Public safety agencies urge quick rollout of wireless location services

Steve Schear schear at lvcm.com
Sat Sep 29 09:59:16 PDT 2001


[Two approaches have been approved by the FCC: cell station based and 
subscriber unit based.  The subscriber solution (e.g., GPS or triangulation 
from synchronized broadcast TV color-burst) is much preferred as it places 
control of the handset and therefore, possibly, the end user.  If the end 
user does get control it would enable interesting applications (e.g., 
location escrow authenticated by an imbedded tamper-proof smart chip which 
could be encrypted to a user key within the phone).]

Public safety agencies urge quick rollout of wireless location services
By BOB BREWIN
(September 27, 2001)

With a Monday deadline looming, three national public safety organizations 
want the Federal Communications Commission to stop granting waivers and 
extensions to cellular communications companies that would allow them to 
miss the long-mandated start date for E911 wireless location services.

The agencies said the FCC should hit carriers that miss the deadline with 
"serious penalties" for noncompliance.

The Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the U.S. -- and the heavy use of cellular 
networks by the public and rescue workers, including jury-rigged automatic 
location systems in New York -- make it difficult for the FCC to grant new 
waivers for a system that it first envisioned in 1996, said Jim Goerke, 
wireless implementation director at the National Emergency Number 
Association in Columbus, Ohio.

The Sept. 11 attacks have helped focus attention on the importance of 
wireless emergency contact information, Goerke said, adding, "[The cellular 
carriers] have had a lot of time to get this together."
While the FCC hasn't indicated how it will act, analysts expect it to take 
a strong stand. The chances of continued leniency by the commission "are 
about equal to everyone being a winner in Las Vegas," said Alan Reiter, an 
analyst at Wireless Internet & Mobile Computing in Chevy Chase, Md.

The technology isn't perfect, but it does exist, said Reiter. The cellular 
industry has been engaged in "legal stalling," a tactic that won't work in 
the postattack world, he said.

Full story at 
<http://www.idg.net/crd_idgsearch_2.html?url=http://www.computerworld.com/cwi/story/0,1199,NAV47_STO64274,00.html.html>

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