In May 2002 the National Emergency Number Association (NENA), Association of Public-Safety Communications Officials (APCO) and National Association of State Nine One One Administrators (NASNA) wrote the FCC a letter detailing problems resulting from uninitialized wireless phones--those which are not subscribed to any specific carrier.

The FCC rules require wireless carriers to permit 911 dialing from any wireless phone, even if it's not been subscribed. The rules also require handsets to use any available carrier (even another wireless carrier) to make a 911 call. This allows emergency dialing in all situations. But it also means that someone with an uninitialized wireless phone can inundate a PSAP with untraceable calls.

The groups' letter asked the FCC to clarify if wireless carriers had the authority to turn off or block 911 calls from handsets that had been identified as making harassing 911 calls. The letter included several examples of how serious the problem has become at some PSAPs. You can download an Acrobat (pdf, 228k) version of the letter at the FCC's Web site.

In fact, in Oct. 2002 the FCC issued a Public Notice, saying that their rules did not intend to allow abusive, harassing 911 from wireless phones. They stated that wireless carriers have the authority to block such calls, "in accordance with applicable state and local law enforcement procedures." That is, if the police are investigating a violation of a local or state abuse-of-911 law, the carrier can turn off or block calls from the handset.

Here are some of the examples that NENA/APCO/NASNA included with their letter:

Grand Prairie (Tex.)

Starting on the day that wireless service was terminated for non-payment, someone used the Sprint PCS phone to place at least 24 calls to 911 over a 14-day period. The calls included 7 bomb threats to a high school, resulting in scores of hours of lost schooling and extra work by public safety response teams. Included with the letter the FCC was a list of responses to the 24 phoned-in bomb threats, and the amount of time spent by public safety agencies investigating them:

Minneapolis - St. Paul (Minn.)

Over a 17-day period, an unnamed PSAP received 658 calls to 911 from a pre-paid wireless phone whose minutes had expired. In this case, the phone's subscriber was traced, but apparently had used a phoney Social Security number when obtaining the phone. The carrier--also unnamed in the letter--refused to cut off the phone, claiming the FCC's rules didn't allow such a disconnection. Cleverly, police asked the carrier to simply re-enable the phone. The owner then started making regular phone calls, which police traced. Using information from the called numbers, they located the owner and arrested him.

Belleville (Ill.)

Over a 5-day period the PSAP received over 350 harassing 911 calls from a phone that had been unsubscribed for non-payment. According to the letter, "The caller propositioned the PSAP call takers for sex, and claimed to have abused or killed children." The caller has not been identified by police.

Greensboro (NC)

Unbelievably, from Dec. 1, 2001 to Jan. 10, 2002 the PSAP received--get this--3,606 telephone calls from from a handset that was zapped for non-payment of service. The first weekend there were 164 harassing calls, and the average was 40 calls a day! The phone's owner had given a phony name and address. The unnamed wireless carrier claimed the FCC's rules didn't allow them to turn off service to the phone. No suspect was ever identified.

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