By Mark Reddish

Presenter: David Furth

This session provided an overview of the public safety issues presently before the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). Deputy Chief Furth began with an update on 9-1-1 wireless location accuracy, describing a number of milestones in achieved within the last year. He then described the FCC’s role in the FirstNet state opt-out process, which consists of evaluating whether state alternative plans for a Radio Access Network meet the interoperability requirements of the law.

Next, Furth discussed an investigation into a nationwide AT&T 9-1-1 outage that occurred in March 2017, noting that the FCC will hold a related workshop in September. Furth also provided updates on the FCC’s tracking of text-to-911 deployment, recent action to permit carriers to transition from TTY to Real-time Text (RTT) technologies, and the FCC’s annual report to Congress on 9-1-1 fee diversion.  Before closing, Furth mentioned several issues that are still pending at the FCC, such as the use of non-service initialized devices for emergency calls, public safety use of the 4.9 GHz band, and the 800 MHz spectrum rebanding process.