Safety First Is Nice in Theory, but Cost Is Real Bottom Line
Cellular telephones, once considered a luxury item, have been embraced by tens of millions of consumers as prices have plummeted and the industry began marketing the devices as a wireless safety line.
Surveys by the Cellular Telecommunications Industry Assn. in Washington have found that safety and security are among the top three reasons for purchasing a wireless phone. And the Federal Communications Commission reports that more than 18 million calls are made annually to 911 and other emergency numbers by the nation’s 50 million cellular phone users.
In an effort to improve the odds that cellular callers will get help when they call, the FCC last year passed rules requiring the industry to install expensive technology that would enable police, fire and safety officials to pinpoint the location of a cellular phone user dialing 911. The agency was spurred into action by several well-publicized cases of users who were left stranded because rescue crews were unable to locate them quickly.
But now, with an April 1 deadline looming for completion of the first phase of the program, a debate has erupted over who should foot the estimated $2-billion to $5-billion bill for the new electronic location system. To the dismay of some officials, the FCC left the funding question up to the states to resolve.
“Rather than mandate a national one-size-fits-all solution . . . the FCC left cost recovery to be resolved by the state and local governments,” said Thomas E. Wheeler, president of the cellular telecommunications trade group. “The hard part is just how to collect and administer that funding when wireless service, by design, crosses numerous governmental boundaries.”
In the end, of course, it is almost certain that the costs of the new systems will end up on the bills of phone users. The questions raised by this are whether all phone subscribers should pay or just cell phone users, and how the money should be collected and redistributed.
Louis Stilp, general manager of TruePosition Inc., a Baltimore-based company vying with San Ramon, Calif.-based U.S. Wireless Corp. and other firms to develop cellular location equipment, estimates that if the cost of the improvements is confined solely to cellular users, their monthly bills will increase by 75 cents to $1 a month. If spread over all users, he said, the increase would be pennies per month.
The FCC rules require the new wireless-enhanced 911 system to be phased in two parts. The first phase, to be completed April 1, will require carriers to deploy a system that will enable public safety officials to call back the 911 caller and tell emergency crews the location of the cell site receiving the call, making it somewhat easier to locate the caller. The second, more costly phase, which must be in place by Oct. 1, 2001, will require wireless carriers to pinpoint the location of the caller to within 388 feet, about the length of a football field.
Department of General Services officials in California, which raises about $75 million from wire-line and wireless phone users to support the state’s current 911 emergency system for land-line phones, say state lawmakers would have to pass new legislation in order for them to raise significantly more revenue to support a wireless 911 system.
“We believe we can implement phase one of the FCC rules with current revenue levels . . . assuming the economy remain stable,” said Larry Kuhn, telecommunications systems manager for the California Department of General Services. “But to implement phase two, well, that gets correspondingly very expensive.”
“Everybody is hoping that before the four years is up, somebody will invent something that will dramatically cut the cost down,” said Steve Carlson, executive director of Cellular Carriers Assn. of California.
The location technology being developed by most of the companies works by using complex algorithms to calculate locations from split-second differences in signal transmission time between handsets and cellular towers.
There is talk of trying to minimize the cost to subscribers by marketing the new wireless location technology to private industry.
Mike Mallory, product manager with Vanguard Cellular Systems Inc., a Greensboro, N.C., cellular phone operator, says several vendors of the new technology have discussed using it to help trucking firms locate drivers or help the Postal Service locate mail carriers who are attacked on their delivery routes.
Indeed, Calgary’s Cell-Loc Inc., an enhanced 911 equipment developer, thinks these add-on services rather than any FCC mandate will drive the cellular location market.
The company recently demonstrated its product to Canadian cellular carriers, who are not required to pinpoint the location of cellular users. Still, many of the carriers were interested in acquiring the technology.
“They were quite keen on it, even though there is no mandate,” said Michel Fattouche, president of Cell-Loc. Fattouche said his company is now in discussions with some carriers to use Cell-Loc’s location technology to offer trucking fleet management, vehicle location, child location and other location services.
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Jube Shiver Jr. covers telecommunications from The Times’ Washington bureau. He can be reached at jube.shiver@latimes.com
