Subject: [NEXTEL-1] Calling for Better Cellular 911; Assembly: $ 300M to pinpoint calls

From: Marcel <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 11 Feb 2003 18:03:51 -0500

Calling for Better Cellular 911; Assembly: $ 300M to pinpoint calls

.02/11/2003

By Sarah Coppola. ALBANY BUREAU

Albany - State Assembly leaders yesterday proposed improvements to the
state's emergency cell- phone service that lawmakers said might have saved
the lives of four teenagers who are believed to have drowned last month
after their boat capsized in Long Island Sound.

The Democrat-controlled Assembly wants to use $ 300 million in bonds to
provide counties with the money to buy locators and better equipment to
pinpoint the exact location of all 911 calls from cell phones. Part of the
revenue from the state's $ 1.20 monthly surcharge on cell phones would
be used to pay back the bonds.

"We're talking about an existing technology that can save lives," Assembly
Speaker Sheldon Silver (D-Manhattan) said at a news conference at which he
was accompanied by parents of two of the missing teens. "We need it, we
deserve it, we can afford it."

The federal government is requiring the service to be in place statewide
by 2005. Lawmakers have complained that more of the $ 200 million that's
been collected from cell phone surcharges in the past decade should have
been used to fund the service, rather than go to underwrite other state
and local costs.

"We are anxious to review the Assembly proposal and see if we can make
it work with this issue," said Randy Daniels, Gov. George Pataki's
secretary of state. "But there are a lot of technological challenges to
overcome with this issue."

On Jan. 24, the four teenagers had gathered on City Island, then rowed a
small boat toward Hart Island. At 9:58 p.m., they placed a brief
cell-phone call to 911 dispatchers indicating that the boat was taking in
water "off the coast of City I ... we're gonna die."

Rescue crews didn't start looking for the boys until 14 hours later, in part
because they couldn't determine the boat's location. A boat believed to
be the boys' was discovered a week later off Hart Island.

"If the 911 enhancement had been in place, my son and the other boys
would be alive today," said Virginia Badillo, mother of Henry Badillo Jr., 17,
one of the boys.

It is unclear whether the service the Assembly lawmakers are pushing
would have allowed rescuers to save the four boys' lives. Following the
incident, rescue officials estimated that even if they had immediately
known the boys' location, it might have taken at least 20 minutes to get
to them, longer than the boys might have been able to survive in the
frigid water.

http://webpublisher.lexisnexis.com/index.asp?layout=story&gid=1990000599&cid=110003011&did=47WY-RHH0-009T-Y17W-00000-00

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From: Cormier Chris-ACC125 <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 11 Feb 2003 18:40:24 -0600

Thanks!

-----Original Message-----
From: Marcel [mailto:[email-masked]]
Sent: Tuesday, February 11, 2003 4:23 PM
To: [email-masked]; WFHSG
Subject: Re: [NEXTEL-1] Calling for Better Cellular 911; Assembly: $
300M to pinpoint calls

Sure there are several solutions offered  without going into a bunch of
techno-babble here is a summary of the Technologies each carrier selected
(Note: Cingular
has decided to deploy U-TDOA as its E911
Phase II solution, rather than E-OTD.)

The last time I checked here was the technology selections (Check the FCC
web page for updates).

T-Mobile
E-OTD & Network Software Solution ("NSS")
Handset Solution
http://www.cursor-system.com/

Nextel
A-GPS Handset Solution
http://www.motorola.com/mediacenter/news/detail/0,1958,1202_893_23,00.html

Cingular
U-TDOA Network Solution
Cingular has decided to deploy U-TDOA as its E911
Phase II solution, rather than E-OTD.
http://www.TruePosition.com/

AT&T Wireless
E-OTD Network Solution
http://www.cursor-system.com/

Sprint
A-GPS/AFLT Handset Solution
http://www.snaptrack.com/Advantage/performance.html

Verizon
A-GPS/AFLT Handset Solution
http://www.snaptrack.com/Advantage/performance.html

Each carrier is requored to report quarterly on the ststus of their E-911
Deployments.
http://www.fcc.gov/911/enhanced/reports/phase2-waiver.html

Cormier Chris-ACC125 wrote:

> Can someone point me to a link that explains the details of the technology
that will be used to pinpoint locations of callers? How it differs from GPS
etc. etc.