Single Network Future: Supplemental Coverage From Space; Space Innovation

FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION <CFR>47 CFR Parts 1, 9, and 25</CFR> <DEPDOC>[GN Docket No. 23-65, IB Docket No. 22-271; FCC 24-28; FR ID 210325]</DEPDOC> <SUBJECT>Single Network Future: Supplemental Coverage From Space; Space Innovation</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Federal Communications Commission. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Proposed rule. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> In this document, the Federal Communications Commission (Commission) seeks comment on ways in which it can improve 911 service for supplemental coverage from space (SCS) connections. Specifically, the Commission seeks comment on how it can propel the industry toward a truly ubiquitous automatic location-based routing of all 911 calls to accelerate connections between first responders and those who need help, regardless of their location. Next, in recognition of the importance of safeguarding radio astronomy, the Commission seeks further comment on ways to improve the coordination process between Federal and non-Federal stakeholders in the SCS context and on whether additional rule changes or policies are necessary to avoid harmful interference to radio astronomy and related services beyond the SCS licensing process the Commission adopts today. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> Interested parties may file comments on or before May 30, 2024; and reply comments on or before July 1, 2024. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> You may submit comments, identified by GN Docket No. 23-65 and IB Docket No. 22-271, by any of the following methods: • <E T="03">Electronic Filers:</E> Comments may be filed electronically using the internet by accessing the ECFS: <E T="03">http://apps.fcc.gov/ecfs/.</E> • <E T="03">Paper Filers:</E> Parties who choose to file by paper must file an original and one copy of each filing. • Filings can be sent by commercial overnight courier, or by first-class or overnight U.S. Postal Service mail. All filings must be addressed to the Commission's Secretary, Office of the Secretary, Federal Communications Commission. • Commercial overnight mail (other than U.S. Postal Service Express Mail and Priority Mail) must be sent to 9050 Junction Drive, Annapolis Junction, MD 20701. • U.S. Postal Service first-class, Express, and Priority mail must be addressed to 45 L Street NE, Washington, DC 20554. • Effective March 19, 2020, and until FNPRM, the Commission no longer accepts any hand or messenger delivered filings. This is a temporary measure taken to help protect the health and safety of individuals, and to mitigate the transmission of COVID-19. See FCC Announces Closure of FCC Headquarters Open Window and Change in Hand-Delivery Policy, Public Notice, DA 20-304 (March 19, 2020). <E T="03">https://www.fcc.gov/document/fcc-closes-headquarters-open-window-and-changes-hand-delivery-policy.</E> <E T="03">People with Disabilities:</E> To request materials in accessible formats for people with disabilities (Braille, large print, electronic files, audio format), send an email to <E T="03">fcc504@fcc.gov</E> or call the Consumer & Governmental Affairs Bureau at 202-418-0530 (voice), 202-418-0432 (TTY). <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> For additional information on this proceeding, contact Jon Markman of the Mobility Division, Wireless Telecommunications Bureau, at <E T="03">Jonathan.Markman@fcc.gov</E> or (202) 418-7090, or Merissa Velez of the Space Bureau Satellite Programs and Policy Division, at <E T="03">Merissa.Velez@fcc.gov</E> or (202) 418-0751. </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> This is a summary of the Commission's further notice of proposed rulemaking ( <E T="03">FNPRM</E> ) in GN Docket No. 23-65 and IB Docket No. 22-271; FCC 24-28, adopted and released on March 14, 2024. The full text of this document is available for public inspection online at <E T="03">https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/FCC-24-28A1.pdf.</E> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Synopsis</HD> 1. <E T="03">Improving Public Safety Communications Over SCS.</E> In the further notice of proposed rulemaking ( <E T="03">FNPRM</E> ), the Commission seeks comment on how and whether it should modify requirements for routing SCS 911 voice calls and 911 text messages, including whether we should require the use of location-based routing to route 911 SCS voice calls directly to an appropriate Public Safety Answering Point (PSAP), if technically feasible. In light of the Commission's existing requirement that Commercial Mobile Radio Service (CMRS) providers deploy and use location-based routing for wireless 911 voice calls and real-time text (RTT) communications to 911 when available location information meets certain requirements for accuracy and timeliness, it also seeks comment on how such a requirement would impact the availability of location-based routing for terrestrial wireless providers that use SCS to extend their coverage areas. 