Boosting Wireless 911 a Tough Task
Meeting a federal mandate that requires cellular carriers to beef up their 911 services is proving complicated for the wireless industry.
It took a year to prepare a 63-square-mile test site in the San Gabriel Valley so emergency dispatchers would be able to identify the approximate location and phone number of cellular users who make 911 calls there.
This long preparation period for the program--the first in the state--stems in part from the high number of participants in the trial, including the state Department of General Services, cellular carriers, the California Highway Patrol and companies that deliver phone number and location information from the cellular carrier to the CHP. Under state law, all wireless 911 calls are transmitted to the CHP, which routes them to the appropriate municipality.
The trial will help the state evaluate the technology required to meet phase one of a Federal Communications Commission order. This order mandates that carriers provide emergency workers with the phone number and the cell tower nearest the cellular phone user making a 911 call. This information would appear on an emergency dispatcher’s screen. Today when a cellular phone user calls 911, the dispatcher has a blank screen.
If the San Gabriel trial is successful after three to six months, the system will be expanded statewide--a process Leah Senitte, California’s 911 program manager, estimates could take at least 18 months.
Only a handful of locales have begun to meet the requirements of phase one, including a handful of Indiana and Colorado counties and Portland, Ore., according to Reuven Carlyle, vice president of external affairs for Seattle-based Xypoint, the company that acts as the middleman in the trials for AirTouch Communications, one of the largest cellular carriers in Southern California. California’s trial will be monitored nationwide.
“There are hundreds of public safety professionals who are watching California to see how this rolls out, both technically and politically,” Carlyle said.
Indeed, there are some sticky issues surrounding wireless 911 in California. Cellular phone companies in California don’t have the limited-liability protections that their land-line cousins do. That makes providers tentative about providing 911 service.
The state has asked the FCC whether it can require cellular carriers to provide the beefed-up services even if they don’t have these protections. An answer is expected in the next few weeks.
In addition, a bill designed to address liability questions died in the Legislature last session. The measure by Assemblywoman Helen Thompson (D-Davis) addressed rerouting some cellular calls from the CHP to municipalities to help ease the overburdened 911 system. The CHP now reroutes about 30% of all incoming cellular 911 calls.
Senitte, the state’s 911 program manager, said her office is working to address overcrowding by educating consumers about what 911 services are for and upgrading the CHP’s equipment.
Transferring the cellular caller’s phone number and approximate location to emergency dispatchers is only the first requirement of the FCC’s order.
The second phase, which must be completed by 2001, requires cellular carriers to provide dispatchers the location of a cellular 911 caller to within 125 meters, or about 400 feet. The wireless industry is reviewing several technologies that could help it meet this requirement.
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It appears that carriers won’t choose a standardized technology, but rather will opt to combine several options to meet the phase two requirements.
“The industry didn’t choose a standard for digital services, and the question is, are they going to step up with a standard here?” said Melissa May, manager of public relations and promotions for AirTouch. “Conventional wisdom says that we’ll do some hybrid.”
The state also hasn’t determined how it will reimburse cellular carriers for making infrastructure changes to meet phase two requirements. This could be a pricey proposition, with estimates as high as $30,000 to $50,000 per cell site, Senitte said. The state has yet to study costs of different solutions, she added.
One option is wireless phones with global positioning system technology, or GPS. These phones rely on an umbrella of 24 satellites orbiting Earth to pinpoint the caller’s location. A chip installed in the phone picks up signals from the satellites, allowing carriers to determine the exact latitude and longitude of their subscribers. (This would require the installation of additional software in their networks.)
The problem with GPS technology, which has been used for years by aircraft, ships and the military, is increasingly being installed by auto makers in vehicles, is that its signals can be blocked by buildings and foliage.
San Jose-based SnapTrack, which licenses GPS technology, has formed a coalition of cell phone makers and carriers whose digital services operate on the code division multiple access, or CDMA, frequency. The manufacturers are building prototype GPS phones for tests to be held nationwide next spring.
Since chip prices have fallen, the technology is unlikely to significantly increase the cost of a cell phone, said Will Strauss, president of Tempe, Ariz.-based market research firm Forward Concepts. But carriers could boost the overall price for their wireless services by adding GPS applications that allow users to track the travel distance of their golf balls and get directions to restaurants.
A second option involves using network software that requires carriers to re-engineer cell towers to intercept phone signals, which could then be used to pinpoint a caller’s location.
Unlike GPS, the technology wouldn’t require cellular subscribers to change their handsets, although it is more expensive to implement and less precise. This is particularly true in desert areas, where there’s a cell site every 20 miles, May said.
“At least four carriers have determined a network solution is two to three times more expensive than a handset solution,” said Ellen Kirk, vice president of marketing and strategic planning at SnapTrack. “No one debates for accuracy GPS is the be-all and end-all. With a network solution one gets 125-meter accuracy 67% of the time.”
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Times staff writer Jennifer Oldham can be reached via e-mail at jennifer.oldham@latimes.com.
