Before the Federal Communications Commission Washington, D
background A.E911 Regulatory History
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- A.CSRIC Indoor Location Accuracy Test Bed Report
8.backgroundA.E911 Regulatory History9.In 1996, the Commission first adopted rules to require CMRS providers to implement basic 911 and E911 services.1 The Commission divided its wireless E911 service requirements into two stages.2 The initial stage – Phase I – required CMRS providers to deliver, by April 1998, E911 service that includes the telephone number of the wireless 911 caller and the location of the cell site or base station that received the call.3 Phase II requires delivery, under a phased-in schedule now extending until January 2019,4 of E911 service that includes the latitude and longitude of the 911 call within specific accuracy and reliability parameters, depending on the location technology that the carriers have chosen: (1) for network-based technologies, within 100 meters for 67 percent of calls, and 300 meters for 90 percent of calls; (2) for handset-based technologies, within 50 meters for 67 percent of calls, and 150 meters for 90 percent of calls.5 Under the Commission’s rules, CMRS providers must file with the Commission reports on their plans for implementing Phase II, describing their location technology, and any changes thereto. While these reports must also describe the provider’s intended conformance verification procedure, they do not require the provider to file the results of its conformance verification.6 10.The Commission’s E911 Phase II requirements do not distinguish between indoor and outdoor 911 calls. In 2000, the Office of Engineering and Technology (OET) published Bulletin No. 71, providing testing guidelines for wireless licensees to comply with the location accuracy requirements set by the Commission.1 Later that same year, the Commission noted that the guidelines “express[ed] a preference for basing testing on locations from which 911 calls actually are placed.”2 Further, the Commission construed the OET guidelines as confirming that, for testing accuracy performance, carriers could exclude areas “where wireless calls cannot be completed,”3 such as inside high-rise buildings and parking garages.4 The Commission later clarified that its Phase II requirements apply to outdoor measurements only.5 11.As more and more wireless calls were successfully placed from within buildings, the Commission examined new approaches and technological advances for improving location accuracy of wireless 911 calls from difficult environments, including indoor locations.1 In 2010, in the E911 Location Accuracy Further Notice and NOI, the Commission sought comment on how location accuracy could be improved in indoor settings and other more challenging environments. 12.In 2011, the Commission found indoor location accuracy to be a significant public safety concern because indoor incidents may not be visible to first responders, and a location accuracy of “100/300 meters . . . would only identify the city block in which a building is located.”1 Rather than attempting to impose an immediate solution, however, the Commission determined that “further work [was] needed in this area” and sought further comment on whether to require indoor location accuracy testing and whether the standards and testing methodologies for outdoor and indoor location accuracy testing should be different.2 13.Finally, the Commission tasked the Communications Security, Reliability, and Interoperability Council (CSRIC) with evaluating the performance and viability of various location technologies to support E911 services for indoor environments.1 The Commission directed CSRIC to provide initial findings and technical recommendations and consider “the cost effectiveness of any recommendations.”2 In addition, the Commission directed CSRIC “to explore and make recommendations on methodologies for leveraging commercial location-based services for 911 location determination.”3
15.WG3 selected the San Francisco Bay Area because it included a variety of different environments within a fairly limited geographic area. The area chosen included several building types (steel, glass, concrete, and masonry) and different building heights that were representative of urban and dense urban environments.1 The close proximity of the different environments selected allowed for testing by just one test team.2 In addition, WG3 observed that multiple carriers use San Francisco “to assess location technologies.”3 16.WG3 tested the indoor location capability of three technologies: (1) AGPS/AFLT by Qualcomm, (2) RF fingerprinting by Polaris, and (3) network beacon technology by NextNav.1 The first two technologies are currently commercially available. The third technology is an in-building beacon technology that is independent of the CMRS provider’s wireless network and uses calibrated, atmospheric pressure sensors in handsets to provide vertical location information.2 17.In March 2013, WG3 issued a report discussing the results of the test bed and making recommendations about how best to move forward on indoor location accuracy. In general, WG3 found that for the four representative environments analyzed, the test bed results “show significant promise with respect to high yield, relatively high confidence factors and reliability,” and “the ability to achieve improved search rings in the horizontal dimension (often identifying the target building, or those immediately adjacent).”1 WG3 concluded that “additional development is required to ensure” the provision of an “actionable location,” especially in urban and dense urban environments.2 Moreover, the test bed found “substantial progress” in the beacon technology’s capability to provide vertical (z-axis) location information, providing approximate floor-level accuracy in a significant percentage of calls.3 18.To be sure, accuracy results varied by technology and the particular environment. As summarized in Table 1 below, depending on the representative environment and building structure tested, each technology demonstrated particular capabilities, advantages, and disadvantages.1 The CSRIC Indoor Location Test Bed Report observed that all three vendors participating in the test bed were in the process of making improvements to their location technologies.2 Table 1. CSRIC San Francisco Test Bed - Location Accuracy Results by Technology (in meters)
19.Following the WG3 test bed in San Francisco, TruePosition, which did not participate in the test bed, commissioned TechnoCom to test TruePosition’s indoor location solution, which is based on hybrid technology consisting of UTDOA and assisted Global Positioning System (A-GPS).1 In February and early March 2013, TechnoCom conducted the testing, utilizing similar testing standards and methodology as used in the CSRIC test bed.2 TechnoCom reports that, overall, “[t]he Hybrid [UTDOA and AGPS] system performed well indoors.”3 In the urban setting, 67 percent of calls were located within 87.3 meters and 90 percent of calls were located within 140.7 meters.4 For the suburban environment, 67 percent of test calls were located within 66.1 meters and 90 percent of test calls were located within 116.2 meters.5 Directory: edocs public -> attachmatch attachmatch -> Commissioner ajit pai attachmatch -> Before the Federal Communications Commission Washington, D attachmatch -> Before the Federal Communications Commission Washington, D attachmatch -> Before the Federal Communications Commission Washington, D attachmatch -> Before the Federal Communications Commission Washington, D attachmatch -> Before the Federal Communications Commission Washington, D attachmatch -> Federal Communications Commission fcc 15-77 Before the Federal Communications Commission attachmatch -> Statement of commissioner ajit pai Download 0.66 Mb. Share with your friends:
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