A Measured Approach to Safety August 30, 2007
Posted by Grant Seiffert in : General, What's New?, Policy , trackbackEditor’s Note: TIA President Grant Seiffert writes a weekly President’s Message to members in the Network, TIA’s newsletter. This week, we’re running his most recent letters every day, and, starting Thursday, will run his weekly comments in this space. The following is from the August 29th issue of the Network.
The Federal Communications Commission rules regularly on aspects of our industry that may go unnoticed outside Washington, or perhaps outside the industry itself. But many of its decisions have a direct impact on the lives of regular citizens. In those cases, it has been and always will be the top priority of TIA and its members to work with the commission to make sure that well-intentioned regulation isn’t stifling innovation, or worse, setting untenable goals that ultimately detract from the public good.
The FCC recently issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) relating to the location accuracy and reliability requirements for enhanced 911 (E911) service. According to recent press reports, the FCC will require wireless carriers to comply with more stringent E911 accuracy requirements by September 2008.
TIA members see this as problematic. Industry experts agree that such compliance can’t be accomplished safely and effectively in only one year.
You can find our comments responding to the Commission’s NPRM in this issue, but put simply, we’ve asked the commission to give the industry sufficient time to develop and implement new technologies. Wireless and public safety entities will need to work together to develop standards, test and validate various methods, and to deploy networks themselves; you’ll never hear from a bigger public safety advocate than me, but, as a technical matter, there are limits to what can be done in a year’s time.
The FCC in recent years has shown a welcome willingness to work with industry on matters relevant to public safety and emergency response. In this case, however, it would be a shame to see it impose conditions that in one fell swoop undermined industry’s efforts to improve E911 location accuracy across the nation.
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