Chairman Martin's statement re: e911 clarification

Supporting the safety of the public and the needs of our first responders is our highest obligation as public officials.  Nowhere is this more apparent than ensuring that the most basic need of the public to call for help by dialing 911 is fulfilled.  But not only must the public be able to call 911, help must be able to reach them in a timely manner.  E911 is meant to ensure that when someone dials 911 during an emergency, public safety can easily and reliably find them.  To achieve that goal, our enhanced 911 rules must provide meaningful automatic location information that permits first responders to reliably find persons in need when seconds count.     

We all know that people are relying on cell phones for more and more of their calls, including calls to 911. The advances in wireless technology allow people to call for help more quickly and from more remote places than ever before. We need to make sure that our location accuracy requirements keep apace with these changes so that consumers can take advantage of all the opportunities wireless technology has to offer.   I am pleased that today’s item adopts the Commission’s tentative conclusion to require location accuracy measurement at the PSAP-level. 

This will help provide necessary and possibly life-saving information to our first responders.  As I have stated before, providing location accuracy information on a multi-state or state-wide basis does not provide public safety with the information it needs to do its job effectively.  Meeting location accuracy standards on average in the entire state of New York by providing enhanced 911 capability in Manhattan does not help first responders in Buffalo.    

While I would have also been comfortable with a shorter time period, I also support the delayed effective date for PSAP-level compliance requested by several public safety groups, which includes specific, measurable benchmarks that will improve both the level of accuracy achieved by carriers and the quality of the location information first responders receive.  While new solutions such as hybrid location technologies can increase location accuracy even over our current standards and solve some of the technological challenges carriers may face, the Commission finds today that there are concrete measures that carriers can be taking now to improve location, and that PSAP-level compliance is technologically feasible today in many cases, requiring only the investment of additional financial resources.  It is appropriate, therefore, that we delay the effective date of this rule rather than deferring enforcement, and adopt benchmarks that will facilitate compliance with the rule by the effective date.