Subject: [NEXTEL-1] Monthly Charge for Locating Wireless 911 Calls

From: [email-masked]
Date: Mon, 02 Jun 2003 15:31:38 -0400

Monthly Charge for Locating Wireless 911 Calls

A new bill moving through the Pennsylvania General Assembly will provide a
funding source for E-911 technology to support the capability for police,
firefighters and paramedics to locate a wireless caller. The legislation, approved
last month, will be voted on in June. The bill will result in a $1 monthly charge
to be placed on a cell phone users' phone bill. The charge will fund new
technology that will enable call centers to view an address and location of the
wireless caller.

==========================================================================================
Fee pushed to pinpoint cell phones on
911 calls

Sunday, June 01, 2003

By Jeffrey Cohan, Post-Gazette Staff Writer

Cell-phone users might soon find a $1 surcharge on their monthly bill so that
police, firefighters and paramedics can find them when they call 911.

When a caller uses a normal phone to call for help, the address appears on
the 911 dispatcher's computer screen.

But neither Allegheny County nor the city of Pittsburgh have such an
"enhanced 911" capability for wireless phone calls.

Now a bill is moving through the state General Assembly that would provide a
funding source for equipping 911 centers with the expensive but lifesaving
technology.

"We're pretty happy to see that coming down the pike," said John Rowntree,
emergency communications chief for the city of Pittsburgh. "It's past due."

On a 179-19 vote, the state House of Representatives approved legislation
last month that would tack a $1 monthly surcharge onto the 5 million cell
phones in use in Pennsylvania.

Revenue from the surcharge would go to emergency-dispatch centers and
wireless-phone companies to subsidize the start-up costs of enhanced 911.

The state Senate will probably vote on the legislation this month.

"I think there is a sense of urgency, especially with the dramatic increase in the
use of wireless phones," said state Sen. Allen Kukovich, D-Manor, a sponsor
of the legislation. "It's something that is going to have to be done."

Forty states have established a dedicated funding stream for wireless 911
calls, leaving Pennsylvania as one of 10 laggards.

The gravity of the issue became grimly evident to Allegheny County officials
on a summer day in 1999 when a 29-year-old Bloomfield woman overdosed
on a pharmaceutical drug.

Parked outside a friend's home in Hampton, she called 911 on her cell phone,
but, nearing death, she was unable to tell the dispatcher her location. More
than an hour later, her friend arrived home and found her body slumped over
in her car.

If the county had an enhanced-911 system in place for cell-phone calls, the
dispatcher would have seen the woman's location on a computer screen and
could have rushed an ambulance to the scene and possibly saved her life.

More recently, a May 5 killing in Philadelphia illustrated the importance of
enhanced 911 for cell-phone users.

A 25-year-old man, while being tortured to death by kidnappers, managed to
dial 911 twice on a cell phone. During one call, dispatchers heard the man
beg for his life. But he could not give his location.

His body was found the next day.

Most of the major wireless companies, including Verizon, AT&T and Sprint,
have enhanced-911 technology in place, to one degree of accuracy or
another.

Even in Allegheny County, for instance, many Verizon subscribers have cell
phones equipped with a Global Positioning System chip.

But none of the 911 centers in southwestern Pennsylvania have the equipment
and software needed to receive the location information.

For the cell-phone users, "It's kind of like having a plug but no outlet," said
Laura Merritt, a Verizon spokeswoman.

Allegheny County emergency officials, who handle all 911 calls outside the
city of Pittsburgh, estimate it will cost them $5 million to $10 million for the
necessary computer and telephone upgrades.

They are counting on passage of the pending state legislation for most of the
funding, as are Pittsburgh officials, who don't have a cost estimate for
upgrading their 911 center.

But even if the legislation wins approval this month, it could be another year or
more before the state has a significant amount of surcharge revenue to
distribute.

To subsidize 911 operations, regular phone customers have long paid a
monthly surcharge: $1 in the city of Pittsburgh and 74 cents in the Allegheny
County suburbs. But cell-phone users have been getting off scot-free.

Compounding the problem, the number of 911 calls coming from cell phones
continues to increase. Wireless-phone users now place about a third of the
330,000 annual calls to the county's 911 system.

Anticipating that the surcharge legislation will win Senate approval, county
officials are developing plans to install enhanced-911 systems for wireless
calls at their five dispatch centers -- the headquarters in Point Breeze and the
four sites in the suburbs.

City officials have made less progress, at least partly because of uncertainty
over whether they will be merging their 911 operations with the county's.

"It's up in the air how we would treat the wireless [calls]," Rowntree said.

Installing enhanced-911 systems for cell-phone calls is a complex undertaking
for governments, involving not only changes to the phone lines at the dispatch
centers but purchases of sophisticated mapping software.

The county has applied for a $321,000 grant from the Public Safety
Foundation of America, a Florida-based nonprofit set up specifically to fund
wireless 911 projects.

But that grant would cover only a fraction of the expense.

One Pennsylvania county, Delaware, has installed an enhanced-911 system
for wireless calls, refusing to wait for the Legislature to act.

That Philadelphia-area county started laying the groundwork in 1996, right
after Congress passed a bill requiring wireless companies to develop
enhanced-911 technology.

Delaware County spent $9 million of its own money over five years, flipping
the "on" switch in October.

Today, Delaware County dispatchers can direct police, firefighters and
paramedics to within five feet of some cell-phone users, depending on the
wireless company involved.

Nationally, though, fewer than 2 percent of counties and municipalities have
enhanced-911 systems in place for cell-phone calls, according to the National
Emergency Number Association.

For the time being, people needing emergency assistance in southwestern
Pennsylvania should call 911 on a regular phone, if they have a choice.

The day when dispatchers in Allegheny County will see the location of a
cell-phone caller on their screens remains more than a year away. Maybe
several years away, depending on the fate of state legislation.

http://www.post-gazette.com/localnews/20030601cellphones0601p5.asp
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From: [email-masked]
Date: Mon, 02 Jun 2003 15:37:37 -0400

Amazing- here we have the Pennsylvania General Assembly trying to add fees to
cellphone bills..........

And here we have Senator Charles Schumer trying to cut fees through
Phone Users Bill of Rights.

Politics- BAH!