2. In the <E T="03">Report and Order,</E> published elsewhere in this issue of the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> , the Commission establishes on an interim basis that terrestrial providers must route all SCS 911 voice calls to a PSAP using either location-based routing or an emergency call center. In light of the ongoing deployment and continued innovation of SCS, the Commission seeks any new and updated information regarding technological or other developments in routing SCS 911 voice calls since the last round of filings. The Commission also asks whether there are any improvements to the 911 rules that apply to such terrestrial providers when using SCS to extend their coverage. Further, in recognizing that the technology likely used to identify the precise location of the device may be different when a terrestrial provider uses SCS to extend its coverage, as opposed to when it is using only terrestrial networks, it seeks comment on any such technological differences. 3. Furthermore, it seeks comment on whether there are other threshold requirements that the Commission should consider when requiring location-based routing, beyond accuracy and timeliness of available location information. Specifically, it seeks comment on the availability, reliability, and accuracy of the location information that terrestrial providers currently have access to when using location-based routing for SCS 911 voice calls. In addition, it seeks comment on how the Commission should address any potential inconsistencies between the 911 call routing requirements of terrestrial providers and satellite operators as SCS evolves. 4. Next, in the context of how SCS can function as an extension of a terrestrial network, the Commission noted that a satellite can be considered as a bi-directional “bent pipe,” receiving and forwarding signaling and user payload to and from a user's device to a terrestrial network ( <E T="03">e.g.,</E> 5G base station (gNB), 5G core network (5GC), and other terrestrial network elements). A satellite can also play a more active role in the network, connecting directly to the 5GC on the ground. In other words, the gNB and 5GC can belong to and be operated by either the terrestrial provider or the satellite operator. Regardless of deployment model, the SCS satellite should be able to send and receive the 5G signaling information needed for placing an emergency call between the user equipment (UE) and 5G network along with the caller location information needed for call routing and dispatch. Given that 911 calls and texts would typically be placed outdoors with the user device having view of the Global Positioning System (GPS) satellites in the sky, and given that user devices typically have GPS receivers, user devices should be able to determine their location, and for Assisted GPS (A-GPS), SCS should be able to provide the needed assistance information. The Commission seeks comment on this tentative analysis and asked whether there are any existing or new standards that should apply. 5. The Commission in the <E T="03">FNPRM</E> also seeks comment on establishing rules around interconnectivity between terrestrial providers and satellite operators in the context of SCS 911 connections. Specifically, it seeks comment on the standards currently in place related to this topic, and whether any future standards work is anticipated, or required, to enable disparate networks and systems to interconnect for the purpose of enabling SCS 911 connectivity. It also seeks information on satellite data capacities, satellite link budget, and optimization schemes for the initial SCS deployments and the impact on device-to-satellite connectivity as they relate to SCS 911 connectivity and functionality, including time for obtaining a location fix for automatic location-based routing of 911 calls. Regarding privacy and security, the Commission asks whether there should be an explicit requirement for satellite operators to protect customer proprietary network information of terrestrial provider subscribers when customers make 911 calls and texts, and disclose security breaches. 6. Given that typically a 911 caller would abandon the 911 call if it is not connected within a certain time period, the Commission asks how long should the network selection take before a 911 call is eventually attempted via SCS. Also, given the possibility that a 911 caller may be mobile and moving in and out of terrestrial network and SCS coverage, the Commission seeks comment on how the handoff between these networks should be handled to guarantee seamless call continuity and successful callback. In addition, the Commission understands that SCS is to be supplemental to terrestrial networks, including traditional terrestrial call paths, such as roaming, and additional technologies, such as Wi-Fi. However, in order to ensure that 911 calls utilize ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 55k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━