Cellular Rules Would Improve Emergency Comms

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has proposed a pair of rules that would ease local restrictions on constructing new cellular facilities, and spur carrier competition to toughen their networks for disaster communications. In both cases, the FCC said the changes would improve emergency communications for the public through less regulation and improved network reliability. In the first Notice  of Proposed Rulemaking, the FCC proposes to make public the percentage of cellular sites that are operational during and just after disaster, by individual carrier. Currently, the carriers report these figures, but they are not considered public. In a strange analysis, the FCC said more specifically that releasing outage data to the public would likely save one life every five years, producing an “annual benefit” of $1.82 million based on the “statistical value of life.” On the other hand, the extra cost to wireless carrier of reporting the data would be only $78,000, the FCC calculated. The Commission also tried to calculate the value of losing cellular service, but said, “We cannot know the value of being able to call more easily loved ones and friends,” or contacting first responders.

In the second Notice, the Commission proposes to tweak existing rules that generally prohibit local entities from denying or delaying the construction of cellular towers and other infrastructure. Many cities and towns object to cellular facilities, claiming they are eyesores or create health risks. Despite existing FCC regulations, it sometimes takes years—or never—to obtain local permits to construct cellular facilities. These latest changes address facilities on historic premises, the latest small-cell technology, streamlined temporary tower approvals, and clarification of the existing rules.

In a statement, president of the Association of Public Safety Communications Officials (APCO) Gigi Smith responded to the FCC’s outage disclosure rule proposal:

APCO is pleased that the Commission is initiating a proceeding to consider whether wireless service providers should be required to publicly disclose the percentage of cell sites within their networks that are in operation during and immediately after disasters. This is an important issue as the vast majority of 9-1-1 calls are from wireless devices.

Download (pdf) the first proposal here, and the second proposal here.