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Mr. Chairman and Members of the Subcommittee: thank you
very much for the opportunity to appear before you today to discuss issues
relating to the rollout of wireless E911 service in the United States. As
you may be aware, the Federal Communications Commission (“FCC” or “the
Commission”) in early 2002 retained me to conduct an independent inquiry and
to produce an accompanying report to the agency on the technical and operational
issues impacting on the provisioning of wireless E911. In my testimony
here today, I will summarize that report and provide some additional comments
based upon developments that have occurred subsequent to its being released in
October of last year. Before I turn to the substance of my testimony,
however, I want to emphasize that I am testifying today solely as a private
citizen and that, consequently, the views that I express are strictly my own.
The focus of the inquiry that I undertook for the
Commission was on the future of wireless E911 deployment, including any
obstacles to deployment and the steps that might be taken to overcome or
minimize them. My inquiry began in the spring of last year with a large
meeting of stakeholders, including service providers, technology manufacturers,
and members of the public safety community. Over the succeeding months, I
participated in scores of meetings and met with several hundred stakeholders
that are working very hard to increase the safety of the American public through
the further development and deployment of wireless E911.
As I mentioned a moment ago, my report was submitted to the
Commission in October of last year and I have been deeply gratified with the
generally positive response it has generated. The report – along with
public comments on its substance – is available on the Commission’s website
(www.fcc.gov).[1]
Since the report has been available for some months and in the interests of
time, I will not go into detail on my findings and recommendations.
Rather, I will first present a brief overview and commentaries on what I feel
are the most important points and then offer some concluding remarks based upon
more recent developments.
In the findings section of the report, I noted the strong
federal interest in the nationwide availability of E911 and, on that basis,
recommended that there be increased coordination between and among the relevant
federal agencies. The events of the recent past have clearly demonstrated
that E911 is not just an issue of the safety of life and property on a local
basis but one of critical importance to homeland security as well. Given
the ever increasing proportion of calls originating from wireless devices and
the growing substitution of wireless phones for wireline phones, the need for a
rapid deployment of wireless E911 becomes more obvious every day.
In the findings, I also raised concerns about the technical
limitations associated with the existing wireline E911 infrastructure and –
especially – with its ability to evolve smoothly and efficiently to address
emerging requirements. Rather than delve into these limitations today, I
would merely stress the need for a modern infrastructure that is not only
capable of efficiently and effectively handling traditional wireline and
wireless E911 calls, but one who’s overall architecture facilitates the
exchange of evolving types of emergency communications information between and
among federal, state, and local agencies and the public that they serve.
And, an architecture I might also stress that remains true to other public
policy values such as competitive and technical neutrality and reliance on the
competitive marketplace where possible.
This last commentary leads me to another major finding of
the report. When I undertook the independent inquiry on behalf of the
Commission, I was generally aware – from my earlier tenure at the agency –
of what was involved in rolling out wireless E911. As I dug into it deeper
under my new assignment, what really struck me was the overall complexity of the
undertaking. As I pointed out a moment ago, a variety of critical
technical and operational choices – including critical decisions relating to
network architectures – must be made to ensure the reliable and seamless E911
system contemplated by Congress when it passed the Wireless Communications and
Public Safety Act of 1999 (“E911 Act”).
The complexity is exacerbated by the fact that there is no
single decision-maker – no master architect – for emergency communications
systems. Instead, decision-making of this type is spread over a large
number of stakeholders and multiple jurisdictions. Because of the total
number of stakeholders involved, the complexity of the inter-relationships among
the stakeholders, and the incentives and constraints on those stakeholders, I
concluded – not surprising perhaps – that an unusually high degree of
coordination and cooperation among public and private entities will be required
if this nation is going to have the type of modern infrastructure I described
and that I believe the Congress envisioned in passing the 911 Act. In the
report, I pointed specifically to the need for coordination and collaboration
among all stakeholders, public and private, in such areas as overall system
engineering, project management, and the development and adoption of standards.
In another of the findings, I expressed concern that the
rollout of wireless E911 service was being hampered by the lack of funding and
other resources for Public Safety Access Providers – PSAPs – in many
jurisdictions around the country. I pointed specifically to the lack of
cost recovery mechanisms in some states, the lack of a “champion” within the
Federal government, and residual awareness and readiness issues within the PSAP
community. Unfortunately, perhaps, in the report, I used the term “PSAP
fatigue” in referring to some of these issues and this was seen by some as a
criticism of PSAP efforts. Exactly the opposite was true. It was
meant to point out they needed more support in shouldering an enormous burden.
