Subject: [NEXTEL-1] State plans for cell-phone Enhanced 911

From: Marcel <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 10 Dec 2002 22:21:08 -0500

State plans for cell-phone Enhanced 911

12-9-02
http://www.news-record.com/news/local/gso/91109rk.htm
By RUSS RIZZO, Special to the
News & Record

Cell-phone companies in Guilford County are close to implementing
Enhanced 911, the long-awaited technology that will help emergency
workers locate 911 calls made from wireless phones.

But before that technology can finally be realized, BellSouth and the state
must agree how much that service is worth. Therein lies the delay, both sides
say.

"Since August we have been sitting on go," said R. Craig Whittington,
communications manager for Guilford County Emergency Services.
BellSouth has held us up."

BellSouth, Guilford County's local telephone carrier, attributes the delay to
the company being unable to decide how much to charge emergency centers
for providing the link. A BellSouth official said the company plans to submit a
proposal this month.

When the link is made, computers in Guilford County's three 911 call centers
will be able to locate a cell-phone caller to within about 150 feet.

Guilford and most other North Carolina counties already have a basic
version of Enhanced 911. When a caller dials 911 on a cell phone, operators
receive the phone number and about a 5- to 10-square-mile area where the
caller is located, depending on how many cell phone towers are in the area.

The next step in Enhanced 911 technology will reduce that large area to
within 50 yards of the caller.

Pinpointing cell-phone locations will help save lives by decreasing response
times, Whittington said. Emergency operators now rely on directions from
cell phone callers to find them. If a call breaks up because of weak
reception, a 911 operator must call back to get location information.

Once the Enhanced 911 technology is fully in place, police will get the
longitude and latitude of any phone that delivers global positioning system
information.

The technology is becoming increasingly important as cell phones grow in
popularity, Whittington said. About half of Guilford County's 40,000
emergency 911 calls made each month come from cell phones. Five years
ago, roughly one of every four calls were from wireless phones, Whittington
said.

The Guilford County 911 center has invested $80,000 since April for
technology that mostly goes unused, Whittington said. The center, which is
one of three in the county, leases computers that map GPS information for
$10,000 a month. The computers are funded from an 80-cent monthly fee
charged to all county cell phone users and a 30-cent fee charged to regular
phone subscribers.

Counties that do not have to rely on BellSouth are making progress.

Johnston County is the only county in North Carolina that can pinpoint cell
phone calls using Enhanced 911 technology. Sprint made the link between
cell phones and emergency centers, and the system was completed in
September.

Sprint also covers Randolph County, which could start pinpointing callers in
less than a month as soon as testing is finished, said Debby Hines, deputy
director of Randolph County 911.

Rockingham County is waiting for six of the county's eight cell-phone
companies to update technology before it calls for action by BellSouth, said
Kent Greene, the county's director of emergency services.

In April, Guilford County became the first of 32 counties covered by
BellSouth to request a data line that will connect cell phones with police. The
North Carolina Utilities Commission first must approve who will pay for the
service and how much.

BellSouth wants to charge the state's 100-plus emergency centers a one-time
setup fee to link cell-phone carriers and a monthly fee to feed GPS
information, said Chuck Greene, BellSouth director for the Piedmont Triad.

The company has not decided how much to charge but plans to submit a
proposal soon, Greene said.

Richard Taylor, executive director of the state's Wireless 911 Board, said he
has heard similar promises from BellSouth for two months. "They're not
ready, contrary to what they say," he said.

For weeks, officials with BellSouth and the utilities commission have been
negotiating a fair price to charge 911 centers.

BellSouth wants to charge a $2,200 flat fee, in addition to the monthly fee,
but might lower that number, said Nat Carpenter, a spokesman for the
utilities commission. Carpenter recently informed BellSouth representatives
that $2,200 is higher than companies have charged for similar services in the
past.

BellSouth will likely propose a fee in two to six weeks, said Topper
Hightower, a company spokesman. "They're not going to file that anytime
real soon, but they are working on drafting it,' Hightower said.

Even when Enhanced 911 is fully in place, emergency officials will face one
last obstacle: few people have cell phones that deliver GPS information.

"That's the problem I want to have," Whittington said.

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