Originally published August 6 2005
Nextel to ask for 911 deadline increase
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
Nextel plans to ask for additional time to meet a December deadline that mandates that 90 percent of a provider's cell phones must be able to be tracked by 911 operators.
Nextel Communications Inc. plans to ask for a waiver from a December deadline that 95 percent of its customers' wireless phones be capable of identifying the location of a caller to emergency personnel.
Nextel, being acquired by the No. 3 U.S. wireless carrier Sprint Corp. , said it will ask the Federal Communications Commission for the waiver, according to a July 26 letter made available on Monday.
The FCC set Dec. 31 as the deadline for 95 percent of all wireless handsets to be able to pinpoint the location of a caller to 911 emergency services.
The company said as a stand-alone carrier, 70 percent of customers' phones would be compliant by the end of 2005, and as a merged company with Sprint, it would reach 80 percent to 85 percent, the filing said.
"Nextel will file a request for a waiver (by) ...
"If the commission determines that the forthcoming waiver request should not be granted, Nextel (or Sprint Nextel) will work closely with the commission to achieve a path to full compliance."
Nextel said the maker of all of its handsets, Motorola Inc. , had to build the capability from scratch and was stymied when a software problem that caused all handsets with its assisted-Global Positioning System (A-GPS) to stop transmitting location information in mid-2004.
As a result, millions of handsets that already had the A-GPS capability had to be fixed, according to Nextel.
"Nextel anticipates that Sprint Nextel will likely not reach the commission's 95 percent A-GPS handset penetration requirement until Dec. 31, 2007," the company said.
The FCC has already expressed concerns about another wireless carrier, Western Wireless Corp. which was acquired by Alltel Corp. , that also has said it would likely miss the deadline by as much as two years.
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