Another of the findings in the report related to the role
of Incumbent Local Exchange Carriers (ILECs) in the provision of E911 services.
I found that, despite the central role that these carriers play in some
implementations of wireless E911 services, their responsibilities had not been
adequately defined both in terms of their technical requirements and in terms of
cost recovery. As an aside, I am pleased to note that in the past year the
Commission has acknowledged these concerns and has taken steps to rectify them.
Lastly, I found that there appeared to be a lack of
well-accepted, standardized tests for determining compliance with the
Commission’s location accuracy requirements, including issues regarding
geographic averaging. I went on to express the concern that this
uncertainty could ultimately prove to be an impediment to the more rapid
deployment of wireless E911 systems.
In light of my findings, I made several recommendations to
the Commission and I will mention them briefly here.
First, recognizing both the strong Federal interest in the
nationwide availability of E911 and the somewhat limited scope of the
Commission’s jurisdiction, I recommended that the Commission work more closely
with other Federal agencies to encourage a coordinated approach in dealing with
issues associated with the deployment of wireless E911 systems. More
specifically, I recommended that it work with the Administration and, in
particular, the then nascent Department of Homeland security to establish what I
referred to as a “National E911 Program Office.” As I envisioned it,
the office within DHS would serve as a resource and advocate – or champion –
for the Nation’s first responders on the issue of E911 deployment.
Second, I recommended that the Commission increase its own
oversight efforts of E911 during this critical phase of deployment. To
that end, I recommended that the Commission establish a formal advisory
Committee that would address the technical framework and longer term network
architecture issues associated with further E911 development and deployment.
Third, noting that my findings suggested that, in at least
some situations, deployment of wireless E911 may be hampered by a lack of
coordination and dialog among the stakeholder groups, I recommended that the
Commission establish an “information clearinghouse” – for the lack of a
better term – that would collect and disseminate information critical to
deployment so that the stakeholders could better coordinate with one another.
I also recommended that the Commission work with, and appropriately support, the
efforts of public, private, and joint efforts aimed at speeding the rollout.
In March of this year, the Commission acknowledged this
recommendation and announced its E911 Coordination Initiative to bring together
relevant stakeholders to share experiences and devise strategies for expediting
E911 deployment. On April 29 – about a month ago -- I was pleased to
participate in the first public meeting associated with that initiative. I
was particularly interested in an announcement made by the Commission at the
meeting regarding E911 Tracking and Coordination Management. Since this
effort is likely to be described in other testimony here today, I will simply
say that it exemplifies the enhanced “information clearinghouse” role that I
envisioned in my report.
While I am on this topic, let me digress briefly to say
that, since the publication of the report, I have been gratified to see what I
perceive as an overall increase in such coordination and communication among
stakeholders and an associated general increase in the level of priority and
awareness of the importance of E911 among policy makers, industry and the
general public. In addition to the Commission’s own Wireless E911
Coordination Initiative which I just mentioned, other activities, which I
believe you will also hear more about today, include the Department of
Transportation’s Wireless E911 Steering Council, the Emergency Services
Interconnection Forum jointly sponsored by the Alliance for Telecommunications
Industry Solutions – ATIS – and the National Emergency Number
Association – NENA, the Association of Public Safety Communications
Officers’ – APCO’s – Project Locate, and NENA’s Strategic Wireless
Action Team – SWAT – Initiative. The latter, for example, provides a
forum for communications among public safety organizations, wireless carriers,
wireline carriers, state representatives and other participants. As I
understand it, the course of action that they are following is intended to build
on the input of the various stakeholders and to develop consensus
recommendations among the various parties. Significantly, in my mind, it
includes the resources to conduct supporting analyses to inform and shape the
process. While I cannot – and should not – endorse any of the results
that they are obtaining, I do believe that it represents the sort of
collaborative process which is required for sustainable progress in E911
deployment to occur in an extremely complex environment.
Returning to my recommendations, my fourth suggestion was
for the development of industry wide procedures for testing and certification of
wireless E911 systems to ensure that they meet the Commission’s accuracy
requirements. I also recommended that the Commission undertake to more
clearly define those requirements to eliminate any remaining uncertainty as to
what constitutes compliance.
