roundtable: Action Alert on 911 Accessibility

roundtable: Action Alert on 911 Accessibility

Action Alert on 911 Accessibility

Jim Conran (jconran@watson.policy.net)
Fri, 6 Jan 1995 13:34:16 -0500 (EST) 

Date: Fri, 6 Jan 1995 13:34:16 -0500 (EST)
From: Jim Conran <jconran@watson.policy.net>
Subject: Action Alert on 911 Accessibility 
To: roundtable@cni.org
Message-Id: <Pine.3.89.9501061344.B9096-0100000@watson.policy.net>


January 6, 1995 

ACTION ALERT...ACTION ALERT
_________________________________________________________________
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) issued a Notice of Proposed
Rulemaking (Notice)(Docket Number 94-102) on October 19, 1994 in the
Matter of Revising the FCC Rules to ensure Compatibility with Enhanced 911
Systems.  The rulemaking states as one of its primary objectives that all
911 enhanced services be broadly available to all consumers.  We believe
that this rulemaking will not guarantee 911 emergency access to cellular
phone users.  The proposed rulemaking requires wireless carriers to
provide this service only to "service initialized" users or users that
purchase their cellular phones from a wireless service provider. 

This proposed arcane requirement is quite contradictory to the FCC's
ultimate objective of providing "broad accessibility" to 911 services.
Cellular users will have the expectation that when they use their phone 
to contact 911 during an emergency, they will have immediate contact with 
the operator.  Consumers will not think to question the reliability of 
their cellular phone or the wireless service providers, instead public
confidence on the 911 emergency system will be jeopardize. 

The Alliance for Public Access to 911 (Alliance) believes that in order
for the FCC's proposed rulemaking on the "broad availability of 911 and
enhanced 911 services" to be fully recognized, the FCC must require all
cellular switches to accept all 911 calls.  In addition, the FCC should
require all cellular phones to be equipped to access the strongest
cellular base station signal when 911 is called.  Finally, the FCC should
make the 911 provision an issue as it currently reconsiders cellular
license renewal applications.  The issue of safety and security for all
Americans is too important an issue to be compromised. 

The Alliance has submitted comments to the FCC which address the concerns
of several of the country's leading consumer interest organizations. 
These organizations have collectively come together for the purpose of
presenting their shares views of the Notice.  The Alliance is a collective
of non-profit, safety concerns whose members include Consumers First, the
Center for Public Interest Law, Consumer Coalition of California, Consumer
Action, the Alliance for Technology Access, Towards Utility Rate
Normalization (TURN), and the Utility Consumer Action Network (UCAN).

Internet users concerned with this issue can find more information 
including a copy of the rulemaking, comments prepared by the Alliance and 
a sample letter that can be forwarded to the Commissions at the FCC.  

This information is located at:

http://watson.policy.net/cf/cf.html
gopher://watson.policy.net:70/11/.cf
email: jconran@911.policy.net 

Jim Conran
Executive Director
Consumers First       			|   jconran@911.policy.net
P.O. Box 75237
Los Angeles, CA 90010
213/251-4620
510/253-1937
510/253-1359 (Fax)

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