FCC, Utah pushing 911 improvements

0 Comments | Deseret News (Salt Lake City), Jun 17, 2007 | by Pat Reavy Deseret Morning News

The federal government is pushing cell phone companies to make it easier for police and firefighters to locate 911 callers.

Utah, however, has already been busy taking steps on its own.

The Federal Communications Commission earlier this month voted to move forward on a rule that would require cell phone companies to use smaller geographic areas when testing the location accuracy of 911 cell-phone callers.

While Gary Lancaster, chairman of Utah's 911 Committee, agrees cell phone companies need to do more to make sure information sent to dispatch centers is accurate, the state has also been doing its part by upgrading equipment in nearly all of the state's dispatch centers.

In the past, Lancaster said there was a significant problem of 911 calls placed from cell phones going to dispatch centers well outside the jurisdiction from where the call was placed.

"Over the past year and a half, the state has been aggressive in modifying its system," Lancaster said.

Although technology has advanced and the situation has improved, questions of location continue to pose some problems for dispatch centers across the state, depending on the location of cell phone towers.

And any additional technology that will force cell phone companies to provide more information to dispatchers more quickly is a step in the right direction, said Lt. J.D. Lougee, supervisor of the Provo Police Dispatch Center.

"(The FCC) is where the push has to come from," he said. "Thank goodness. It's a little late, but if it gets done -- It's very much needed, obviously."

Provo Dispatch Center is a Phase II compliant center, meaning they can locate anyone within 300 to 500 meters of their location instead of just locating the nearest cell-phone tower.

The same goes in Weber County, where the last major cell phone carrier completed technological updates at the end of May. Dispatch centers will be testing the system over the next month.

Although GPS and the "triangulation" of towers help pinpoint a caller's location, they're not always foolproof, and voice-over Internet protocol (VOIP) is presenting a new challenges.

The FCC also is pushing for a similar rule with that technology, which Lancaster said is an area that has a lot of room for improvement, even though 911 calls placed through VOIP aren't that common.

A new state law requiring computer users to register their VOIP equipment is helping to address what problems there are, Lancaster said.

Cell phone companies are highly opposed to the FCC motions. A letter filed with the FCC on behalf of Verizon Wireless, T-Mobile USA, Inc., Dobson Communications Corp. and the Rural Cellular Association questioned whether community-level testing was "technically feasible or even practical."

Contributing: Sara Israelsen, Deseret Morning News; Associated Press

E-mail: preavy@desnews.com