Industry Executives Praise 911 Wireless Indoor Location Accuracy Rules
Industry executives praised the FCC’s new 911 wireless indoor location accuracy rules as a well-balanced compromise during an FCBA event Thursday, and FCC Public Safety Bureau Deputy Chief David Furth called the order a “watershed order” on 911 location accuracy. The rules the FCC adopted 5-0 last month were a compromise from an earlier draft order circulated by Chairman Tom Wheeler, with the final order putting additional emphasis on the industry-public safety road map’s concept of dispatchable locations. Commissioner Mignon Clyburn concurred with the rules despite concerns they were weaker than a February 2014 NPRM (see 1501290066).
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The FCC now believes “we’ve come to the right place” on the road map, which now goes beyond the initial road map proposal, Furth said. APCO “strongly sought” inclusion of the dispatchable location concept in the final rules because it can be helpful for callers who are unfamiliar with a location when an emergency occurs, Director-Government Relations Jeffrey Cohen said. Dispatchable location is now the public safety community’s “gold standard,” CTIA Assistant Vice President-Regulatory Affairs Brian Josef said.
Cohen and others praised the FCC for including the use of live 911 call data as a measure of performance. Live call data has never been included as a performance measurement before, but it will improve transparency and will verify technology tests, Cohen said. “We absolutely agree that this is a sea change,” Josef said, saying it would hold carriers accountable and empower public safety answering points. Live data measurement is likely to be more effective as a long-term measurement, but will be “worth taking the risk” if it improves accuracy, NextNav CEO Gary Parsons said.
The rules also will support increasing use of wireless access points to support 911 location accuracy, which the FCC believes also may lead to use of access points to solve other communications issues, Furth said. The rules also created a “permanent testbed” for improving location accuracy, which will provide an opportunity to test technology on a continual basis, he said. The test bed is important from APCO’s perspective because it's “novel” and will allow more transparent testing, Cohen said.