Cingular, other GSM carriers, unite on E-OTD for E-911

Ending months of speculation, Cingular (www.cingular.com)filed a waiver request with regards to its E-911 Phase II solution. The nation’s second-largest carrier wants to implement Enhanced Observed Time Difference (E-OTD) technology for its GSM markets. With respect to the carrier’s TDMA markets, the filing states that Cingular will migrate from that air interface. Until Cingular selects an interface to move to, the carrier will work on implementing a switch-based technology to locate 911 callers. The waiver adds that Cingular will endeavor to make those networks, once converted, Phase II compliant from the outset.

E-OTD is a hybrid solution that uses the handset and the network to determine a caller’s location. It requires minimal software upgrades for the network, and E-OTD chips are being included in many future GSM phones.

Consequently, E-OTD is becoming the de facto Phase II technology solution for American GSM carriers, according to Brian Fontes, Cingular vice president of federal relations. It all began last September when VoiceStream (www.voicestream.com), the largest GSM-only carrier in the United States, received approval from the FCC (www.fcc.gov) to use E-OTD. AT&T Wireless (www.attws.com), currently building a GSM overlay, also has asked the FCC to use E-OTD. In late June, PCS One, (www.pcsone.com) a GSM carrier operating in eastern Pennsylvania, asked the FCC for permission to use E-OTD for its Phase II efforts. Jim Nixon, VoiceStream senior manager of regulatory affairs, said E-OTD is GSM carriers’ only realistic hope in the immediate future to satisfy Phase II requirements.

Approval of the VoiceStream waiver request may have set a precedent for the commission’s decision on waivers from AT&T and Cingular. “They’ve already allowed VoiceStream to go with E-OTD and if they force Cingular to use some other technology, it (would be) ludicrous< and we’d probably challenge them on it,” Fontes said.

For several months, industry speculation has swirled that Cingular would abandon TDMA and move to an all GSM network, and therefore an E-OTD Phase II solution. Fontes said the carrier hasn't decided where to take existing TDMA systems, but when it does, the carrier will update its waiver with an accompanying location technology for the new air interface. Ongoing location technology tests kept Cingular from submitting a waiver.

“We were involved in one particular test right up to mid-June,” Fontes said. “Rather than filing a waiver and having to substitute that waiver with more current data, we’d rather try to present the most current data as it is.”

Cingular’s waiver promises one entry-level E-OTD handset will be available by Oct. 1, the FCC’s deadline for carriers to begin selling location-enabled handsets. In its early stages, Cingular believes E-OTD will be able to deliver accuracy levels of 100 meters 67% of the time and 300 meters 95% of the time. Those levels are on par with what the FCC requires of carriers that choose a network-based solution for Phase II, but fall short of the more stringent requirements of a handset-based method.

With the commitment to E-OTD from several carriers, Fontes is confident that vendors will be able to meet the commission’s accuracy levels in the not too distant future. The waiver pinpoints that to Oct. 1, 2003.

Fontes doesn’t know how the FCC will address Cingular’s waiver request, but does expect interest.

“I fully expect the FCC to come back to Cingular with a series of questions similar, if not identical, to the types of questions they’ve asked AT&T Wireless,” he said.

The FCC currently is seeking comment on Cingular’s waiver request. Comments are due before July 31. Reply comments are due on or before Aug. 10. Comments on PCS One’s waiver are due on or before July 30; reply comments are due on or before Aug. 6.

Several carriers have filed waiver requests with the FCC and more are expected to do so soon, possibly including Sprint PCS (www.sprintpcs.com) and Verizon Wireless (www.verizonwireless.com). The commission has yet to act on Nextel’s (www.nextel.com) request, filed in November 2000, that promised, should the FCC grant the waiver, $25 million to public safety facilities for upgrades to handle Phase II data.

VoiceStream’s Nixon wonders what carriers will do if the FCC denies their requests to use hybrid technologies.

“If it was me and they denied my waiver, my next question would be, ‘OK, you won’t let me do that. What do you think I should do?’ And the FCC is never going to answer that,” he said. “They are going to say they’re technologically neutral, you’ve got to determine what the best approach is. Theoretically, your reply should be, ‘We just told you that and you refused it.’”