I would like to close my testimony by making a few specific
recommendations based upon the current situation in wireless E911 deployment.
These concluding recommendations are not intended to be comprehensive; rather,
they reflect some areas that I believe – based upon my inquiry and subsequent
events – would benefit from the Subcommittee’s attention.
First, as I noted earlier, one of the key recommendations
of my report was that the Commission work with the Administration, and the then
nascent Department of Homeland Security, to establish what I referred to as a
“National E911 Program Office.” My thought was that the proposed
office within DHS would be a focus of E911 activity in the Executive Branch and
serve as a key resource and advocate for the Nation’s first responders on
issues related to E911 deployment. I am now even more convinced of the
need for such an office. I should note that it was reported in the press
that Chairman Powell has raised this issue with Secretary Ridge. However,
in all candor, I have not had the opportunity to follow all of the subsequent
developments in this area nor to determine whether other institutional
arrangements might suffice. Because of its importance, I would further
urge this Subcommittee in its oversight and legislative role to ensure that the
needs I identified in my inquiry are being met within the Federal government.
Second, on a related topic, in passing the E911 Act, the
Congress directed the Commission to “…encourage each state to develop and
implement coordinated statewide deployment plans through an entity designated by
the governor…” for the rollout of “…comprehensive end-to-end emergency
communications infrastructure and programs…” There is now evidence
that suggests that such a statewide and/or regional coordinating entity is a key
indicator of success in the early deployments of wireless E911. Despite
the clear Congressional admonition and despite this increasing body of evidence,
some states still have not created a statewide E911 coordinator or its
equivalent. While I am not a lawyer, it seems clear that the Commission
itself has limited ability to require states to create such an entity and,
hence, I would urge this Subcommittee to revisit this issue given the clear
Congressional intent and the benefits that apparently are achieved where such an
entity exists. To my dismay, there have also been widely reported
instances where state E911 cost recovery funds have been diverted to other,
unrelated purposes. This is apparently true even though customers paying
the itemized charge are likely to believe that the service is available to them.
Again, I am unclear as to what jurisdiction, if any, the Commission has to deal
with these instances but clearly it is an area that the Subcommittee may want to
address.
Third, another of my key recommendations was that the
Commission establish, or cause to have established, an advisory committee (under
the Federal Advisory Committee Act) that would address the overall technical
framework for the further development and evolution of wireless E911 systems.
This recommendation was a reflection of my finding that the responsibilities for
making critical decisions relating to network architectures were spread over a
large number of stakeholders and multiple jurisdictions. While I am well
aware of – and earlier in this testimony explicitly called attention to –
other private and public sector coordination activities that address aspects of
these larger, longer term network architecture issues, I still have serious
concerns in this area.
For example, since the submission of the report, I have
gained an even greater appreciation of the relationship of wireless E911 to not
only homeland security but to the reliable and seamless delivery of other
information relating to vehicular and personal emergencies to first responders
– a point I alluded to earlier. This includes information involving (a)
hazardous material (hazmat) truck incidents, (b) automobile emergencies
including, for example, information from automatic crash notification systems,
and (c) severe weather events such as tornadoes and flash flooding. The
proliferation of personal wireless devices and services, including text
messaging and personal digital assistants (“PDAs”) with communications
capabilities, adds to the milieu. As another example, a product was
recently described to me that will produce automatic notices of cardiac
incidents – with latitude and longitude attached. Similar devices that
can be used to find missing children – or to help prevent them from becoming
missing in the first place – are envisioned.
Subsequent to the publication of the report, I have sensed
some reluctance on the part of stakeholders to embrace the notion of a formal
advisory committee to address these longer term, over-arching issues. I
believe this reluctance stems more from timing, support, and other logistical
issues associated with a formal advisory committee rather than on the goal that
I advocated. However, my real concern is not the exact form of the
institutional arrangements as long as the decision-making takes place in an open
and transparent process available to all stakeholders. In any event, I
would urge the Subcommittee to satisfy itself that the necessary institutional
arrangements and resources are in place to address these longer term issues.
That, Mr. Chairman, completes my testimony and I would be
happy to answer any questions at the appropriate time.
[1]
The direct link to the report is: http://gullfoss2.fcc.gov/prod/ecfs/retrieve.cgi?native_or_pdf=pdf&id_document=6513296239.
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