APCO in Sharp Disagreement with CTIA on Text-to-911 Roaming Requirement
The Association of Public-Safety Communications Officials took CTIA to task for asking the FCC to reconsider one part of its May 17 text-to-911 order, to drop a roaming requirement. Comments were due Thursday on the petition. APCO said compliance with the roaming requirement might not be easy to pull off, but it’s not impossible. CTIA had no comment in response to APCO.
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"CTIA claims that providing bounce-back messages when a subscriber is roaming is not ’technically feasible’ and that the FCC did not follow proper administrative procedures when adopting the requirement,” APCO said (http://bit.ly/17vSDCc). “However, CTIA’s arguments are wrong both as a matter of policy and as a matter of law. CTIA’s ’technical infeasibility’ arguments are based on little more than references to various parties’ statements that providing bounce-back messages in a roaming context faces certain challenges and will require further steps."
CTIA doesn’t prove the roaming isn’t feasible, APCO said. “Rather, it simply suggests that compliance may be difficult and impose some expense. But that alone does not invalidate a Commission rule adopted to promote a clear public interest result."
The Blooston Group of small carriers supported CTIA’s petition, the only other commenter which had its filing posted by the FCC by our deadline (http://bit.ly/1cT3Xi2). The roaming requirement is “technically impossible” to put in place, the group said. -- Howard Buskirk (hbuskirk@warren-news.com)