to relieve wireless carriers of their certification requirement," they said in the evening. It's "letting wireless carriers off the hook in exchange for $100,000 and a promise to provide whatever vertical location information they may have -- however inaccurate it may be. This agreement, negotiated without any input from our offices, is a bad deal for public safety." A commission spokesperson didn't comment right away.

The consent decrees settle investigations started in April into whether the three met an April 3 deadline to provide the data in the 25 largest markets (see 2104020056), and they sought 18-month waivers of the requirement (see 2103050043). Compliance filings were initially due Wednesday.

The decrees have similar language (see here, here and here). The carriers agree within 30 days to do an “initial round of testing” in one market of the technology they intend to deploy. “Testing must be conducted in dense urban, urban, and suburban morphologies,” the agreement specified: With 45 days, the carriers must submit a joint report “containing the aggregated results of each company’s testing by morphology.” Further testing must be done within 75 days in two of the top 25 markets, “including all of the morphologies (dense urban, urban, suburban, and rural).”

Within 180 days, the three are to work with at least one major public safety group and file at the FCC “a proposal for a campaign to educate [public safety answering points] on the availability and delivery of z-axis location information from all technologies in use by the providers.” Compliance certifications are due June 2, 2022. For our news bulletin, see here. For the FCC's release, see here.

“The data that the carriers will deliver under the consent decrees will eventually provide 911 with highly accurate vertical location information that will better locate callers and save lives,” emailed Dan Henry, regulatory counsel at the National Emergency Number Association.

“Today’s announcement sends a signal that carriers will not be let off the hook for failing to fulfill their obligation to public safety,” emailed APCO Executive Director Derek Poarch. “It also creates a mechanism for improving the Commission’s ongoing insight into the technologies available for delivering dispatchable location and floor level information, which is the type of actionable information Emergency Communications Center directors across the country have said is needed for 9-1-1.”

“Wireless customers and first responders will all benefit from the agreements announced today,” a Verizon spokesperson said. While z-axis solutions were “slowed by the pandemic and various technical issues not in our control, our company is diligently working with operating system developers to deliver a compliant solution that will better enable first responders to locate a person when they call 911 from a wireless device,” the spokesperson said.

AT&T has "spent years and significant resources to improve 911 by providing public safety accurate latitude and longitude information to locate a caller’s address," said Executive Vice President-Federal Regulatory Relations Joan Marsh in a statement. "We look forward to continuing to work collaboratively with the FCC, our industry partners and public safety to help locate 911 callers in multi-story buildings by adding vertical location information that meets or exceeds accuracy benchmarks.” T-Mobile didn't comment.

“In emergencies, wireless is the primary way we connect to 9-1-1, and consumers and public safety officials benefit from highly accurate ground-level location information, thanks to years of work and investment by the wireless industry and commercial services like mapping, delivery and ride sharing,” CTIA said: “As solutions for vertical location continue to evolve, CTIA and our member companies are committed to our ongoing testing and evaluation of technologies that make wireless location estimates even more accurate.”