By Malcolm Spicer, mspicer@pbimedia.com

Mobile service providers are closely watching the clock as the next implementation deadline approaches for the FCC's wireless E-911 requirements. At the same time, emergency system dispatchers are looking for answers on how to get the radio and computer equipment they need to process wireless E-911calls.Boulder, Colo.-based wireless data management technology vendor Intrado [TRDO] is expanding its location technology offerings to include what public safety answering points (PSAPs) need. Intrado, which this month changed its name from SCC Communications, will roll out its "PS-MAP" offering in August, Dan Hoskins, vice president and general manager of Intrado's wireless business unit, told Wireless Today."In order to be able to provide that 911 service in terms of supporting the wireless carriers, one of the big issues is the technology at the PSAP," Hoskins said. "We think that [PS-MAP] will help take that problem off their back."

Under the FCC's wireless E-911 order, carriers as of April 1998 had to be able to transmit call-back numbers on wireless 911 calls and provide the location of the cell sites transmitting those calls. By October of this year, carriers must be able to pinpoint where the caller is calling from. However, carriers only have to provide that information to PSAPs that can handle it and only after they request it. Of the 4,300 PSAPs in the United States, 48 have asked to receive wireless E-911 location information, said Bill Dyer, Alcatel's [ALA] director of new ventures for network applications. So, wireless carriers have had little reason to actually deploy their E-911 capabilities."

It's kind of a strange position that everyone is in," Dyer said. "It's just early in the whole process. It's something that I think will still take some time for the market to work out."

Like other players, Paris-based Alcatel was attracted to the location technology space largely because of the technology's commercial possibilities. Wireless carriers can use the same equipment they deploy to provide E-911 coverage to offer their customers location-based mobile e-commerce services, as well as other wireless applications that need location information.

So far, however, Alcatel has been frustrated in the wireless location space, Dyer said. "We see the carriers rolling things out slightly slower than we anticipated," he said. "The carriers deferred any type of location service until their 911 infrastructure was in place. Now that the infrastructure is going into place, you see some delays happening there because of technical issues.

"Wireless providers could be the frustrated parties after they finally launch location services, Dyer added. "We had expected the carriers to see the opportunity for locations services on the commercial side. We just saw that the carriers were just trying to meet the demands of subscriber growth and so most of the resources they had were going toward that. We think that if the carriers had deployed some of these services early on, they would have learned quite a bit and they would be in a much better position."

That better position would be generating additional revenues after spending less for simple location services than they will spend to implement E-911 capabilities, Dyer said. While a nationwide wireless E-911 footprint could cost as much as $1 billion, a nationwide location system for commercial applications would cost about $10 million. Although their operation is linked to the same systems that will provide E-911 information, commercial location applications cost less because they don't use all the elements of E-911 systems.

However, doubts about actually generating location service revenues have kept carriers out of the commercial space, Dyer said. "Without a solid business case for mobile location-based commerce, it's very difficult to figure out how [infrastructure costs] can be recouped," he said. "The thing that I think they would have learned is what services the user is interested in, what is the user willing to pay and what services are most profitable."

What carriers already know is that PSAPs' stumbling block is paying for the equipment and technology to handle wireless E-911 information. That's not surprising, Hoskins said, because pubic safety agencies' budgets are focused more on providing emergency response services than on information technology upgrades. "We've been in contact with several states and we've gotten strong expressions of interest," he said. "We said we have to build this thing in a way that it can fit in the operational budget of a PSAP."I think a big reason why it's receiving strong interest is it clearly hits public agencies on two fronts," Hoskins added. "First, it's affordable and, second, it takes a major headache off their hands."

According to Intrado's research, PSAPs would pay an average of more than $500,000 over five years to acquire and operate the equipment they need to handle wireless E-911 information. Intrado will provide PS-MAP as a service to PSAPs, with per-month fees determined by the number of dispatch positions an agency has. The company would not disclose its fee levels.

In addition to the service it will offer to PSAPs, Intrado already is offering wireless operators the three elements of E-911 service: mobile positioning centers, position determining entities and coordinate routing database. Routing databases determine to what PSAPs wireless 911 calls are routed, position entities interact with network-based or GPS location technologies to determine callers' locations and positioning centers combine that information to connect 911 calls.

Intrado uses SignalSoft'sposition-determining software and servers from Compaq Computers [CPQ] for its mobile positioning centers. It is building a nationwide coordinate routing database and is contracted to provide that information for 22 U.S. wireless carriers, including seven of the 10 largest, Hoskins said."One of the things that we do is we can provide the entire bundle of services, or we can provide just the coordinate routing service," he said.

Alcatel provides mobile positioning centers for wireless location systems. "It's the piece that takes all your different elements and ties them together," Dyer said.

The Bottom Line

Despite the commercial potential of location technologies and the opportunity PSAPs would have with Intrado's PS-MAP to handle wireless E-911 information, mobile service providers' interest in location technologies still isn't overwhelming. VoiceStream Wireless [DT] last September received a one-year waiver from meeting the FCC's October deadline for being able to transmit location information to PSAPs, and AT&T Wireless [AWE] and Nextel Communications [NXTL] are asking for similar extensions.