CDMA E-911 Phase II begins (sort of)

If you’re a CDMA carrier, odds are that you’ve elected to pursue assisted-GPS (A-GPS) technology to meet E-911 Phase II requirements.

A-GPS is a hybrid location technology that uses GPS satellites and the carrier’s network to determine the position of a handset. All major CDMA carriers, including Alltel (www.alltel.com), Sprint PCS (www.sprintpcs.com) and Verizon Wireless (www.verizonwireless.com) have filed to the FCC that A-GPS is the best technology for their Phase II needs. A-GPS also is the solution for the CDMA portion of U.S. Cellular’s (www.uscc.com) network and Western Wireless (www.westernwireless.com), currently migrating to CDMA, has indicated it will use A-GPS for Phase II.

Of these carriers, Sprint PCS was able to unveil an A-GPS-capable handset on Oct. 1, the FCC’s (www.fcc.gov) deadline to start selling location-capable handsets.

The Samsung SPH-N300, though on the market, won’t be able to locate emergency callers until early November. Rhode Island will have the first and only A-GPS market at that time.

A-GPS from Qualcomm (www.qualcomm.com) and SnapTrack (www.snaptrack.com), branded gpsOne, can achieve 10m accuracy in a typical outdoor-highway environment, according to Arnold Gum, Qualcomm senior product manager. Sprint PCS was one of the earliest carriers to select the A-GPS path to Phase II.

“Sprint was the most aggressive U.S. carrier, they basically jumped on a lot earlier than everybody else and we’ve been working with them for quite a long time,” Gum said. “The good news for other (CDMA) carriers is they certainly will benefit from Sprint having broken new ground for them.”

The added GPS ability hasn’t added to the size of the handset, nor will it create an added drain on the battery.

“It’s completely integrated into the chipset, so they look like standard handsets — no big lumps or bumps and it doesn’t use the battery any faster,” Gum said.

Consumers can control the positioning ability through a menu on the phone. Settings range from always-on to only-on for 911 calls. “Just like you might set the volume or the ringer, you go in and set your privacy preference,” Gum said.

Technically speaking, Sprint PCS’s waiver request to use A-GPS for Phase II doesn’t have FCC approval. That will change any hour now as the commission will release decisions on the hordes of carriers’ waiver requests. Many in the industry are awaiting the decisions.

“They’ve been telling me imminently for about a week,” said Jonas Neihardt, Qualcomm vice president of federal government affairs. “They are going to do the big companies individually and then for the next tiers of companies that, say look like Verizon in terms of their network, they will give them whatever they gave Verizon.”

Most carriers’ waiver request laid out clear paths to Phase II compliance, rollout dates included. Now it will be up those carriers to live up to their schedules.

“The language (of the FCC’s decision) is going to be, ‘OK, this is your schedule now, you suggested this schedule and we’re giving you something close to it. We know there’s been problems with equipment availability, but you are telling us this is when the stuff is going to be available. There will be strong repercussions if you fail to meet the schedule that you’ve set for yourself.’ That’s the kind of rhetoric we think is going to come out,” Neihardt said.

E-911 may be faced with continued delays, but it’s closer than ever before. Once Phase II starts saving lives, Neihardt expects public demand for location-ready handsets to spread like wildfire.

“When the buzz gets out, this thing is going to really take off,” he said. “We’ll start hearing these amazing stories. And when people buy phones for themselves or family members as safety devices, which most people do, they are going to demand a GPS-enabled phone.”