Reprinted with permission
from Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive and The Washington
Post.
Washington Post
October 6, 2003
Last month the tech policy e-letter examined
emergency 911 services for mobile phones. It's a compelling issue given the
surge in wireless phone use and the emerging trend of home
users discarding old-fashioned landlines altogether.
To catch up: The nation's 911 emergency call centers receive
about 200 million calls each year, about 25 percent of them
from wireless phones. That number is increasing, but only 10
percent of the nation's 7,000 emergency centers can pinpoint
the caller's location, according to Greg Rohde, a former Clinton
administration telecom official and chairman of the E-911 Institute.
That's because getting accurate location information from a
mobile phone to rescue workers requires a bewildering interplay
between Global Positioning System (GPS) satellites, the wireless
and local landline phone companies and emergency communications
systems.
The Federal Communications Commission established an ambitious
rollout program to make sure that the nation's mobile phone
companies were ready to provide "wireless e-911" services
by 2001, but so far that program has been stalled by missed
deadlines and a major cash shortage. The new deadline is 2005,
but it appears unlikely that emergency and rescue workers will
be to locate mobile phone callers who find themselves in dire
straits.
According to Rohde, billions of dollars have been devoted to
speeding up rollout, but more is needed.
Kimberly Kuo, spokeswoman for the Cellular Telecommunications
and Internet Association, acknowledged that the wireless companies
have missed a number of deadlines -- but pointed out that states
often use 911 taxes assessed on phone bills for completely
different purposes.
"People are really realizing that this is a three-legged stool," Kuo
said. "To say that we're dragging our feet [shows] a real
lack of knowledge about the facts."
Congress seems like it's finally getting ready to be that third
leg. The House Energy and Commerce Committee last week approved
a bill that devotes $100 million to the states to speed up
wireless e-911 rollout.
The money is intended to be used by the states as matching
grants, but sponsor Fred Upton (R-Mich.), in a deft stroke
of genius, stuck a clause in the bill that says the states
would forfeit the grants if they use e-911 tax revenue for
any other reason than speeding up E-911 location rollout.
Upton's bill has been on a fast track so far in the committee,
and a full vote on the floor of the House of Representatives
does not appear to be too far away.
The Senate at some point is expected to consider its own version
of the legislation, which authorizes $500 million in matching
grants rather than $100 million. That bill is sponsored by
Conrad Burns (R-Mont.) and Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.).
There is no guarantee that any amount of money will come through
in the end, of course, but Congress and the Bush administration
both realize that since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks Americans
are seeking real security, and that realization may put the
E-911 funding legislation on the fast track to approval.
-- Robert MacMillan, washingtonpost.com Tech Policy Editor
Copyright 2003, Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive and The
Washington Post. All Rights Reserved.
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