Subject: [NEXTEL-1] Dog Pound - Dec. 19, 2002

From: Marcel <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 19 Dec 2002 03:24:51 -0500

Cingular has finally pulled the trigger: they filed a supplement to
their required FCC report saying they'll use U-TDOA to provide Phase II
capabilities on their GSM network. You'll recall the company hinted
earlier that E-OTD technology just wasn't providing sufficient accuracy,
and they would not deploy it. Cingular's filing also said they tested
the U-TDOA technology, provided by TruePosition, and over 17 sites and
20 square miles in Wilmington (Del.), 1,500 test calls resulted in 67%
of calls being located to within 47.1 meters, and 95% of calls located
within 112.2 meters.

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You may know that the federal Health and Human Services Department has
finalized its Standards for Privacy of Individually Identifiable Health
Information (HIPPA), which sets out long-needed regulations for privacy
of your personal medical information. It primarily deals with the flow
of information from a doctor or medical facility outward to other
companies, persons, etc. (labs, billing and insurance companies, etc.).
Emergency treatment providers are allowed certain latitude in providing
information: patient permission is generally not required if you're
passing medical info along for treatment purposes. However, if you wrote
down, type in, archive, store or otherwise keep medical information
long-term, you'd better check with your county or state medical agency
for advice.

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A group of mostly rural wireless carriers have petitioned the FCC asking
them to reconsider the accuracy rules--but not the scheule--for Phase II
implementation. The companies claim there is, "commercially available
Phase II-compliant E911 location system has been identified that can be
economically deployed and satisfy Section 20.18(h) accuracy standards
throughout a licensed rural service area." Their request would allow
them to provide less accurate service until the end of 2005, saying that
in a rural area, "a 911 caller can be physically located more quickly
notwithstanding a more flexible accuracy requirement."

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Philadelphia's mayor has sent a notice to the city's media organizations
telling them the radio patch between the new public safety digital 800
MHz radio system and the former 450 MHz system won't be active during
police and fire tests of the system, so, "existing scanners will not be
able to detect the fire and police broadcasts." The mayor continued,
"Please be assured we are trying to accommodate news media accessibility
before the full launch of the new system." The mayor noted that digital
scanners will be available early next year and, "The City's managing
director's office is finalizing a media access policy for the new
scanners."

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